Jaap Mansfeld et al. Ja ap m a n sf

Melissus between Miletus and Elea I

 

 

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difficult fr. 30 B9, which does not echo a Parmenidean attribute, will be dis-

cussed in Part III below. 

I shall end with fr. 30 B8, which has already been cited before. It contains 

‘further signs (σημεῖα) that it is one alone’, these signs being a series of argu-

ments demonstrating that there is no plurality (πολλά).

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 The argument begins 

and ends with the same claim, which the first time is explicitly the author’s point, 

the second time the objective end result: B8(2), ‘For if there were many things, 

they should be such as I say that the One is’, and B8(6), ‘if there were many 

things, they have to be such as the One is’. We have encountered other examples 

of this type of ring composition. 

Obviously, many things cannot be one single thing, and certainly not a single 

thing like the one Being. But Melissus, unlike Zeno, does not manipulate the 

logical contradictions between ‘one’ and ‘many’, but provides arguments against 

our human experience of and possible reasons for our belief in the reality of 

plurality (fr. 30 B8): 

‘For if earth and water and air and fire exist, and iron and gold, and what is alive as 

distinguished from what is dead, and black and white, and all the other things of 

which humans say that they are real/true (ὅσα φασὶν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι ἀληθῆ)

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 – if 

these things do exist and we see and hear correctly, then each of them should be such 

as it seemed to us the first time, and it should not turn into its opposite or become 

different, but each thing should always be such as it is. 

Well, we say that we see and hear and understand (: combine’, συνιέναι) correctly. 

(3) But it seems to us that what is hot becomes cold and what is cold becomes hot, 

that hard becomes soft and soft hard, that what is alive dies and is born from what is 

not alive, and that all these things become different, and that what was and what is 

now are in no respect similar, but that iron, though it is hard, is rubbed away because 

it touches the finger, and so is gold and stone and everything that seems to be strong, 

(and it seems to us) that from water earth and stone come to be.

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 (4) The original 

claim and the facts do not agree with each other. For though we said that there are 

many eternal things having (stable) forms, and (having) strength, it seems to us that 

they all become different and that opposites come to be from what is seen each time. 

(5) It is therefore clear that we did not see correctly and that these things do not 

correctly seem to be many, for they would not come to be from their opposites, if 

they were real/true, for then each thing would (still) be such as it seemed to be. For 

nothing is stronger than real/true Being. (6) But if they came to be from opposites, 

(a) Being has perished and (b) non-Being has come to be. Accordingly, if there 

would be many things, they have to be such as the One is’. 

                                                            

56

 Toto coelo different from Zeno’s arguments against πολλά in frr. 29 B2 and B3. 

57

 Cf. Parm. fr. 28 B8.39, ὅσσα βροτοὶ κατέθεντο πεποιθότες εἶναι ἀληθῆ; see below, n. 60 and text 

thereto. 

58

 Deleting the phrase [; so it follows that we neither see nor get to know the things that are]. For the 

brackets see above, I.2, n. 11. 

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Jaap Mansfeld

 

 

It has been seen by scholars that this argument is indebted to Parmenides’ 

lines about humans (βροτοί) being wrong in trusting that things they merely give 

a name to do really come to be and pass away, and are-as-well-as-not, and 

change place, and alter colour.

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 It is also indebted to the Goddess’ advice to the 

poet not to be induced ‘by custom to direct a purposeless eye and echoing ear’ 

along the road she wants him to avoid.

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 But it goes quite a bit farther, because 

the list of objects or processes that do not in fact exist (or meet the conditions 

for true being) is longer, and more various and detailed. It comprises more or 

less scientific examples (the four elements, cyclical change) as well as at a first 

glance more homely ones (the iron ring that is worn away). 

The explicit claim that something must be like the one Being if it is to exist 

is also new. It is true that in Parmenides the two elements of the Doxa share 

important attributes with Being: each of them is identical with itself, while to-

gether they constitute a plenum.

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 But they are not immobile or indivisible. The 

many things observed by humans should ex hypothesi be exempt from coming 

to be and being destroyed, or change in time, or being divisible. They should 

remain what and as they are right from the start, which in our experience they 

undeniably do not, as they come to be and change and fall to pieces and disap-

pear. So either the ontological claim or our experience must be at fault, and 

Melissus feels bound to opt for the abandonment of experience. 

In Part III I shall try to answer the question of whether some of his arguments 

in this fragment are directed against certain views of other philosophers of na-

ture. 

                                                            

59

 Fr. 28 B8.38–41. Changing place and altering colour may in the first place pertain to heavenly phe-

nomena, see Mansfeld (2005), 558–559. 

60

 Fr. 28 B7.3–5. For the position of humans (ἄνθρωποι or βροτοί) in Parmenides cf. 28 B1.27.30, B6.4, 

B8.51.61, B16.2.3 and B19.3; for that of Ἕλληνες in Anaxagoras fr. 68 B11.  

61

 Fr. 28 B8.57–57 compared with B8.29–31; B9.34. 

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