Woodbury, Leonard_Parmenides on Names_1958_HSPh, 63, Pp. 145-160

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Department of the Classics, Harvard University

Parmenides on NamesAuthor(s): Leonard WoodburySource: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 63 (1958), pp. 145-160Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard University

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PARMENIDES ON NAMES

BY LEONARD WOODBURY

-rcvrov 8' orrivoelv tr Kat oveKEv eaLt vo/zCa.ov yap avev Eou Eo'Vros, ev L Tre=CLrtevov ecrrtV,

Eupj7acELt.sovE'e' ov y&p r ECTTrVEorLat

&cAo 7&capeTOvU0oVros, errel; 7 ye MoZp' 7TESr77aev

oiXov XKLvr'7v7" EvaLE'

TVO 7TCa)vocx(a) Ecrat,o'aca gporot KarTeEVTO rETroL7rr01e' E(tYL=8CXj,

yyyvearoaL re Kat O6AAVaOct,etVacI T KCalOVX^,

Kai rdToy AAac'actELvsa E Xp' a X(avov a','EEigv.

(B 8.34-41)

Tr HIS is the text that is printed by W. Kranz in the sixth edition ofH. Diels's Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin I95).1

No one is astonishedto find a queerverse in Parmenides,but line 38

appearsto be unusually eccentric.The editorsattempt to translate it:"Darum wird alles blosserName sein", but the italics seem to betraytheir embarrassment.And no wonder; for the line is full of oddities.The singularis singularindeed, and when it is forced to mean "mereName ", by which is meant " unsubstantial as mere Name ", it begins tolook strangerstill. The antithesis of ovopcr nd ovtcrk oes indeed occurin later literature,but it is unlikely, on general grounds, to be usedbefore the sophistic age. ovolwa and Epyov,on the other hand, althoughfound in the contemporary ext of Heraclitus,cannotbe fitted into this

passage.2The use of the future tense is tosay

the leastsurprising,although at a pinch it may be taken as the futurum consequentiae, of

which philosophers,being given to drawinginferences,are said to befond. It may be that even goddesses, in the act of making revelationsto privileged men, may experience moments of recognition of a

necessity in things, when they pass from the ignorance of the pastinto the knowledge of the future, and that they do not possess an

unchanging knowledge of a timeless reality; it may be, althoughwe should not expect Parmenidesto speak as if this were the case.Still, even these peculiarities might be acknowledgedand dismissed

as harmless,were it not for the incongruityof the verse with its con-text.







Leonard Woodbury

Let us look first at what follows. The editors translatethe next linethus: "was die Sterblichen in ilrer Sprache festgesetzt haben, iiber-

zeugt, es sei wahr", and this is, I think, clearly right. The ellipsis iseasy after what has preceded, but if confirmationof this interpretationis needed, it is found in B 19.3: 0os 'v'o' vOpwvrroCKaCTEEVT' irt-

cr0Fov EKacr(-r).The meaning of the two lines is this: all the institutions

(of speech)that mortalmen haveestablishedin the belief that they aretruewill (turnout to) be Name. This is eitherdisappointinglybarrenor

alarminglypregnant.If "Name" means no more than "word", thenthe lines makea true, but empty and tautologous,statement.If, on theother hand,it meanswhat it says, we are left to conjectureof what the

institutions of speech can be a name.In the lines that precede Parmenidesmakes the point that nothing,not even thought, can exist apartfrom that-which-is, for Moira holdsthe that (whichis) in bonds, so that it is whole and immovable.Or, to

put it differently, he that must be and must be whole and immutable;all else is, as it were, excluded and cast into not-being. Then our sen-tence follows, preceded by "therefore". The difficultyis: what is theconnection of thought which is thus explicitly indicated?How does itfollow from the exclusion of not-being that the institutions of speech

are (or will be) Name? Parmenidesgoes on to give examples of theinstitutions of speech that he has in mind: becoming and perishing,being and not-being, change of placeand play of colour.These terms,as we are told elsewhere, are used in combination by mortal men intheir contradictoryaccounts of things.3 They mark the road of 3occr,not the roadof truth. Parmenides s therefore,on the accepted nterpre-tation, making the inference that all institutions of speech made bymortal men are false. But how is this point made clearby stating that

they are Name ? Only, so far as I can see, if the reader s to supply forhimself the assumptionthat none of these namesrefers to anythingreal

and all of them aregiven to figmentsof the imagination.4Parmenideswill then be understood to arguethat, since that-which-is exists aloneand unchangeable,ail the terms used by mortalmen which describeadifferent kind of world must be false, because they name somethingthatis imaginarybutnot real. This would be intelligible,but Parmenidesdoes not, hereor elsewhere,give us anygroundfor makingthe assump-tion. Indeed, if he held this view, it would be crucialfor his conceptionof Sdoa.It is incrediblethat he should haveomitted all mention of it inhis treatmentof the road of s$dt but have requiredthat it be supplied

silentlyby the reader n a quite differentcontext. Finally, if Parmenidesheld thatall names institutedby men arefalse,we must enquirehow he

I46







Parmenides n Names

would havejustifiedhis own assertionof the necessityof saying,as wellas thinking,"it-is".

