2-PALMER’S ARGUMENT OR ATTEMPTS AT TELLING US WHAT PHILISOPHY IS

– An Overview

First two conceptual clarifications:

a)What is a presupposition?
b)Open/Closed concepts.

a)What is a presupposition?1
You are are driving with your friend in the countryside. The car belongs to your friend who is
also driving. At some point the car stops abruptly and does not start. You expect an exclamation
of frustration from your friend, a curse, such as “hay aksi!”, or “What the devil has happened?”
But your friend is relaxed. You wait a little more, but now you become rather surprised at your
friend’s not doing or saying anything. You ask him what he thinks happened. He tells you that the
car stopped for no reason. You take it as a figure of speech, as an expression of frustration at an
unexpected unpleasant occurrence. And you suggest checking under the hood. But your friend
insists that it happened for no reason. You are surprised and taken aback. You say that you may
not yet know why it happened, but it surely was caused by some malfunction or other. But your
friend cooly tells you that it did happen but there is no underlying reason for it. Well, you are
now worked up, and you tell him, well you must be mad to suggest that.
Here, you expect to share a common framework with your friend, the common framework of
causality. Things occur and they occur because they have causes. Your friend is acting and
talking as if this framework did not exist.
Here, then is a presupposition in our approach to things. We think the natural order to be so
constituted, and understand things and events in our human world as well as the natural world to
be causally connected to other things and events. So, when the car stops, we think why it has
stopped, and in our proposed answers to this question, we have a set of more specific causal
linkages between objects – it is out of gas; the crank is broken; or your friend has not had it taken
to the service, etc. These are mechanical, chemical causes, or human causes such as negligence.
But they are causes, nevertheless. The assertion the car is probably is out of gas, is an answer to
the question, what has caused the car to stop?. And this question is nested in the presupposition
of a web of causality.

b)Closed/Open concepts
Please read the following explanation of closed/open concepts as a more detailed explanation of
the distinction than which Palmer gives in the Center-book, pp. 17-26. The notion is connected
to definition, the discussion of what philosophy is, and whether such a definition is in fact
possible. Notice also the idea that a definition is possible is connected to the idea of certainty and
a center. A center is a piece of certainty from which we can move on to organize or unify
diversity, multiplicity, etc.

What is X? A definition answers this question. A closed concept, as Palmer calls them, is a
concept for which a proper definition can be given. (Palmer, 2008, p.25) The definition will
contain the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be an X. Consider in the abstract
that something called X, has the defining characteristics a, b, c. If we can ascertain these
1
The example is taken from Walsh (1954), p.274-275.
characteristics (a, b and c) in something, we can definitely say that that thing is an X. And if we
say that something is an X, then we can be sure that it has the characteristics, a, b and c. This is
the feature of defining characteristics, which are necessary and sufficient to call something an X.

The following would be examples of definitions.

A triangle is a three sided closed figure.

A circle is the figure described by the equidistant points to a given point.
Bachelors are adult unmarried males.

Think of the third example. If you call something (a person) a bachelor, you would definitely
expect that that person to be an adult unmarried male. And, if some person has these
characteristics, you have necessary and sufficient conditions to call that person a bachelor. If,
however, you have a child on 6, and if that child is a male and is unmarried, well you will not be
able to call him a bachelor, for the simple reason that, by our definition, that child has the two
necessary characteristics of being male and being unmarried. However, since the child does not
have the other characteristic, of being an adult, the two characteristics by themselves are not
sufficient. It is crucial, then, to note that a definition gives us a set of characteristics which are as
a set both necessary and sufficient.

I would like to make the notions of necessary characteristics and sufficient characteristics clearer
with some further examples.

Necessary conditions or characteristics:

Apple is a red, juicy fruit.
Tomato is a red, juicy fruit.
Assume that being juicy, red and a fruit are part of the defining characteristics of apple or
tomato. Notice, however, while these characteristics are therefore necessary, by themselves they
do not constitute necessary and sufficient conditions to distinguish the two kinds of fruit.
Therefore, we would say these are necessary but insufficient as yet to define either the term apple
or tomato.

Sufficient conditions or characteristics:

For a general conception of sufficiency, imagine a vast meadow with no trees or any shade.
There is nothing but grass. Then imagine a person with summer clothes. Now, if there is a
thunderstorm and loads of rain showering down the sky, we would say he will get wet. It is
sufficient, under the conditions described, that a rainstorm will get him wet.
A set of characteristics can be sufficient, but not necessary to call something an X. In that case,
we will not have a strict definition, because the set of characteristics will not be necessary as
well. Consider the following quotation about games.

