Encomiun Gorgiae or Gorgiae versus Parmenides
Keywords:
Gorgias, Parmenides, Being, MetaphysicAbstract
Gorgias’ treatise on nothing (from the remains we have of it in Aristotle and Sextus Empiricus) is divided into the successive proof of three different theses: 1) that nothing is or exists; 2) that even if there is something it cannot be known; 3) that even if it can be known it cannot be communicated to another. There theses are as opposed to Parmenides as any theses could be. Gorgias’ treatise is a tour de force of anti-Parmenidean polemic. Its dialectic is also a tour de force of reducing something to absurdity, because the premises Gorgias uses to overthrow Parmenides are taken from Parmenides or the Parmenidean school. Moreover, and for the same reason, Gorgias’ arguments cannot be defeated without giving up Parmenides’ thesis that being is one. That being is not one is the very condition of sane metaphysics. For this reason, if for no other, Gorgias and not Parmenides deserves to be remembered as the first metaphysician.
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