In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Parmenides of Elea. Robin Waterfield calls him “the single most important Pre-socratic thinker.” He introduced a puzzle about Being that required a response by philosophers who followed him. From that puzzle, we have the Atom / Void idea from Democritus and the Forms / Shadows idea from Plato. Plato even has a dialogue named after this influential philosopher who lived from 515 - 450BC.
Books Referenced:
Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics
The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library