There is a group of characteristics C1, C2, C3 . . . Cn, that games typically have. Among
these characteristics are the following: C1, there are rules that govern the activity; C2,
there is the possibility of winning; C3, it is pleasant diversion; C4, the players need to
exercise certain skills; and so on. If all games had all of these characteristics, and only
games did, then the word “game” would have a unitary meaning; the statement of its
 meaning would consist of a statement of the characteristics C1 to Cn. One game may
have only C1, C2, and C7; another may have only C1, C3, C6, and C7; another only C2,
C5, C6; and so on. All that is required in order for something to be a game is that it have
some of the cluster of game-characteristics C1 to Cn, not that it have all of them. Not
every combination of game-characteristics will do, of course: for example, it is not
enough that something have only characteristic C2 (the possibility of winning) in order
to qualify for gamehood. In wars and duels and debates, there is the possibility of
winning, but none is a game. There is no way of specifying ahead of time and in the
abstract just how much is enough; it would be absurd to suggest, for instance, that in
order for an activity to be properly counted as a game, it is a necessary and sufficient
condition that the activity have some combination of four or more of the Cn game-
characteristics. It might well be that some activities that have only three game-
characteristics are without doubt games, and that others which have five are not. 2

Merely sufficient but not necessary characteristics would give us some sort of conditions under
which we can call something, in this instance, a game. We have a set of characteristics none of
which is common to all games, but some selection among them is mostly sufficient to call
something a game. So, the set that is sufficient to call something a game may change from one
instance to another. And, what is a reformulation of the same idea, games may display a variety
of different sets of characteristics that can be selected from an overall group of characteristics
found in games. However, in some cases, “some activities that have only three game
characteristics are without doubt games, and that others which have five are not.” So, having
many characteristics selected from the general set of characteristics might not suffice to call
something a game. The general set of characteristics is only a loose compilation. Sets of
sufficient characteristics are also changeable and not binding.

The notion of an open concept can now be introduced in contrast to closed concept understood as
having a definition in the strict sense – which gives us necessary and sufficient characteristics of
the defined thing. The relevant notion concerning the meaning of terms is vagueness. It is crucial
to note that most of the words in our ordinary language are vague. Or, if we demand a definition
for them, it is not very easy to immediately give a definition for them with the characteristics that
just pop up in our minds. Notice that such a state need not entail that the word is meaningless. It
could mean that the demand for a strict definition is in fact not suitable in such cases. We seem to
be able to use the word correctly in many cases, even though we are unable to give a definition
of it. However, if a theory of meaning insists that to know or understand the meaning of a word
is to understand a definition of it, then the condition of vagueness would pose a problem.

There are two kinds of vagueness we may consider here. Both cases will be vague in the sense of
our not being able to give definitions for them. However, the reason for their vagueness will be
seen to be different. Let us say that they have a different structure or logic of vagueness. It will
be obvious that the philosophically important case will be the second.

2
The example is taken from Hospers (1967), p. 70. Hospers quotes from Pitcher (1964). If you will seek out the
book, then please make sure you get the Second Edition. There are several editions of this book with significantly
different chapters.
Vagueness-1: Some terms are vague because no precise cutoff point can be determined between
the applicability of the word and its non-applicability.

Consider the notion of baldness or being bald. A man is either bald or not-bald. However, the
variety of men’s head to which the word “bald” might be applied introduces a difficulty for
determining the precise meaning of baldness. Think for example that a man has 1 cuticle on his
head. This person would be called bald. What about 2, 3, 4? But, gradually we could reach 107
pieces of hair on the head. If each head before was bald, a change as negligible as +1 hair cuticle
should not change our calling the head bald. But at some point we should be able to call it not-
bald, for the head is really covered with hair all over. So the logic of the things to which the term
is applicable is such that we cannot rationally come to a decision of a precise cutoff point at
which baldness ends and not-baldness begins. The same argument can be made with regard to
colours. Think of the colour red and the gradual darkening or lightening of hues of red. If we
move instantly across the scala of red we may notice a difference between hues of our starting
and end point. However, a gradual movement would make the difference relatively more difficult
to notice.