Whatever fault may be found with Parmenides'verses, everyonemust recognize that in rigourof argumenthis poem is unrivaledamongcontemporary hinkers.Before charginghim with a fault in argument,we are obliged to consider whether the defect may not lie in the text.This must in any case be inspected.

These lines are quoted, as part of a long fragmentof Parmenides'

poem, by Simplicius in his commentaryon Aristotle's Physics (I46.7-I4). He apparentlyhad the complete text beforehim; at anyrate, he

quotes at length, because, as he says, copies of Parmenideswere scarce

in his day. Diels, in the apparatusof his edition of Simplicius, reportsthe readings of the MSS thus: "rrv' WVO/craaraTEF (later rcavr'Ovo/t'aoratcf. p.87,I):rrv voY ' Eatrlv " (a is the Aldine edition ofI526). The correction that Diels here proposesis based on a readingin an earlier passageof Simplicius' commentary 87.1), in which onlytwo anda half lines arequoted. There his apparatus ives the followingnote: "-rcZ77a'vT'' vot' e'roU a: r-c 7TravT'ocu Crai.ct F: rc) ovr'ovoLaczr-crrt ... -cu avr' otvoca tarzLD." This time the lesserF andtheAldine edition give the readingthat Diels commends,whereasE has avariantof the

readinggiven bythe MSS in the

long fragmentand D

providesan intermediateform.Both here and in his edition of the Vorsokratikeriels haspreferred

the reading vrra-v' ovo/x' OaraLn spite of the inferior authority of theMSS in which it occurs. His principal reason for doing so was, Isuppose, that c'vdofaaScra is unmetrical and ovoYOaarct ungrammatical.

The latter is indeed rare but, I believe, authentic.5It occurs as avariantagain in anotherpassageof the samecommentaryof Simplicius(I8o.9-12), in which he quotes anotherfragmentof Parmenides(B 9).The following is Diels's text of the first two lines6:

Oavcrp cTrects7 7tav7a aOSsCKal vvI ovoLaacra

KOtL7ra KaTa ar OVTEpas vcv.eits Esot TOL TE E Kt rTO ...

In his apparatus Diels reports: "ovo.aacratc aF': wvo'c.acraratDEF2"

The former has the weaker authority, but is of course preferableonmetrical grounds.7 Moreover, in yet another passage of Simplicius'commentary (31.3-7) there is a paraphrase n prose of a portion ofParmenides' argument (B 8.56-59). This portion deals with the two

opposite principles which are the basis of the opinions of mortalmenandwas followed at a short interval,as Simpliciussays(I80.8), by these

I47







Leonard Woodbury

lines. The paraphrase states that the one principle comprises the rare,the hot, light, and so on; Erm8e rci' 7rvKcvU vo'FLaacaLTO vXpOv Kcat

og'OosKrA.The verb, which does not occur in the text of which the para-phrase is made, has been borrowed, it is conjectured, from these lines,which were found a little further on; or it may have been taken from

the lost lines that.intervened. In either case the form dovodaacrrczmust

have occurred in one of Parmenides' hexameters.8 There seems to be

no reasonable doubt that the form was used by Parmenides; it mayhave been pressed into service in verse by others as well.9

If we return now to the lines of Parmenides with which we began,we see that ovo'aaTcrraL as better manuscript authority and does not

deserve the suspicion with which it is regarded. However, one furtherdifficulty remains. Plato, in a passage of the Theaetetus (I8od), refers to

those who, like Melissus and Parmenides, opposed the doctrine of flux

and affirmed that all things were one. He quotes the following verse'

otov aKtlvrrov TcAeOEir rravrT6vof' EtvaL.

The same line is also quoted by the invaluable Simplicius, who says

(29.I6-I8): a&K7TV-ov a'w7 <aPtvEKaL oLVOVOus9 TVTWVEdpT7Ftevov.In

another place (143.10) he gives it with a minor variant in some MSS

(rcrvrjin

aDF).Some

scholars, relyingon

Simplicius' Iuovov,orrect

otov to otov, rightly I think.10

Diels and others have taken this to be the same verse, a little distorted

by Plato, who was notoriously lax about looking up his quotations, and

copied faithfully from him by Simplicius. If this is correct, it must be

granted that this quotation of the text supports ovotL'EaTra rather than

ovofL0cacarL.

Fortunately, there is little reason to suppose that it is correct, as

Cornford has shown in an illuminating argument."l Why should Simpli-

cius, who apparently had the text of Parmenides before him and

quotes from it often, have on this occasion copied Plato's misquotation ?If he did, it is clear that he cannot have supposed it to be the verse with

which we are concerned, for he was able to quote this twice, exactly or

with substantial exactness, in its context. Plato, for his part, had studied

Parmenides closely. It is incredible, Cornford argues, " that he produceda verse meaning 'It is sole, immovable. The All has the name "Being "'

out of the end and the beginning of two sentences meaning 'Since

Destiny has fettered it so as to be whole and immovable; therefore all

those things will be a (mere) name that mortals have agreed upon', etc.

