FROM PARMENIDES’ TO MĒ EON TO MELISSUS’ TO MĒDEN
FROM PARMENIDES’ TO MĒ EON TO MELISSUS’ TO MĒDEN

Summary/Abstract: Parmenides warns against inquiring on the dead–end way of non–being (ouk esti): it is impossible to know and speak of what–is–not (to mē eon). At DK 28 B 8.6–9, he denies that not–being can be treated as real, and that it can be considered in any reliable reasoning. Melissus, in contrast, at DK 30 B 1 treats non– being as a possible state of affairs, as a possibility worth considering as a part of argumentation, though one from which generation remains impossible. This paper focuses on this radical shift regarding non–being between these two Eleatic thinkers, resulting in very different ways of seeing the world.

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