The enigma of the Parménides

Abstract

This article tries to read the poem of Parmenides against the traditional interpretation which considers this philosopher of Elis to be the philosopher of Being, a denier of Becoming. This traditional dichotomy sets the way of truth against the way of opinion, and disqualifies the preface considered to be just a mere religious and mystic beginning, without importance for the poem itself. By doing so, a radical separation is set between being and becoming, being and appearance; moreover, the thinking is set on being and its characteristics such as unity, immobility, distance from any movement. The reflection tries to argue against this horizon by showing the unity of the poem starting with the preface itself. The preface, far from being just a lyric formality, is the royal entrance to the temple of the poem. As it happens in a sacred porch, the preface is the perron which makes the unity of the poem by knocking down this consumptive dichotomy. Starting with the preface are united being and becoming, being and thinking, being and appearance in one single unity making then the “to eon”, considered as physis, an enveloping totality, conciliating the contradictions into an harmonious compensation and a concord between contraries.