This is not a case of 'arbitrarily completing a single ill-rememberedverse'. It is hard to conceive the mental process that could generate

148







Parmenides n Names

such a hybrid in the most slovenly brain. Plato was not slovenly, andhe had a deep respect for Parmenides."We must conclude that this is

a differentverse and irrelevant o our presentpurpose.The traditionofthe text favors ovo'.c-arxt.

Furthermore, f ovo'Lpacrarts accepted,r- cannot mean "therefore",as it is commonly translated; or the institutionof names is not a conse-quence of the exclusion of not-being. In order to understand, it is

necessary to recognize the construction, ovopdaCewor KCZaeZv)'LrtYL.2It occurs often enough, being found, for example, in Parmenides,Empedocles, Thucydides, Euripides,and Plato. It is used of the rela-tionship between names and reality,as in Plato (Parm. i47d):KOtcTrov

7Tv ovoO,PTJrw OUK rt TrV KcoACt; (Theaet.I85c): a t, ero-rv rovoy)tELS-Kal -r OtK c-rtv. The dative with rlBecrBca ccurs without Eri in Par-menides (B 19.3): TroZs ' ovop.' avOpwTrro KCardev'r'Er`o-7Lov EKaaOrwandin Herodotus (1.148.1): opj4v, -r QOev'rooihvot. HcwtcUvtaC.13It is

regular with KaAe^v,as in Plato (Pol. 279e): 'roavrotn. . . . tv ovoLOC"a-tac" 'KacKfaEocev; Crat. 385d): KCLAEVEKacrrT ovyoca.T4 I have

noticed no other exampleof the simple dative with vYOLacw, lthoughit is evidently used with Ovooatvw, together with the common "pleo-nastic" use of clvyc,15 in Hesiod (fr. 16.2): Katc l -rorr' oYvit7v'ovop'

EjLtLevaCL.8The name is

put on,or

given to, that which is named. Inthe passive ovotd[Ceoa8a erdtis used with specific names as subjects, asin Empedocles (B 8.4): 'uoLts'Sr -roZsovofLO'ceraLtvOprroWCv: "Thename of vtaitss given to these by mankind." KcaetAEa is used simi-larly, but with the simple dative, as in Euripides (Hec. I27I-I273):TrvjpL o ovoLaO aC KCECKA77EaCtaL. . . KUVOCSwCaLA7Svr-7tMa.

The meaning of the lines now appears:"With reference to it (therealworld)'7 are all the namesgiven that mortalmen have instituted,in the belief that they were true, becoming and perishing, being and

not-being,changeof placeandplayof colour."18On this interpretation,lines 38-41 follow smoothlyupon the verses that precede. The namesthat mortal men give mustbe given to that-which-is, because there isnothingelse to which they can refer.

The names that mortalmen institute, althoughfalse and deceptive,are not mere fancies or illusions of the mind. They are accounts of theone real world, to the existence of which men's beliefs are at timescommitted. But men's convictions are not steadfast,becausethey haveaccepted the authorityof appearance(4Soa) and are held fast in thecontradictionsof the dualismto which this testifies.The roadthat they

havechosen can neverlead them to truth,because it must foreverturnback upon itself in contradiction,affirmingand denying in turn the

I49







I50 Leonard Woodbury

being of the world. The names which they set up as signposts along the

way share necessarily in this fatal error. They say, as Parmenides points

out, that it comes to be but also perishes, that it is but also is not, thatit suffers change of place and play of colour. All the names that mortal

man make contain the light of truth, but this is inevitably snuffed out

by contradictions.19 The question remains: is there any name, not

made by men, of which the light cannot be put out?

In order to seek an answer, it is necessary to consider the difficult

lines at the beginning of our passage. First, thinking is said to be the

same as OUVVKEV ECTt7 v&7ra. Then Parmenides continues: "For youwill not find that thinking without that-which-is, in which it is ex-

pressed. Nothing is or shall be apart from that-which-is, since Moirabound that so as to be whole and unmoved."

Probably the commonest way of taking OvveKEV is to give it the

meaning of ro ov EveKoC.20 The verse then means: "thinking is the

same as the purpose (or the foundation, or cause, or necessary condi-

tion) of thought". The latter term is then identified with the "that-

which-is" of the next line and "thinking" is supplied as the subject of

"is expressed". The meaning attributed to ovvEKEV seems dubious, but

what condemns the interpretation is the sense that it ascribes to

Parmenides. He is made todistinguish

that-which-is fromthinking

in

two ways: it is the purpose or cause of thinking and it is that in which

thinking is expressed. But on the other hand thinking is the same as

that-which-is, since both are identified with the purpose of thought.It is not easy to conceive how these statements can be reconciled so as

to form a consistent whole; for, if that-which-is is the purpose or cause

of thought as well as the bearer of its expression, then it must be some-

thing more than thought: but if it is the same as thought, then it mayindeed be thought's expression, but it can never be the cause of thoughtor the bearer of thought's expression. The usual means of escaping

the dilemma is a recourse to either idealism or realism. Either that-which-is is reduced to a product of mind, or else thinking is limited byan objective reality. Theoretically speaking, these lines of escape are

open, but who will say that Parmenides' own words, or those of his

contemporaries, point clearly in either direction?

