Richard Thompson's Reviews > Parmenides: Ontological Figure, Being 1

I loved the idea that part of what makes Parmenides the founder of philosophy is that he made the decision for philosophy. He said that we have being and non-being, that thought though essentially equivalent to being is the bridge between them and that the path of non-being, though some may try to follow it, is forbidden. The turn toward being and thought is an originating choice that takes us forward into the philosophical project. We can understand through thought that there is a concept of non-being, but we can't really think about it or talk about it. Mr. Badiou tells us that the connection between being, non-being and thought is essentially a Borromean knot- the geometrical figure on the cover of the book that consists of three rings that are interconnected in a fashion such that if any one of them is removed the other two fall apart.

I have never been a fan of ontology. I'm generally content to take existence as a given without trying to drill down deeper into it, but I do understand why, if you are going to do philosophy, ontology is in a real sense fundamental. And if, oh well, we have to do ontology, then Parmenides and Alain Badiou are better than most places as a starting point. There is some strikingly deep thinking here buried in the obscurity and the blather. Parmenides is either a genius or he is an idiot who is a master only in the sense of being a master of the obvious and the absurd, whose poem is surely a big joke. When I started this book, I was more on the idiot/joke side. Now I'm more on the genius side.

I agree with Mr. Badiou that there is a fundamental connection between math and philosophy. It's an idea that merits more exploration. But I wasn't so convinced that Parmenides was thinking the same way. Maybe he was; maybe he wasn't. And there's more than one way to do the connection. As I was reading, I was thinking that quantum physics might be an even better analogy than the Borromean knot. I was further unconvinced by the claim that Heidegger's turn to Nazism was related to his unwillingness to see the connection of Greek philosophy to math. So not everything in this book is perfect but even the imperfect parts are thought provoking.

I'm definitely going to have to read Plato's Parmenides and The Sophist now. I'd like to read Arpad Szabo's book on early Greek mathematics, but it costs $200 on Amazon and isn't available at the LA Public Library. I'm still not up to really digging into Heidegger or Hegel, who both write at a level of obscurity that makes Parmenides feel like a nursery rhyme.