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Melissus of Samos was a Traditional Greek Thinker who lived during the fifth century B.C.E. He followed the great Parmenides and Zeno of Elea as the last of the Eleactic convention. Generally, he agreed with his predecessors, but he starkly disagreed on the limited and timeless nature of existence.
Before we peer into his thought, we must always first evaluate the primary sources. We all know in fact , comparatively little about the last Eleactic scholar. The majority we know about his personal life derives from Plutarch's Life of Pericles, in which source we discover he led a Samian fleet as captain in 422 B.C.E. And he later brought Pericles and the Athenian navy to destruction.
His greatest contribution to philosophy remains his treatise On Nature, massive fragments of which Simplicius saved in his commentaries on Aristotle. Although we do not have all of Simplicius ' work, we do have a great piece of it. Once can read Melissus ' work in the Dielz-Kranz, a large collection of Pre-Socratic scribblings.
Like Parmenides and Zeno, the philosopher believed the world to be quite misleading. All three debated the world was unified, invariable, and motionless. However , he disagreed with Parmenides on two points.
While Parmenides argued that existence was spatially limited, Melissus counteracted that existence was unconditionally unlimited, and while Parmenides thought reality existed in a timeless present, the later Eleactic proposed instead that existence is eternal. Melissus simply built upon their argument by suggesting for a wholly unlimited reality.
The thinker stated that whatever exists must have come to be that way. Since existence to the Eleactics was fixed, existence could have never come to be; rather, it just. Therefore , existence never had a beginning and, therefore, is eternal.
Second, he justified existence's eternality in a fallacious way. He poses that whatever has no beginning is neither eternal nor unlimited. Since existence has no beginning and end, it must therefore be eternal and unlimited.
Scholars debate this debate as it obviously expresses a logical fallacy, that has led some to conclude we are missing urgent primary resources to fill in critical grounds. No matter the absence of resources, Melissus plays an important role in the history of philosophy as he made major contributions to Eleactic thought and because Plato and Aristotle later depended really heavily on his version of Eleactic Philosophy.
Before we peer into his thought, we must always first evaluate the primary sources. We all know in fact , comparatively little about the last Eleactic scholar. The majority we know about his personal life derives from Plutarch's Life of Pericles, in which source we discover he led a Samian fleet as captain in 422 B.C.E. And he later brought Pericles and the Athenian navy to destruction.
His greatest contribution to philosophy remains his treatise On Nature, massive fragments of which Simplicius saved in his commentaries on Aristotle. Although we do not have all of Simplicius ' work, we do have a great piece of it. Once can read Melissus ' work in the Dielz-Kranz, a large collection of Pre-Socratic scribblings.
Like Parmenides and Zeno, the philosopher believed the world to be quite misleading. All three debated the world was unified, invariable, and motionless. However , he disagreed with Parmenides on two points.
While Parmenides argued that existence was spatially limited, Melissus counteracted that existence was unconditionally unlimited, and while Parmenides thought reality existed in a timeless present, the later Eleactic proposed instead that existence is eternal. Melissus simply built upon their argument by suggesting for a wholly unlimited reality.
The thinker stated that whatever exists must have come to be that way. Since existence to the Eleactics was fixed, existence could have never come to be; rather, it just. Therefore , existence never had a beginning and, therefore, is eternal.
Second, he justified existence's eternality in a fallacious way. He poses that whatever has no beginning is neither eternal nor unlimited. Since existence has no beginning and end, it must therefore be eternal and unlimited.
Scholars debate this debate as it obviously expresses a logical fallacy, that has led some to conclude we are missing urgent primary resources to fill in critical grounds. No matter the absence of resources, Melissus plays an important role in the history of philosophy as he made major contributions to Eleactic thought and because Plato and Aristotle later depended really heavily on his version of Eleactic Philosophy.
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