It is better to take OuVEKEv n the sense of"

that",21 which is common

in Homer. This meaning provides the translation: "thinking is the

same as the thought that it-is." It is evident that we have here a state-

ment of the form that thinking must take. We are reminded of that way

of which Parmenides says (B 2.4) that it belongs to Conviction andfollows after Truth: it asserts that "it-is". Thinking can take no other







Parmenides n Names

way than this, and it must follow that it then takes the form of the

thought that "it-is".

This is the correct road to the truth about the real world. Anyonewho thinks at all must think this, for the only alternative is the thought,"it-is-not". Parmenides, as is well known, did not distinguish clearlybetween the meanings of "is". Most statements about the world thatcontain this word were existential, and consequently negative state-ments of this form connoted nonexistence. But Parmenides is in searchof the right road to the truth about reality. For him a negative existentialstatement about the world cannot provide such a road, for it can onlymean that the real world does not exist. A road that denies the existenceof its destination cannot lead

anywhere.This is the sense that we must

attribute to Parmenides' doctrine that the way of not-being is neitherthinkable nor speakable.22 It is evident that he cannot have meant thatno statement of this form can be made, since he himself formulates sucha statement before duly rejecting it. He does not mean that the vocablescannot be uttered, nor that the statement has no meaning. What hedenies is that it can refer to anything real. It is impossible that the realworld should be nonexistent. If we are to think about the real world at

all, we must think that "it-is" and cannot think that "it-is-not".It is now possible to grasp the movement of the argument in these

lines. Thinking can take only one form ("it-is"), because thinking ofthis kind and that-which-is are inseparable (and so thinking can neverbe found "with" anything else, nor in any other form than "it-is").This is because (there cannot be anything else, "with" which thinkingmight be found, since) that-which-is is unique, being necessarily wholeand unmoved. The argument moves from thinking to that-which-is.It asks why thinking can take only one form and answers that the

necessity of being, which makes that-which-is unique, does not permitan alternative. It is evident that Parmenides finds in being a limitation

upon thought and cannot therefore have held any view that reducedbeing to thought.

On the other hand, it is no more likely that he regarded thought asdetermined by being. We may grant that it is possible that the mind issomehow limited by an objective being, but Parmenides goes furtherthan that: he says that thinking must take the form "it-is", and thatthat-which-is-not can be neither thought nor spoken. How could themind be compelled, by a necessity not its own, not merely to take acertain form, but to use a certain word? How could an objective being

compel the mind to say " it-is" and to refrain from saying "it-is-not" ?Parmenides' words simply do not give a clear statement of either of6 + c.p.

I5I







152 Leonard Woodbury

these theories. It seems prudent, therefore, to seek another account of

his thought, preferably one that is less sophisticated than either of these,

and so more appropriate to the early fifth century B.C. It is plain thatParmenides conceives of a necessary relation between the thought"it-is" and the real world. The question is: what is that relation?

The answer is to be found, I believe, in the second line of our passage.There, in the course of saying that thinking and that-which-is are

inseparable, Parmenides adds a most significant, though subordinate,clause. He speaks of "that-which-is in which it is expressed". The

"it" is generally held to be "thinking", although doubts have been

felt about this.23 Now if Parmenides said that thinking is expressed in

that-which-is, we face the same metaphysical dilemma as before. Hecould not, in that case, say either that that-which-is is an expression of

thinking or that thinking is determined by that-which-is. There would

be an "expression" of thinking, but it would carry beyond the mind

to find itself "in" that-which-is. Burnet indeed notices the difficultyand translates, "as to which it is uttered",24 but I cannot reconcile this

version with Parmenides' Greek. It seems better to ask whether it

would not be preferable to supply a different subject.I believe that we must supply as subject here, just as in so many

other passages,the real

world,25which

appearsoften in the

fragmentsexplicitly as "this" (r- or avro) and implicitly in the formula "it-is"

- most recently in the next preceding line. Parmenides would then saythat the real world is expressed in that-which-is and would thus state

definitely how he conceived the relation between "it-is" and the real

world. Thinking must take the form "it-is", because the real world is

"expressed in" that-which-is, and consequently in the thought, "it-

is". Conversely, "it-is-not" is unthinkable and unspeakable, because

the world is not "expressed in" it.

Parmenides' imagery points in the same direction. He does not saythat he is searching his mind or his experience in order to find truth.He is in search of the right road. This implies that a right road exists,

among the thoughts or words that are in use, and leads only to truth.

It is not something that man can make, nor a means that he devises to

any of his ends. It is something to be discovered: it is the track - and

contains the expression- of the real world itself. It must lead to

truth, because the real world is "in" it. When we think of the real

world by means of the thought that " it-is" and conceive of it as " that-

which-is", and severely eschew the opposite thoughts, we have found

that track and cannot fail of its goal. This thought teaches us how toconceive of the real world, and so constitutes the only way by which







Parmenides n Names

the mind can achieveits purposein the apprehensionof truth.We mustconceive of the realworld, not as "it", but as "that-which-is", if the

world is to become intelligible. We can grasp it only in its aspect asbeing; that is to say, as expressedin that-which-is.

