Jaap Mansfeld et al. Ja ap m a n sf
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Melissus between Miletus and Elea I
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evidence, we all know that Parmenides’ poem falls into two parts, that it has a proem in which the poet meets a Goddess, and that the speech given by her that follows is to be judged by the poet. The first part of the poem (epistemology and ontology) argues for what is true, that is, for Being as the only true object of Thought, which is now, one, unmoved, unchanging, whole, indivisible, homo- geneous, sphere-like, and in every way equal. The second part (we may call it by the name of physics) contains what is called a deceptive account of the world and men, based on the mistaken human assumption that there are two elements: Light and Night. Under what conditions a physics can be provided if Being is the unchanging and only object of Thought is a question that has been hotly debated in our scholarly literature but need not concern us here. Like Parmenides Melissus provides a strong argument in favour of a Being that is one, unmoved, unchanging, whole, indivisible, homogeneous, and in every way equal; in his version it is moreover eternal and infinite, does not feel pain or distress, and does not possess a body. The way in which he answers for our visual and auditory experiences leaves no room for a philosophy of nature.
Differences in doctrine and presentation are outweighed by what Melissus and Parmenides have in common, but are nevertheless significant. I begin with the presentation, with regard to which simple comparative statistics are already illuminating. Parmenides invites us to believe that he has had an extraordinary experience: a meeting with a Goddess. Throughout the poem this Goddess ad- dresses him in the second person singular or imperative of a verb, and in this context we find no less than 10 instances of the personal pronoun ‘you’ (σέ or σ’ or σύ or τοι), for the most part occurring at crucial moments in the exposition. The personal pronoun in the first person, ‘me’ (με or μ’), occurs five times in the proem, in the accusative, and already in its very first line: the poet is object not subject. With the exception of the passive form ‘I [viz. the poet] was carried’ also found in the proem, the first person singular of the verb is reserved for the Goddess. Beyond the proem the first person singular of the personal pronoun is reserved for her too. It occurs 4 times, viz. first, in the nominative, when the two ways of thinking are announced: ‘I (ἐγών) 6 will tell you, and do you (σύ) pre- serve my account’ (28 B3.1); then at their recapitulation, also in the nominative: ‘these things I (ἐγώ) command you (σ’, subject of acc. cum inf.) to heed’ (28 B6.2). Both times we have a significant combination of the two pronouns ‘I’ and ‘you’. The third time it occurs in the genitive, in combination with an imperative (28 B7.6–7): ‘please judge (κρῖναι) the much-contested proof stated by me (ἐξ
6 If pace Coxon we accept Karsten’s conjecture. 74
Jaap Mansfeld
ἐμέθεν)’. The fourth occurrence is a lone dative: ‘it is the same for me (μοι) …’ (28 B5.1). 6a
No such personal experience or dramatic dialogue is found in Melissus’ text. Parmenides in his poem is instructed by his Goddess, while Melissus has been instructed by Parmenides’ poem outside his own treatise. Perhaps unsurprisingly the first and only time the personal pronoun ἐγώ and the first person singular of a verb occur in this treatise is as far down as fr. 30 B8. Here these words are not uttered by a divinity, but used by the author with reference to himself, as he pronounces the words: ‘such as I say (ἐγὼ φημι) that the One is’ (a formula that recalls the famous Pythagorean αὐτὸς ἔφα). The orator addresses his public. Melissus here refers back with some emphasis and perhaps even pride to his proofs concerned with a unique, immutable and indivisible Being. In the plural of the first person the pronoun occurs 4 times, but again only in this same frag- ment near the end of the argument of the treatise: once in the nominative, ‘if we (ἡμεῖς 30 B8(2)) see and hear rightly’, and three times in the dative, ‘seem(s) to
in the first person plural also relate to human cognition: ‘we see and hear’ (ὁρῶμεν καὶ ἀκούομεν, cited above), ‘we say’ (φαμεν, B8(2)). But this ‘we’ and this ‘us’ pertain to humans in general and must include the author, however strongly he distances the true doctrine from the cognitive habits of humanity. Such a use of ‘we’ or ‘us’ is excluded in Parmenides, as it is a Goddess who speaks, one who has welcomed a visitor who has traveled far from the haunts of men.
7 In Parmenides humans are not a ‘we’ but always a ‘they’, which they are only once in a fragment of Melissus (φασὶν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, B8(2)), where however in the context they are surrounded by ‘we’s and ‘us’ses. 8
relation to the cognitions of humans and so contrasts strongly with truth and the true, is not found in Melissus, but the concept of ‘seeming’ still occupies a prom- inent position in his treatise. It is expressed, as we see, by verbal formulas such as ‘it seems to us’, ἡμῖν δοκεῖ vel. sim., expressions that fail to fit Parmenides’ metre. In Melissus fr. 30 B8, just as in Parmenides, this concept of seeming or appearance or opinion is explicitly opposed to that of truth, or reality. Humans say that the things or events they see or hear of are true, or real (φασὶν … εἶναι ἀληθῆ, B8(2)). Thus, ‘it seems to us’ (to us, humans) that opposites change into each other, but this would not happen ‘if these were real (or true)’ things or events (εἰ ἀληθῆ ἦν), so what ‘seems’ to us to be the case does so ‘wrongly’ (οὐδὲ … ὀρθῶς δοκεῖ). ‘Nothing’, i.e. none of these purported events, ‘is stronger than true Being’ (τοῦ γὰρ ἐόντος ἀληθινοῦ κρεῖσσον οὐδέν, B8(5)).
6a For these pronouns cf. Heitsch (1974), 63–64. 7 Fr. 28 B1.27.B 8 Frr. 28 B1.30, B6.4–6, B8.39.53–55, B19.3. Yüklə 390,13 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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