Ancient · c. 515–450 BC
Who influenced Parmenides?
Influences and legacy
Argued that change is an illusion and reality is one unchanging whole — reason over the senses.
Parmenides was influenced by Xenophanes, and went on to influence Leucippus, Zeno of Elea, Empedocles and Plato. That is 5 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Sergio Spolti, CC BY-SA 4.0 See the whole map
Who was Parmenides?
Parmenides came from a wealthy family in Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy, and probably flourished around 475 BC. His one known work is a poem in hexameters, usually called On Nature, and more of it survives than of almost any other pre-Socratic text.
The poem describes two ways. The way of truth holds that all reality is one, unchanging and timeless; the way of opinion describes the world of appearances, where the senses mislead us. He is considered the founder of ontology and of the Eleatic school, and Zeno's paradoxes of motion were written to defend him. Through Plato he influenced the whole of Western philosophy.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Parmenides?
1 direct influence on this map, earliest first.
- Xenophanes c. 570–478 BC
Who did Parmenides influence?
4 thinkers on this map draw directly on Parmenides.
- Leucippus fl. 5th c. BC
- Zeno of Elea c. 495–430 BC
- Empedocles c. 494–434 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
Two steps away from Parmenides
The second generation
- Through Plato: Aristotle, Cicero, Philo of Alexandria, Plotinus, Augustine of Hippo, Marsilio Ficino, Arthur Schopenhauer, Simone Weil
- Through Leucippus: Democritus
- Through Empedocles: Gorgias
Contemporaries of Parmenides
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Parmenides, with no direct line between them.
- Anaxagoras c. 500–428 BC
- Heraclitus c. 535–475 BC
- Protagoras c. 490–420 BC
Parmenides by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 1
- Direct followers
- 4 — #21 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 1
- Thinkers downstream
- 203
- Wikipedia languages
- 85 — #18 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Questions about Parmenides
- Who influenced Parmenides?
- Xenophanes.
- Who did Parmenides influence?
- Leucippus, Zeno of Elea, Empedocles and Plato.
- When did Parmenides live?
- c. 515–450 BC. The map files Parmenides under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Parmenides card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Parmenides in 85 languages, which makes it an Epic card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC