Quotation
Last reviewed:
“There remains but one account of a way, that it is. On this way there are very many signs, that what-is is ungenerated and imperishable, whole, of a single kind, unshaken, and complete.”
Parmenides · Eleatic · Ancient · early 5th century BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that once the negative road is closed, one account remains, and it carries signs: what-is never began, cannot be destroyed, is whole, one in kind, unmoving, and complete. A competing reading treats the signs as a poem's rhetoric rather than as premises, which understates how much argument the fragment then spends on each sign. The lines open DK 28 B8. They depend on B2, which named the roads, and they are not the same sentence as B6. Change, on this list, has nowhere to get a grip, because coming-to-be would require what-is-not. That is why later philosophers, Plato among them, had to explain how the world of change can be spoken of at all. The list is the poem's positive doctrine in its shortest form.
Did Parmenides really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. The opening of Diels-Kranz 28 B8, the long fragment of the Way of Truth. The English follows the sense of Kirk, Raven and Schofield. Line divisions vary by edition. This is the list of signs, not the later line that what-is is now, all together.
Where it comes from
Fragment DK 28 B8, opening lines, following Kirk, Raven and Schofield
Approximate date: early 5th century BCE.
How to use it
A plan that says a service 'just evolved' still owes an account of what stayed the same while it changed. He thinks the honest account, for what truly is, cannot include a beginning. You need not accept that about a bus route. You can notice when a description of change has quietly assumed a thing that never changes.
A mindset reading
A list of signs is a set of claims to test, not a mood of permanence. The habit is to take them one at a time. Ungenerated is not the same claim as unshaken. He argues both. A summary that keeps only 'everything is one' has dropped the list.
Understand the philosophy
B8 is the longest surviving piece of the poem. These opening lines state the programme. The key word is signs, sēmata, the marks by which the remaining road can be recognised. Kirk, Raven and Schofield's English is the guide used here. The line that what-is is now, all together, comes a few lines later and is a separate card. B2 and B3 are the earlier steps.
- knowledge
- change
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that once the negative road is closed, one account remains, and it carries signs: what-is never began, cannot be destroyed, is whole, one in kind, unmoving, and complete. A competing reading treats the signs as a poem's rhetoric rather than as premises, which understates how much argument the fragment then spends on each sign. The lines open DK 28 B8. They depend on B2, which named the roads, and they are not the same sentence as B6. Change, on this list, has nowhere to get a grip, because coming-to-be would require what-is-not. That is why later philosophers, Plato among them, had to explain how the world of change can be spoken of at all. The list is the poem's positive doctrine in its shortest form.
Did Parmenides really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. The opening of Diels-Kranz 28 B8, the long fragment of the Way of Truth. The English follows the sense of Kirk, Raven and Schofield. Line divisions vary by edition. This is the list of signs, not the later line that what-is is now, all together.
Which work is it in?
Fragment DK 28 B8, opening lines, following Kirk, Raven and Schofield Approximate date: early 5th century BCE.