Quotation
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“Come now, I will tell you the only ways of inquiry that are to be thought of. The one, that it is and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the path of Persuasion, for she attends on Truth. The other, that it is not and that it is needful that it not be, that I declare to you is a path entirely unable to be learned.”
Parmenides · Eleatic · Ancient · early 5th century BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that inquiry has two roads and only one can be taken: the road that says 'it is', which persuasion and truth attend, and the road that says 'it is not', which cannot be learned because there is nothing there to learn. A competing reading treats the fork as a rule about meaningful speech rather than a map of the cosmos. The lines are fragment DK 28 B2. They come before the long stretch of signs in B8, and they are distinct from B6, the fragment already here that says one must say and think that what is is. B2 is the fork. B6 is the instruction not to leave the first road. The goddess is the speaker. The poem is a revelation in hexameters, which is why the paths have names.
Did Parmenides really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Diels-Kranz 28 B2, from the Way of Truth in Parmenides's poem. The English follows Kirk, Raven and Schofield. The Greek is stark, and other translators shift the pronouns. This is not fragment B6, which is already in the library.
Where it comes from
Fragment DK 28 B2, in the translation tradition of Kirk, Raven and Schofield
Approximate date: early 5th century BCE.
How to use it
A briefing that offers 'it is not the case that anyone failed' as if the double negative were a finding has stepped onto the road he says cannot be learned. Ask what positive state is being claimed. The fragment will not write the briefing. It will show when a denial has been asked to do the work of a description.
A mindset reading
Two options are not a philosophy until you can say why one of them cannot be thought. He thinks the negative road fails that test. The habit is to try the negative road in your own words and see whether anything remains to inquire into.
Understand the philosophy
B2 is the goddess's announcement of the ways of inquiry, early in the Way of Truth. The key contrast is 'it is' and 'it is not'. Kirk, Raven and Schofield's English is the translation followed here. B6, already in this library, is the later insistence that being is and nothing is not. B8 then lists the signs along the only remaining road. The three fragments are one argument told in pieces, not three mottoes.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that inquiry has two roads and only one can be taken: the road that says 'it is', which persuasion and truth attend, and the road that says 'it is not', which cannot be learned because there is nothing there to learn. A competing reading treats the fork as a rule about meaningful speech rather than a map of the cosmos. The lines are fragment DK 28 B2. They come before the long stretch of signs in B8, and they are distinct from B6, the fragment already here that says one must say and think that what is is. B2 is the fork. B6 is the instruction not to leave the first road. The goddess is the speaker. The poem is a revelation in hexameters, which is why the paths have names.
Did Parmenides really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Diels-Kranz 28 B2, from the Way of Truth in Parmenides's poem. The English follows Kirk, Raven and Schofield. The Greek is stark, and other translators shift the pronouns. This is not fragment B6, which is already in the library.
Which work is it in?
Fragment DK 28 B2, in the translation tradition of Kirk, Raven and Schofield Approximate date: early 5th century BCE.