Vagueness-2:Some terms are difficult to define because not one set of (necessary and sufficient)
characteristics can be determined which all items called with that term have. This case is one
already treated above in the explanation of sufficient characteristics. Let us consider the term
“dog” as another example.
Let us suggest a definition of “dog”.
Dog is a mammal with four legs, fur, longish nose, that barks and wags its tail.
Now, any dog must be a mammal. So mammal is a necessary characteristic all dogs will have.
However, being a mammal tells us almost nothing specifically about dogs. Many different
species of animals are mammals which have extremely different characteristics than dogs. Think
whales for example.
What about the remaining characteristics? Are any of them necessary or sufficient?
It may at first look as if all of them are. However, think that we remove the characteristic of
barking. Well, a dog may have lost its vocal chords and is only capable of whining. What then?
Do we not call it a dog? Or having a longish nose? What about pugs? Are they not dogs even
though they have a flatter nose? We could remove any or some of the characteristics from some
thing, and when we saw it we could still recognize the thing as a dog. Therefore, what at first
may appear to be a definition is seen to be a loose group of characteristics.

An overview of the Center-book Chapter 1.

Lesson will follow Chapter 1 of the Center-Book written by Donald Palmer.

Self-reflexivity of philosophy.
The question which is asked is, what is philosophy?
The question is asked about philosophy.
And it is asked to philosophy. Let us not make a person out of philosophy. So, a better way of
putting this second statement is, one of the questions that philosophy must answer is precisely
what philosophy is. To understand the nature of philosophy is a serious philosophical question.
Then, we can ask, how does philosophy go about answering this question.

What Palmer does in the first chapter is to ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN OR DEFINE

PHILOSOPHY in several ways and to evaluate these attempts.

The overall attempt to answer this question, we can say, is Palmer’s ARGUMENT. He constructs
an argument in order to persuade us that philosophy is so-and-so. He offers certain definitions or
descriptions, anticipates some objections. And reaches an inconclusive result. The form of
Palmer’s argument may be the following:

Philosophy is either only a, or only b, or only c.

It is not only a, but a has some good points about philosophy.
And so on for b and c.
The conclusion COULD be that, for example c offers a definition we would adopt, so that we
eliminate a and b, because they have some defects.
The conclusion COULD also be that neither is definitive, but we learn things about philosophy
from the investigation of each option.
The importance of having an ARGUMENT here is that Palmer, a philosopher who is trying to
answer this very first philosophical question, has a STRATEGY that he is following, and this
strategy has a STRUCTURE, and the overall structure is something both the writer and the
reader can accept as FIXED and hold on to.

So what are he three attempts:

One is to determine the nature of philosophy in a HISTORICAL fashion, by distinguishing it
from mythological thinking, which historically preceded philosophical thinking in Ancient
Greece.
Another is to give EXAMPLES of philosophy, instances of what may be called philosophy of X.
He then asks what it is that these have in common.
A third way is to look at the activity of philosophy that has been performed by an EXEMPLARY
philosopher. Here the exemplary philosopher is not merely an ordinary example, but someone
who is taken to be doing it well. Socrates is treated as a teacher, as it were, from whom the
activity of philosophy can be learned.

At the end of his attempts, Palmer’s conclusion is that neither of these ALONE can characterize
philosophy. There might be some truth in each one of them, but each of these characterizations
by itself alone is not sufficient for us to explain why all examples of philosophy are examples of
philosophy.

To reiterate the main point I want to make here. Palmer, author of the Center-book is a
philosopher trying to make us understand what philosophy is. His method for doing this is to
construct an ARGUMENT. So, chapter 1 is ORGANIZED as an argument. Try to approach
philosophical texts as arguments, because philosophers try to persuade us about certain things
using arguments.

1-HISTORICAL ATTEMPT
Timeline in Ancient Greece:
Trojan War (if it is an actual historical event 1200-1100 BCE)
Homer (around 800-700 BC) – The Illiad describes the Trojan War.
Thales (580 BC) – The first pre-Socratic philosopher.
Heraclitus (approx. 530-470 BC)
Parmenides (515-440 BC)
Socrates (469-399BC)
Sophists (around 450-350BC)
Peloponnesian War (431-404BC) – Sparta vs. Athens
Plato (427-347 BC)
Aristotle (384-322BC)

Drive for explanation:

What characterizes the human attitude in the world is some form of wonder at natural events or
large scale human events. A whole host of facts about nature and human life can be listed, which
arouse wonder. Hurricanes, earthquakes, draughts, famines, plagues, seasons, lives of animals,
blossoming of flowers and trees, wars, winners of wars, glory and despair, sex, pain, birth, death,
etc. Wonder, I take to be an emotional and intellectual attitude towards these wonder invoking
things. Wonder is, I think, something stronger than curiosity. There is some kind of awe felt
towards the thing under consideration. So what do we ourselves do when we feel wonder? Well I
would say that we try to understand that thing, we try to make sense of it. To try finding a
meaning for it. This way it becomes closer to us.
Greeks are, of course, not the only society who have had recourse to myths. But the aim to talk
about myths here is to understand the difference between it and philosophy. And in the Western
philosophical tradition stressing this difference is an attempt to describe the activity of
philosophy.
The attitude of wonder drove the Greeks to Myth and Mythological explanations. And we can
contrast to this kind of explanation the Philosophical explanation that is said to begin with
Thales. It is generally assumed that Philosophical thinking begins with as much wonder as drives
man to Mythologize.

Kinds of explanation or Ways of thinking:

Mythological thinking.
Philosophical thinking
Scientific thinking
Their different sets of presuppositions or ways of approaching things=asking questions.

Mythological explanation:
Oedipus Rex
The tragedy is set in a time when a plague infests Thebes where Oedipus is king, his Queen,
unbeknownst to him, is his mother. Oedipus is confronted with the charge that it is some doing of
his that has brought the wrath of gods upon Thebes. Oedipus is charged with incest and the wrath
of gods is precisely the plague.
Iliad
-Homer’s description of war scenes: A god who wishes so-and-so an outcome, becomes incarnate
in the person of the human being whose actions, kills, spoils, etc. Homer is describing
-Description of how a decision of the gods is delivered to humans: Some god comes to a
decision, and sends a herald. Either an idea pops up in the individual’s mind or the messenger
comes in the form of a friend who says so-and-so which is the decision of the gods.

A recurring theme in myths

A god G takes the form of an animal, a bull, say, and ravishes the daughter of a king by the river
R. And the daughter is now pregnant with the child of this god.

I find that the easiest way of making sense of mythology as a kind of explanation is to think of
the relation between the things that are explained and the things that explain. What are explained
are natural phenomena and events in the human world. What does the explaining are stories of
mythological creatures, the Greek gods. As Palmer puts it, these two worlds, let us say, exist in
two different times, normal time and strong time. Strong time is used to explain things in normal
time. Strong time seems to display some characteristics of normal time, such as it is a time, it
involves succession and simultaneity and duration, but the beings in this time are immortal, and
there is no decay and natural death for the beings in strong time. Now, a peculiarity of the
relation of strong and normal time is that it seems strong time precedes human time in a temporal
succession. It is that time which has always been there, and at one point normal time was created.
So, strong time temporally precedes normal time.
It is difficult to say how the mythological entities or stories explain observable events. The
question is, simply, how do events in normal time come from strong time? Do the creatures or
events in strong time cause them? Do gods manifest themselves in such events? Do gods
manifest themselves in human form? It is possible that there are many forms of interaction and
that all these suggested ways are ways in which events in normal time come from those in strong
time.

What are the presuppositions of mythological thinking?

-Mythological thinking is a kind of explanation. It asks and answers about an origin of things. It
asks about where things come from, and come to be like this.
-The kind of explanation it gives involves humanlike beings. It involves stories about such
beings. Simply it involves anthropomorphic deities and certain narratives. These narratives
concerning deities is connected with events in the human and natural worlds.
-strong/normal time
-seeking influence on fate by sacrifice and rituals and prayer.

There are features in this kind of explanation which, to our scientific mind, do sound relatively
childish. For one natural events are given explanations in analogy to human relations. The
wrath of a god produces a hurricane or a plague. Nature is imbued with spirits and gods and
intentions and desires, as it were. For another all these explanations involve imagination more
than rational thinking. If there is reasoning it would be reasoning about the intentions of gods.
And what explains are mainly painted as images of events. It is closer to literature than what we
ordinarily call an explanation. Furthermore, the concepts used are not really so clear. Or, the
concepts of mythological thinking are confused. Think, for example, the relation between
normal and strong time. One comes after the other. But, then, these should exist in a time as well.
Well, what kind of time is this higher order time that contains different kinds of times as its
moments? Or, we could say that the mythological mind has a confused grasp of how events in
normal time come from dealings of Gods among themselves. And also, these myths have a
strongly practical, political and social aspects, which are supported by sets of rituals and
sacrifices. In a manner of speaking the mythological mind thinks that the causes of things can be
influenced by rituals, sacrifices, earnest wishes, etc.