However, Parmenides,I take it, conceives of a necessaryexpressionof the real world as the manifestationof the world, not to the mindalone, but in language as well. "That-which-is" and "it-is", evenconsideredas words, evidently contain expressionsof the world, sincethe one contains,and the other implies, the "that". The expressionofthe world is necessarilyto be found in "being" as well as in being.Parmenidessays repeatedlythat we are compelled to speak, as well as

to think, in a certain way.26There are correct forms of words, withwhich thought cannotdispense,which it must use if it is to follow the

right course. "That-which-is" and "it-is" are such forms. Both are,of course, uses of the word "being", which, when used of the realworld, is necessarilytrue, because the realworld is seen to be "in" itsuses. "Being" is more than a word: it is the world's name.

It now becomes profitable o consider the fragment that Cornford

discovered in the quotationsmade by Plato and Simplicius. It runsthus, in its emended form:

Otov aK;lVt-rov rEAEELr Tr 1rvrl ovopf' etvaL

It does not, it must be admitted, seem at first sight a likelyverse to bechosen as the epitome of Parmenides'philosophy. Yet Plato certainlyquoted it to serve that purpose, and Simplicius, who quotes it twice,appearsto give independenttestimonyfor the text. What can be madeof it?

Cornford commented as follows: "the only suspicious word is-TeAeEc, which (according to Diels, Vors. Index) the Presocratics neveruse to mean 'is'. Empedocles uses reAeELtvonce) and KreK7e`ELVntheir proper sense 'to arise', 'to grow' -an associationthat Parme-nides would avoid in speakingof his changelessBeing." On this groundCornford felt justified in conjecturing reOEAtend compareda famousfragment of Heraclitus: Ev T o'ovooo vovovovAeyeaocrO VK OEaELatl E'OEEL

Zt7v6vOvo,ia (B 32). He then proposed placing this new verse after B 19at the end of the poem in this way:

<(r0VtWV OUlSvl mTrlsLvT'VoivOV yap 'AvcAyK)>OLov aKrcvr7ovre OAE;E ) rOatVrlvo. e vaC.

153







154 Leonard Woodbury

and translated: "but all these names are false; for Necessity is willingthat the All should only be called one and immovable." An attractive

consequence of this conjecture is that it would provide a definite echoof the language of Heraclitus as well as a rejection of his doctrine.

Now it is true that reAeXEELoes not occur in the surviving fragmentsof Parmenides' poem, but Parmenides cannot have avoided it for the

reason that Cornford gives.27 Although etvca is his most characteristic

word, he does not hesitate to use 7rrXEtvn its place, presumably for

metrical reasons. Yet this word has similar connotations of becomingand change,28 and Parmenides does not refrain from using a verb of

motion even of the immovable that-which-is, as in his E'v yap EOvTc

TreAa4EL B 8.25; cf. 8.46-47). The use of rEXEOEtis possible in Parme-nides and is evidently attested independently by Plato and Simplicius.If it were nevertheless to be rejected, a simpler emendation could be

found in -re rreAEC.

In either case we have a verse of not more than Parmenidean un-

couthness. Its meaning, I take it, would be: " One and unmoved is the

name of the all -'being'." The main construction of the sentence is

similar to that in another fragment of Heraclitus29: -ro ouv r6ct o6vopxc

0os,;pyov 8e Oavaros (B 48). Although r6 rav does not occur elsewhere

in what is left of Parmenides' poem, it is used by other early philo-sophers, occurring several times in Empedocles (B I3,I4,39.3), for

example. Moreover, the MSS of both Plato and Simplicius, with sub-

stantial agreement, attribute the expression to Parmenides. Still, it is

worth noticing that Parmenides, who uses 7TrCVften enough in apposi-tion to the subject of the verb "is", does not elsewhere use r6 Irav. It

is possible that iravr had for him, in this case also, an appositionalfunction. If this is correct, the effect of the word is to give strongassurance that the name applies to all of reality whatsoever, just as in

anotherpassage

(B8.33)

it serves to make plain that, as reality is lackingin nothing, so that-which-is-not would be completely defective. It is

well to observe that Eov also occurs sometimes with, and sometimes

without, the article; nrav may have been used similarly. On this inter-

pretation the meaning of the verse is: "'Being' is the one and

unchanged name of all of it."

Cornford's fragment gives direct confirmation in this way of the

interpretation suggested for B 8.34-36. "Being", in its various verbal

forms, is the correct name and "it-is" the correct thought, by means

of which we attain to truth. The verse that states this is most important

for the understanding of Parmenides. Plato was therefore, so far as wecan see, perfectly justified in quoting it as the type of the Parmenidean







Parmenides on Names

philosophy of rest. Indeed, I cannot find in our fragments any otherverse that would have served his purposeequallywell. The verse says,

it is true, rather more than he needs, since he is not here concernedwith names at all. Nevertheless, if no better text was available,Platowas quite readyto turnwhatever he could find to his purpose.30This isquiteevident from his choice of Homer's mention of "Ocean,the well-

spring of all things, and mother Tethys" (II. I4.201 and 302) as thefirst statement of the philosophy of movement. The verse of Parme-nides requireda good deal less interpretation n order to serve as an

exampleon the one side than Homer's innocent mythology needed onthe other.

