Gianfrancesco d’Asola, the “Creator” of Parmenides’ Third Way

Abstract

We can identify the invention of a conjecture that was to define XIX^th century scholarship on the Poem of Parmenides in the Renascentist edition of Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Because of his choice for filling the gap on verse B6.3 with a verb expressing refusal or withdrawal, editor Gianfrancesco d’Asola is indeed at the origins of the interpretation that supposes the existence of three ways of investigation in the Poem. As argued in this paper, though, all textual evidence, as well as the transmitted notices since Antiquity, point to an Alêtheia-Doxa dualism, with the consequence that any trichotomic scheme forcibly depends on a fabrication dating from the XVI^th century.