The philosophical point of view:

Shift in presuppositions introduced by Thales’ way of looking at things, asking questions.
Take a look at the following quote from Nietzsche where he explains the commonalities and
differences between mythological, scientific and philosophical thinking.

“Greek philosophy seems to begin with a preposterous fancy, with the proposition that water is
the origin and mother-womb of all things. Is it really necessary to stop there and become serious?
Yes, and for three reasons: Firstly, because the proposition does enunciate something about the
origin of things; secondly, because it does so without figure and fable; thirdly and lastly, because
in it is contained, although only in the chrysalis state, the idea: Everything is one. The first
mentioned reason leaves Thales still in the company of religious and superstitious people, the
second however takes him out of this company and shows him to us as a natural philosopher, but
by virtue of the third, Thales becomes the first Greek philosopher. If he had said: "Out of water
earth is evolved." we should only have a scientific hypothesis; a false one, though nevertheless
difficult to refute. But he went beyond the scientific.” (Nietzsche, 1911, p. 86)

Notice that Nietzsche is here trying to stress the difference philosophical explanation has to both
myth and science. Philosophy tries to say something about the origin of things and does so
without figure and fable, i.e. without stories about Gods or souls or what not. In this the
philosophical explanation differs from myth. And on the positive side, it explains nature with
something that can be observed in nature, but it does not treat this item on a par or in the same
status as nature which is to be explained by it. So, in taking a part of nature (water in Thales’
case) to explain nature philosophical explanation is similar to scientific explanation. However,
because it does not treat this part of nature on a par with natural things, it introduces a different
mode of questioning and explaining. Thus, in Thales’ statement, everything is water, Nietzsche
sees the expression of a further principle than explaining nature with nature. Perhaps better put,
Thales’ statement embodies another principle. The philosophical principle is expressed in
naturalistic terms. But the statement expresses something more than mere naturalism.
And what is this? The philosophical principle is that everything is one.

Palmer’s way of putting things is similar. In his version of the story, it is not exactly what Thales
proposes as an explanatory principle, but the presuppositions of the mode of his questioning.
(Palmer, 2008, p.7-8) The question he is asking and the answer he gives for it rest under the
presupposition that “Everything is one”. There are different senses of this principle. It could
mean, for example,

1-There must be something that does not change through all change.
2-Every particular thing must belong to a whole.
3-Difference should be reducible to sameness.

And in fact we can give a variety of particular examples for these principles.
1-When we speak of a person’s life, we speak of him being born, his being a baby in the cradle,
his teens and adolescence, adulthood and old age. Death also belongs to that person’s life.
Therefore, we think that throughout all change in a person’s life it is the life of the same person.
Many things may change apart from appearance or the stage of life. The person’s character or
views may change as well. But there seems to be a same something that remains.
2-We can also notice many particular things belonging to wholes. Notice for example that when
it is day the sun brightens everything and night engulf us and everything around us. Or think the
parts of animals. If you cut of the leg of a dog, the leg rots. Or pick a flower it will wither and
fade. There are so many cases where what we take to be a part must belong to a whole if it is to
be sustained. You could even say that people must live in societies, for otherwise they become
isolated and ill. (I would recommend a movie called the Vagabond by Agnes Varda on this very
notion.)
3-Many cases of differences belong to or are in some or other sense reducible to sameness. Think
for example that there are different kinds of fish. Sea-bass, turbot, red snapper, etc. For one, there
are different individual fish that belong to either kind. But, as to being an individual member of
that kind of fish, all these different fish are same. And all the kinds of fish are same considered in
terms of being fish.

However, it seems Thales is not content or satisfied with these more particular or specific cases
of unity, wholes, sameness in nature. Thales pushes for an absolute principle, a principle that
does not explain this or that kind of difference in nature, but all of nature. Nietzsche finds in
Thales’ principle the working of a mystic intuition or imagination. However, the main point here
is that what makes Thales the first philosopher is precisely this absolute demand of unity in
whatever that may exist. The specific unities themselves must belong to one overarching unity.