The view which we have now attributed to Parmenides,that realityis expressed in a certain thought and name,31is of course common

among unsophisticated people.32 The name speaks the truth about

things: ovoc o05pvs-;he nomen is an omen. In a famous passage of the

Agamemnon681-698) the chorus reflect on the name of Helen andwonder who it was who named her so truly-perhaps some oneunseen who spoke the name happilywith fore-knowledgeof what wasto be. For she was "Hell-on-ships, hell-on-men, hell-on-cities".

Sophocles' Ajax, brooding over the disaster that has befallen him,

groansaclaand then askswho would have

thought that his name wouldso truly fit his tragic fate (430-433). The Aeschyleanchorus conceivesthat Helen's name may fit the disasterthat she was to become: that is

"expressedin" Helen. Sophocles is, as usual, moresubtle. The formofthe old belief is preserved,for the name proves true and the truth isconceived as a fitting of name to fate. But is is not made clear, as in

Aeschylus, that this is the work of divinity, or even of nature;and the

correspondencebetween name and fate, whether real or fancied, is amatterof surpriseas much as of wonder. The lines do not seem to bearthe full weight of the old meaning, and yet to reduce the idea to a

conceit is to make it trivial and insipid. Sophocles, on this as on otheroccasions,knew how to balancethe old form againstthe new rational-ism. It will be remembered that even Aristophanes,who could weighwith precisionthe verses of Aeschylus and Euripides, did not ventureto set a line of Sophocles in the balance.

Once the real thing is recognized as "in" that-which-is, the truename is not only the "fitting" or the like,but the "being", name.Hero-dotus provides a good example. He tells us (6.50.3) that CleomenesaskedCriuswhat his namewas; and the othertold himr6 eod.33 We are

likelyto translate:"he told him what it was". But it would be bettertoturnrOEdVs "his true name", and betterstill as"his realname": that

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Leonard Woodbury

is, not simply the name which men give to him, but the name by which

the real man is truly known - that in which his reality is expressed.34

Even Plato, who did not believe that reality was to be found in anynames or statements, nevertheless preserved the old connection be-

tween the Aoyos and being, although in an altered form; for "being"

(EtvcaL) is for him the Aoyos that we give of reality (ovaacr).35It is now possible to see the meaning of what has seemed at once the

plainest and the most inscrutable of Parmenides' statements:

7r ycp avCt voEfv oVOT rE KatLEtvaL (B 3).

These words appear to say that thinking and being are identical, but

what they mean is harder to determine. Some commentators take thestatement at its face value, and some of these are willing to accept the

consequence that being thinks.36 Others, who rightly reject the attribu-

tion of such a view to Parmenides, attempt to force the words to mean

that the same thing can be thought and can be. This in turn is said to

mean that only that which can be thought can be, and being is thus

reduced to the thinkable. But the interpretation is hard won - if won

it is - from the text and there is much in Parmenides that prevents us

from attributing such a view to him. The best suggestion was made byHeidel,37 who related this

fragmentto B

8.34and so took the

meaningto be that thinking is the same as thinking that it (the object of thought)is. There is, in other words, one and only one right form of thought.This interpretation accords very well with the view that there is one

correct name and thought, which we have found reason to ascribe to

Parmenides. The difficulty about Heidel's interpretation is that it

requires the reader to supply voEZvagain with Etvat, and it is not veryclear that such an ellipsis is regular or even possible.

It seems better to accept the simplest version, that thinking and

being are the same, and to consider, in the light of what we have

learned, what that can mean. " Being", as we saw, is more than a word:it is the name of the real world. Not even thought can dispense with it,

but must take the form of the thought that " it-is". If we now go a stepfurther and ask what is the meaning of that name and that thought, we

are reminded that, in fifth-century Greek, voELvserves for "mean" as

well as for "think ".,L roTr' ovV VOE rO' yVUa; The answer can only be

that it means the being of the real world, or, in Parmenides' terms,

-rO ;ov. It is now customary to translate this as " that-which-is ", but it

would probably be more exact to turn it as "that-as-being" or "that-

in-being", for Parmenides says that it is "in" this that the real world(the " that ") is " expressed ". There is a reciprocal relation between the

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Parmenides on Names

world and "being". On the one hand, "being" (etvat)is a name con-sideredquaname; but it is the nameof the world. On the otherhand,

the world (ro) is expressedonly in that-in-being(-r dov), which is theworldnamed. Name and worldarereciprocallydependent,sincea name

implies that world of which it is a name and the world, which mustfindexpression,canfind it only if the nameis used of itself.38The namerefersto the world but means the world in being.

voelvhas been until now translated, or convenience'sake,as "mean"or "think", but these renderingswill no longer suffice, since it nowappearswhat is implied when voeZv s used, as by Parmenides,not of aword or a thought, but of the name of the world. The objectof voEZvs

that-in-being, and in consequencevoelvcan here stand only for thatknowledgewhich perceivesthe world as it is. Knowledge of being canbe found only in the meaning of the name, "being". Parmenides'philosophyof names leads directly into his ontology. But we have notext that assertsthe identity of knowledgewith its object, of voetvwithnodov. The text that has so often been thought to make this assertion

says in fact something quite different.It says that voeZv s the same asEtvaL,nd this must mean that knowledge, like the right thought and

meaning,can be found only in the use of the name. The only way is a

fuJaos.O0Soo,US

ZOrtv.WernerJaegerhas taughtus to takeseriouslythe theologicalsignifi-canceof Parmenides'proemand to see at the heartof his philosophya

"Mysteryof Being".39WhatI should ventureto proposeto him is thatthe meaningof the goddess'srevelation s that the world is expressed n"being", and that Parmenides'holy mysteryis the realityof a name.

