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黃冠閔之哲學教學網
教學資料
著作
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On Nature (Peri Physis)
by Parmenides
of Elea (c. 475 B.C.)
Edited by Allan
F. Randall from translations by David
Gallop, Richard
D. McKirahan, Jr., Jonathan
Barnes, John
Mansley Robinson and others.
1The mares, which carry me as far
as my heart desires, were escorting me. They brought and placed me upon
the well-spoken path of the Goddess, which carries everywhere unscathed
the mortal who knows. Thereon was I carried, for thereon the wise mares
did carry me, straining to pull the chariot, with maidens guiding the way.
The axle, glowing in its naves, gave forth the shrill sound of a musical
pipe, urged on by two rounded wheels on either end, even whilst maidens,
Daughters of the Sun, were hastening to escort me, after leaving the House
of Night for the light, having pushed back the veils from their heads with
their hands.
Ahead are the gates of the paths of Night and Day. A lintel and stone
threshold surround them. The aetherial gates themselves are filled with
great doors, for which much-avenging Justice holds the keys of retribution.
Coaxing her with gentle words, the maidens did cunningly persuade her to
push back the bolted bar for them swiftly from the gates. These made of
the doors a yawning gap as they were opened wide, swinging in turn the
bronze posts in their sockets, fastened with rivets and pins. Straight
through them at that point did the maidens drive the chariot and mares
along the broad way.
The Goddess received me kindly, took my right hand in Hers, uttered
speech and thus addressed me: "Youth, attended by immortal charioteers,
who come to our House by these mares that carry you, welcome. For it was
no ill fortune that sent you forth to travel this road (lying far indeed
from the beaten path of humans), but Right and Justice. And it is right
that you should learn all things, both the persuasive, unshaken heart of
Objective Truth, and the subjective beliefs of mortals, in which there
is no true trust. But you shall learn these too: how, for the mortals passing
through them, the things-that-seem must 'really exist', being, for them,
all there is.
The Way of Objectivity (Aletheia)
2"Come now, listen, and convey my
story. I shall tell you what paths of inquiry alone there are for thinking:
#1. The one: that it is and it is impossible
for it not to be.
This is the path of Persuasion, for it accompanies Objective Truth.
#2. The other: that it is not and it necessarily must
not be.
That, I point out to you, is a path wholly unthinkable, for neither
could you know what-is-not (for that is impossible), nor could you point
it out.
6"Whatever can be spoken or thought
of necessarily is, since it is possible for it to be, but it is
not possible for nothing to be. I urge you to consider this last point,
for I restrain you firstly from that path of inquiry (#2), and secondly
from:
#3. The one on which mortals, knowing nothing, wander,
two-headed, for helplessness in their breasts guides their wandering minds
and they are carried, deaf and blind alike, dazed, uncritical tribes, for
whom being and not-being are thought the same and yet not the same, and
the path of all runs in opposite directions. 7For
never shall this be proved: that things that are not are. But do
restrain your thought from this path of inquiry, and do not let habit,
born from much experience, compel you along this path, to guide your sightless
eye and ringing ear and tongue. But judge by reason the highly contentious
disproof that I have spoken.
8a"One path only is left for us
to speak of: that it is. On this path there are a multitude of indications
that what-is, being ungenerated, is also imperishable, whole, of a single
kind, immovable and complete. Nor was it once, nor will it be, since it
is, now, all together, one and continuous. For what coming-to-be of it
will you seek? How and from where did it grow? I shall not permit you to
say or to think that it grew from what-is-not, for it is not to be said
or thought that it is not. What necessity could have impelled it
to grow later rather than sooner, if it began from nothing? Thus it must
either fully be, or be not at all. Nor will the force of conviction ever
allow anything, from what-is, to come-to-be something apart from itself;
wherefore Justice does not loosen her shackles so as to allow it to come-to-be
or to perish, but holds it fast.
"The decision on these matters depends on this: either it is
or it is not. But it has been decided, as is necessary, to let go
the one as unthinkable and unnameable (for it is no true path), but to
allow the other, so that it is, and is true. How could what-is be in the
future? How could it come-to-be? For if it came-to-be, it is not, nor is
it if at some time it is going to be. Thus, coming-to-be is extinguished
and perishing unheard of.