The philosophical principle rests on the relation between difference and unity, change and
stability. It tries to go to or discover the truth of everything. But to do this it needs to suppose that
there is something to be discovered. And also suppose that the human mind can discover this
truth. Otherwise, if there were such a mystery, but no capacity in us to discover it, well it would
be like the riddle of the sphynx, a riddle whose solution would remain a mystery to us.
Therefore, another presupposition of the philosophical questioning (question+answering) is,

4-Human mind is capable of grasping this aspect of reality.

It is evident that the explanatory principle has some kind of precedence or priority over
what it explains. In the case of myths it was Gods against nature and the human world. They are
distinguished from humans and the natural order as sacred, all powerful beings. In the case of
philosophical explanation, the precedence or priority of the principle is logical and ontological.
The problem lying before Thales seems to be akin to a methodological dispute. On the one hand
Thales is seeking the one thing that explains all. On the other, as all Greeks, Thales believes that
there are four material elements (fire, water, air, earth) which make up nature. (Palmer, 2008,
p.10) But, he then goes on to ask, well there are four elements, but one must be prior, but which
one and how do I decide? Thales is seeking for the proper origin, and needs to make a choice
between four items, as to which of them is the true origin. The manner he answers this question
is by making observations and choosing the item which is supported by the best reasons, the
reasons which seemed best to Thales. (Palmer, 2008, p. 7 and p.10) Water is the life giver. Water
has different states. Thales interprets these transformations as water having the capacity to
transform into the other elements. Thales treats these observations as evidence for the fact that
water among the four elements is in fact the true or real origin. Everything in nature can, then, be
explained on the basis of the combinations, separations and changes of state of water. The first
question for Thales as philosopher, the methodological question, is to determine the proper
principle.
The ontological priority of water to all things in nature means something like this: If something
were to dissolve and cease to be, what would remain of it in nature would be water in changed
states. The existence of everything, their existing and their being this way or that, depends upon
water. But the existence of water does not depend upon anything else. The logical priority of
water rests on Thales’ reasoned choice between the four elements. Confronted with four items
from which to choose one as ontologically prior, Thales makes a rational choice based on
evidence, rather than giving an anthropomorphic story. Ontological priority pertains to the
relation of the origin, the first principle to everything it explains. You could formulate the idea in
many forms using superlatives. Water is the first existence (not in time but in a hierarchy of
existing things) or the existence whose existence demands no explanations. It is the primary
existent. It is the existence which is first because it explains that and why everything exists as it
does.
Nietzsche also stresses the ontological primacy of water. Nietzsche wants to say that not only
does Thales’ choice of water as an explanatory principle distinguishe his mode of thinking from
myth, but that this mode of thinking is different from science as well. The difference Nietzsche
wants to point to is between the claims “Everything is water” and “Everything evolved from
water.” As I understand it the distinction is between the priority we can find between everything
in nature and water as explanatory principle. Water does not only precede everything as cause
precedes effect, in time. Think, for example, the relation between corn seeds and popped corn
which we can say evolves from corn seeds. You heat the seeds in some pan and they pop and turn
from hard, orangish yellow kernels into white, soft chewable things. You need not say that all
popcorn is corn-seeds; now that they have evolved they have evolved from seeds, but they are
now popped corn. However, they are no longer corn-seeds. Thales’ claim is not causal in the
sense that everything came from water through a temporal process where water changes its
states. His explanation does have such an aspect, but that is precisely the scientific aspect, and
that aspect is not the philosophical aspect we are trying to notice. His claim pertains to a question
of explanation. What to use as a principle from which to explain things. And a question of
existence. The existence of water and its being so-and-so cannot be explained by anything else.
But the existence of everything else must be explained by water. When you have explained that
wind is a change of the state of water, you still go on to call it water, because both the observable
qualities and existence of the wind are given by water.
Parmenides:3
Parmenides’ problem, or the problem of existence as he puts it, concerns the possibility of
speaking about things. He asks, well, what can we speak about and how can we speak about what
we can speak about. We can only speak about things that exist. For, even if we spoke about
something that did not exist now or something that is imaginary, that we think it would mean that
we refer to it as if it is something that existed. But how can we refer to something that does not
exist? If it does not exist, we cannot coherently speak about it, for we cannot refer to it. And if
we speak about it, it cannot not exist, for when we speak about something we refer to it.
Well, so we can only speak about things which exist.
What can we say about them? That they change? That there are many things, like a stone and the
lizard on the stone, and nothing for a kilometer or so to the east, and then there is a gas station?
Parmenides says no. If we are to speak about change, we are meaning that things either come
from nothing or that they go out of existence. But something that is cannot come from not-being.
Only non-being follows from non-being. And if we said things went out of existence there would
be nothing left but nothing. As nothing can then come out of nothing. So things cannot change
and go out of existence.
And does being have parts? Are there many things that are? Well, Parmenides says no again. It
cannot be so, because if there is being and parts of it, then this part of being is something
different than being, but only nothing can differ from being. If it is not nothing, then, it is being.
It is not a distinct part of being.
These are arguments to show that our words nothing, change and parts of being are confused or
rationally inadmissible. But what does this mean?
Parmenides draws from these the conclusion that if the way to truth is by reason, and Parmenides
believes it to be so, then the natural observable world which we describe by the concepts of
change and parts of beings, etc. is an illusion. What exists with such attributes, what has such a
nature cannot exist, because it is irrational. Here, then, we have two important presuppositions of
philosophical inquiry. One is the notion we already saw with regard to Thales, that the origin,
reality or truth is accessible to the human mind, and that this access is through reason. The
second is the distinction between appearance and reality, illusion and truth. A parallel distinction
now issues from the distinctions between appearance/reality or illusion/truth, and the
presupposition that truth is accessible through reason. Notice that if truth is obtained through thre
should be a source of illusion or what is only apparent. It is the senses which deceive us. What
appears appears to our view through the senses, and in Parmenides’ view, this appearance is
illusory. Senses cannot be a guide to truth, but only to illusion.