NOTES

I. My best thanks are due to the John Simon Guggenheim MemorialFoundationof New York for the grant of a Fellowship in 1956-x957, whichprovidedme with the leisurenecessaryfor the writingof this paper.

2. For examples of these antitheses,cf. H. Diels, Parmenides:Lehrgedicht(Berlin, 1897), 86-87; F. Heinimann, Nomos und Physis (Basel, I945), 52-56.

3. Cf. B 6.8-9; 8.55-59; 9 etc.4. Cf., for example, Plat. Rep. 6.493b,c for a clear statement that ofa'cs

named.5. For the loss of the temporalaugmentin the reduplicationof the perfect

tense, cf. Herodotus' use of forms such as 4aprer'acr1.125.3; cf. 6.109.6);oiK(Eara (1.142.4); apoaorat (3.137.5); oKca7-rct(4.12.2, where Hude, however,

prefersotc"rac).Cf. R.

Kiihner,AusfihrlicheGrammatikergriechischen prachebesorgt von F. Blass I.28 (Hanover, r892), 19-21; E. Schwyzer, GriechischeGrammatik (Munich, 1939),655.

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Leonard Woodbury

6. P. Von der Miihll has conjectured vevo,ctoratat B 9.1, with references toPlat. Rep. 7.5 5b and T. Nissen in Philologus 91 (1936), 27I, n.2: cf. Heinimann,Nomosund

Physis (seen. 2

above) 49,n.

17.On the

similaritybetween ovodwcoand

vorptow,f. Heinimann, loc. cit. and E. Laroche, IHistoirede la racine NEM- en

grec ancien(Paris, 1949) 222; 238, n.9a. But the conjecture has no support eitherin the MSS of Simplicius or in the scholion; no parallel for vopjlowetr; withdative is adduced and no explanation given of the meaning to be attributed tothe expression in a text that is earlier than the radical sophistic antithesis of v4ouosand tUvrs. t is evident that B 6.8 does not confirm the proposed construc-tion of B 9. 1-2.

7. Cf. Pind. 01. 9.50 (Turyn), where the correct reading is odv,taaecvbutone MS gives owvv'tacrav.

8. For examples from Homer of forms of the perfect or pluperfect tenses inwhich the initial vowel is not lengthened in a place in which the metre would

forbid lengthening, cf. arTrjsevos (Od. 4.807) and 'epevro(II. 24.125). Cf. alsoP. Chantraine, Grammaire homerique2 r (Paris, 1948), 421-422.

9. The form may have been used by Theognis: cf. Studies in Honour ofGilbertNorwood, Phoenix SuppI. vol. i (1952), 33.

Io. Cf. Plato's own interpretation and Parm. B 8.36-37. It is unlikely thatolov is Plato's word for introducing a quotation, since he seems not to use it for

this purpose: for Plato's formulas in quotation, cf. J. Labarbe, L'Homere de

Platon, Bibi. de La Fac. de Philos. et Lettres de L'Univ. de Liege fasc. II7

(Liege, 1949), 39-40. For a parallel to the asyndeton of olov &arK'rov,cf.

B 8.27. For the confusion of oSorand otos-, cf. Schol. on Pind. Nem. 4.15 I.

II. Cf. F. M. Cornford in CR 49 (1935), 122-123; Plato's Theory of Knowl-

edge (London, 1935), 94, n.I.I2. For the construction, cf. R. Kuihner, Ausfiihrliche Grammatikbesorgt von

B. Gerth 2.13 (Hanover and Leipzig, I898), 319, n.I. Cf. o7rn7u-L, erteywo,

(trovopca;w, ovoJLa ;rntip<o, KTA.

13. On ovoct rl8Qoaat t v, cf. LSJ s.v. Ovooa1.2 and Kiihner-Gerth, Ausf.Gramm. 2.I3 p. 45.

14. On ovoptaKtaAX rw, cf. LSJ s.v. ovofa 1.3.

i5. Cf. LS3 s.vv. dvofta,w II.2 and oaAeo' I.3.b.I6. In this example the dative case seems to be used in place of the more

common accusative, just as ovoCcrKcoAetr wv alternates with ovotacKcaArvriva. Itseems evident from the passages cited by LSJ that the verb governs the noun

or pronoun and does not develop into a verb of saying, although it may beinfluenced by such verbs: cf. H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, Mass.,

1956) ?? x6:5, 1981; cf. ? 20o ; Kiihner-Gerth, Ausf. Gramm. 2.23 pp.9- t,

2.I3 p.44. On the development of votL4wo,cf. Laroche, Hist. de la rac. NEM-

(see n.6 above) 225.

