Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea, from a wealthy and illustrious family.
16 Facts About Parmenides
2.
Parmenides's dates are uncertain; according to doxographer Diogenes Laertius, he flourished just before 500 BC, which would put his year of birth near 540 BC, but in the dialogue Parmenides Plato has him visiting Athens at the age of 65, when Socrates was a young man, c 450 BC, which, if true, suggests a year of birth of c 515 BC.
3.
Parmenides is thought to have been in his prime around 475 BC.
4.
The single known work by Parmenides is a poem whose original title is unknown but which is often referred to as On Nature.
5.
Parmenides has been considered the founder of ontology and has, through his influence on Plato, influenced the whole history of Western philosophy.
6.
Parmenides is considered to be the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos.
7.
In contemporary philosophy, Parmenides' work has remained relevant in debates about the philosophy of time.
8.
Parmenides was born in Elea, a city located in Magna Graecia.
9.
Parmenides tries to always match the maturity of a philosopher with the birth of his alleged disciple.
10.
And, if at this meeting Parmenides was about 65 years old, his birth occurred around 515 BC.
11.
The fact that the meeting between Socrates and Parmenides is mentioned in the dialogues Theaetetus and Sophist only indicates that it is referring to the same fictional event, and this is possible because both the Theaetetus and the Sophist are considered after the Parmenides.
12.
Parmenides follows the traditional datum of the founding of Elea in 545 BC, pointing to it not only as terminus post quem, but as a possible date of Parmenides' birth.
13.
Plato, in his dialogue Parmenides, relates that, accompanied by his disciple Zeno of Elea, Parmenides visited Athens when he was approximately 65 years old and that, on that occasion, Socrates, then a young man, conversed with him.
14.
Parmenides' sole work, which has only survived in fragments, is a poem in dactylic hexameter, later titled On Nature.
15.
Later Hellenistic doxographers considered Parmenides to have been a pupil of Xenophanes.
16.
Eusebius, quoting Aristocles of Messene, says that Parmenides was part of a line of skeptical philosophy that culminated in Pyrrhonism for he, by the root, rejects the validity of perception through the senses whilst, at any rate, it is first through our five forms of senses that we become aware of things and then by faculty of reasoning.