Heraclitus:4
Heraclitus’ view on the relation between the One, the explanatory principle and the many,
change, nature is rather difficult to pin down. As Palmer also mentions, some of Heraclitus’
statements are highly obscure. However, despite these difficulties, I think his view on the
principle of change is very interesting. For Heraclitus there is change, and also there is some
unchanging, stable principle according to which change takes place. Heraclitus’ statements must
be taken in a somewhat metaphorical sense. However, they should also not be understood simply
as metaphors, for a metaphor would mean that there is the thing we wish to say which we are
capable of saying clearly, and then there is the metaphor which we substitute for the clear

3
A slightly more elaborate explanation of Parmenides’ views than Palmer presents in p.15-16.
4
A slightly more elaborate explanation of Heraclitus’ views than Palmer presents in p.14-15.
expression, and which we use for rhetorical effect, for example. In Heraclitus’ case, however, I
think the original thing that Heraclitus is trying to say does not exist apart from the images he
uses to express them. Therefore, we should understand him to be noticing something in the very
observations he is making, something that goes beyond the images and that can still be
associated with reason rather than imagination. Take the statement the “the thunderbolt steers all
things.” The idea here is associated with the power of the thunderbolt, its association with fire
and its singularity. In the image of this thunderbolt, Heraclitus is seeing the one with its power to
hold everything together and move everything in a certain order. That is, the one thing that is the
principle of change is inherently contained in the very change it governs. Change takes place in
some way, or as Heraclitus says, according to Logos. Logos is, for Heraclitus, the one, reason or
account.
To compare his view with Parmenides’, Heraclitus does not wish to say that the observable world
is an illusion, and that reason tells us that the truth is being is one and unchangeable. He does not
distinguish between appearance and reality or illusion and truth along the lines that Parmenides
does. Truth is still acquired by reason, for we can access the one through reason. But we also see
evidence of this in the observable world itself. Therefore, the senses are not altogether deceptive.
Furthermore, what appears to our view already contains and is governed by the one which is the
truth or reality. Hence, it seems reality does not lie beyond the sensible world altogether.
The distinctions between appearance(illusion)/reality(truth), opinion/fact, senses(and
imagination)/reason, subjective/objective are important to make. Philosophy makes use of these
dichotomies, and almost all philosophers have something to say about them. Some prefer one
over the other, some try to explain our access from one to the other, and some even argue against
the dichotomies. Still, to understand philosophical texts it is crucial to be able to keep that these
dichotomies play a role in the formulation of most philosophical problems.

References other than the assigned readings:

Hospers, J. (1981). Introduction to philosophical analysis. (Second edition first published 1967)
(Original work published 1956) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Walsh, W. H. (1954). Categories. Kant-Studien, 45(1-4), pp. 274-285.