I7. For examples of similar asyndeton, cf. B 1.4, 15, 20; 8.5o, 54.i8. The parallel in Heracl. B 67 will be evident: it is the one Fire that is

named, but many names are given to it.

19. This statement obviously has implications for the interpretation of themuch-discussed fragment B I6. Here it must be sufficient to point to the

presence of voos in the context of the way of opinion.

20. This interpretation, which goes back to Simplicius (Phys. 87.14; 144.23),was adopted by Diels, and by many others after him. For a collection of trans-

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Parmenides on Names

lations reflecting this interpretation, cf. E. D. Phillips in Philos. Rev. 64 (1955),55off.

2I. This interpretation has been preferred by many, including Heidel,

FrSnkel, Von Fritz, and Cornford: cf. W. J. Verdenius, Parmenides: SomeComments on his Poem (Groningen, 1942), 39, n.2.

22. Cf. B 2.7-8; 8.I6-I7.

23. It is not necessary for my present purpose, nor indeed possible in a short

paper, to criticize the variety of scholarly opinions that have been put forwardin interpretation of this passage. Cf., however, Phillips and Verdenius in nn. 20

and 21 above.

24. Cf. J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy' (London, 1930), 176.25. This is the view of Verdenius, Parmenides (see n.2i above) 32.26. Cf. B 2.7-8; 6. ; 8.8, 17, 50-52, 53; 19.27. I am indebted to Professor F. Solmsen of Cornell University for pointing

out to me that Plato, who quotes Hes. Op. I22 twice, gives in one passage(Crat. 398 a) KaeOovrz, but in the other (Rep. 5.469 a) reAeOovaov.

28. Cf. LSJ s.v. rAXw,with Parm. B 6.8; 8.ii, I8, 45.29. For examples of the construction, cf. Kiihner-Gerth, Ausf. Gramm. 2.I3

p. 45-30. It is perhaps worth mentioning that Plato elsewhere (Parm. 142 a), when

dealing with an undifferentiated One such as that of Parmenides, thinks itworthwhile to make, in addition to other criticisms, the point that such a Onecannot have a name.

3I. Cf. the use of ovo/acow,ovoa;rvw, #acrc'4w, (1rr)OT%7-rlw n the sense of

"promise", "betroth", "devote", etc. The act of specifying by name has a

powerof its own.

32. Cf. E. Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (New Haven, Conn.,I953-I955), 1.II7-119; 2.40-41. In describing the function of language in

mythical thinking, Cassirer writes (2.40): "in all this the basic presuppositionis that word and name do not merely have a function of describing or portrayingbut contain within them the object and its real powers".

33. For many examples of the use of -ro Ov, cf. J. E. Powell, A Lexicon toHerodotus (Cambridge, 1938), s.v.

34. Cf., e.g., Herodotus' use (I.95.1 ; I6.5) of do v Aoyosand (7.I43.1) of'TO&OS iptlj.EvovEovrw5. The account and the word are not merely true, but real.Cf. E. Boisacq, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque (Heidelberg andParis, 1938), 291 for the connection of eTa, erdawc, Ereo's,crvTUog,ro6 and crt-rv,uOS

with (a-rc. The notion that reality is a result of naming seems to underlie theconstruction of a "pleonastic" elvac in dependence upon a verb of naming.Cf. Plat. Prot. 3 I e: aoao-rJv. . . dvoia'covat .. . v dvSpa etlva and LS s.vv.

dvooacowI. a and KaAoo II.3.b. See n.i6 above.

35. Cf. Phaedo 78d. At Crat. 425d,e Plato warns explicitly against takingwords in this way. R. B. Levinson in Rev. of Mletaphysics II (1957), 39 writesthat "for Plato language is, as Friedlander has well put it, something withwhich, not from which, knowledge accrues".

36. Cf. Phillips (see note 20), 547-552.37. Cf. W. A. Heidel in Proc. Am. Acad. of Arts and Sciences 48 (1913), 720.38. It follows from this reciprocal dependence that not only the world, but

also the right "way" to it, is: cf. B 8.i8. The right way, like Crius's name inHerodotus, should be called "being" as well as "true". This notion appears

6*

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I60 Leonard Woodbury

to underlie the construction noted in Emped. B 8.4 and Parr. B 8.38-4I andsuch expressions as KaAervovoe'd TLvi, (see p. 149 and n. 4 above): the nameis also a

thing,and so it

maybe named or

called,as well as

givento

something.If naming is a kind of fitting together of two things, it does not matter whetherwe say that the fitting A is applied to B or that A is fitted to B. Ewwcvvvgoay beused either of the name that is given to someone or of the thing that is " namedon" (as we should say, "gives its name to") the person: cf. Hom. Od. 19.409and Soph. Aj. 574; in both cases name-thing fits on (er') the person. But when

naming becomes a purely mental act, names may be given to things in thesense of being taken to refer to them. They cannot any longer be fitted to, or"named on", them.

39. Cf. W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford,947), 107.

Woodbury, Leonard_Parmenides on Names_1958_HSPh, 63, Pp. 145-160

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