What is What-is?: A Study of Parmenides' Poem

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2005

B235

2004-048957

0-8204-7498-3

What is what-is?; a study of Parmenides' poem.

White, Harvey.

Peter Lang Publishing Inc, [c]2005

155 p.

$57.95

In addition to the usual problems of understanding a text written a long time ago in a different culture, says White (religion, Bishop's U., Quebec) Parmenides' poem poses the difficulty that it only exists in fragments quoted by later writers. The Greek philosopher was born about 515 BCE and lived in a small town on the west coast of Italy; his ideas influenced Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers. White presents each of the 19 fragments in Greek and English, then comments on it. He concludes that Parmenides believes that the world of empirical objects is real, that sense perceptions deliver reliable information, and that humans can known and make true judgments.