"Nor is it divisible, since it all alike is. Nor is there any
more of it here than there, to hinder it from holding together, nor any
less of it, but it is all a plenum, full of what-is. Therefore, it is all
continuous, for what-is touches what-is.
"Moreover, unchanging in the limits of great bonds, it is without beginning
or end, since coming-to-be and perishing were banished far away, and true
conviction drove them out. Remaining the same, in the same place, it lies
in itself, and thus firmly remains there. For mighty Necessity holds it
fast in the bonds of a limit, which fences it about, since it is not right
for what-is to be incomplete. For it lacks nothing. If it lacked anything,
it would lack everything.
8c"Since, then, there is an ultimate
limit, it is completed from every direction like the bulk of a perfect
sphere, evenly balanced in every way from the centre, as it must not be
any greater or smaller here than there. For neither is there what-is-not,
which could stop it from reaching its like, nor is there a way in which
what-is could be more here and less there, since it all inviolably is.
For equal to itself in every direction, it reaches its limits uniformly.
3"The same thing is there for
thinking of and for being. 4Look
upon things which, though absent, are yet firmly present in thought (for
you shall not cut off what-is from holding fast to what-is, since it neither
disperses itself in all directions throughout the order of the Cosmos,
nor does it gather itself together). 8bIt
is the same thing, to think of something and to think that it is,
since you will never find thought without what-is, to which it refers,
and on which it depends. For nothing is nor will be except what-is, since
it was just this that Fate did shackle to be whole and unchanging; wherefore
it has been named all things that mortals have established, persuaded that
they are true: 'to come-to-be and to perish', 'to be and not to be' and
'to shift place and exchange bright colour'.
The Way of Subjectivity (Doxa)
5"Wherever I begin, it is all one
to me, for there I shall return again.
8d"Here I stop my trustworthy
speech to you and thought about Objective Truth. From here on, learn the
subjective beliefs of mortals; listen to the deceptive ordering of my words.
For they made up their minds to name two forms, one of which it is not
right to name at all (here is where they have gone astray) and have distinguished
them as opposite in bodily form and have assigned to them marks distinguishing
them from one another:
#1. Here, on the one hand, aetherial flame of fire,
gentle, very light, everywhere the same as itself...
#2. But not the same as this other, which in itself is opposite:
dark night, a dense and heavy body.
"All this order I present to you as probable, so that no mortal belief
shall ever outdo you. 9But since
all things have been named light and night, and their powers have been
assigned to each, all is a plenum of light and obscure night together,
both equal, since nothingness partakes in neither.
10"You shall know the nature
of the aether and all the signs in the aether, the destructive works of
the splendid Sun's pure torch, and whence they came-to-be. And you shall
learn the wandering works of the round-faced Moon, and its nature, and
you shall know also the surrounding heaven, whence it grew and how Necessity
did guide and shackle it to hold the limits of the stars. 14The
Moon: night-shiner, wandering around the Earth, an alien light, 15always
looking towards the rays of the Sun. 15aThe
Earth: rooted-in-water. 11And you
shall learn how Earth and Sun and Moon and the aether common to all, the
Milky Way and the outermost heaven, and the hot force of the stars did
surge forth to come-to-be.
12"For the narrower rings are
filled with unmingled fire, the ones next to them with night, but a due
amount of fire is inserted amongst it. In the midst of these is the goddess
who governs everything. For she rules over hateful birth and union of all
things, sending female to unite with male, and again conversely male with
female.
13"She devised Love first of
all the gods. 18When man and woman
mingle the seeds of love that spring from their veins, a formative power,
maintaining proper proportions, moulds well-formed bodies from this diverse
blood (for if, when the seed is mingled, the forces therein clash and do
not fuse into one, then cruelly will they plague the offspring with a double-gender).
17She placed young males on the
right side of the womb, young females on the left.
16"According to the union within
each person of disparate body parts, thus does mind emerge in humans. For
it is the composition of body parts which does the thinking, and Thought
(since it defines the plenum) is the same in each and every human.
19"Thus, according to belief,
these things were born and now are, and hereafter, having grown from this,
they will come to an end. And for each of these did humans establish a
distinctive name. 20One and unchanging
is that for which as a whole the name is: 'to be'."
Commentary.
References.
Copyright ©
1996 by Allan Randall (randall@io.org)
Computational
Metaphysics. Quantum
Theory and Indiscernibles. The
Metaphysics of F.H. Bradley.
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