John Palmer develops and defends a modal interpretation of
Parmenides, according to which he was the first philosopher to
distinguish in a rigorous manner the fundamental modalities of
necessary being, necessary non-being or impossibility, and
non-necessary or contingent being. This book accordingly
reconsiders his place in the historical development of Presocratic
philosophy in light of this new interpretation. Careful treatment
of Parmenides' specification of the ways of inquiry that define his
metaphysical and epistemological outlook paves the way for detailed
analyses of his arguments demonstrating the temporal and spatial
attributes of what is and cannot not be. Since the existence of
this necessary being does not preclude the existence of other
entities that are but need not be, Parmenides' cosmology can
straightforwardly be taken as his account of the origin and
operation of the world's mutable entities. Later chapters reassess
the major Presocratics' relation to Parmenides in light of the
modal interpretation, focusing particularly on Zeno, Melissus,
Anaxagoras, and Empedocles. In the end, Parmenides' distinction
among the principal modes of being, and his arguments regarding
what what must be must be like, simply in virtue of its mode of
being, entitle him to be seen as the founder of metaphysics or
ontology as a domain of inquiry distinct from natural philosophy
and theology. An appendix presents a Greek text of the fragments of
Parmenides' poem with English translation and textual notes.
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