The Parmenidean Paradox of Motion

Philosophical thought begins with the Milesians, where intellectual curiosity propelled thinkers like Anaximander and Heraclitus to attempt to explain the phenomena of the universe by means of specific physical elements. During the 6th century BC, Eleatics, like Parmenides and Zeno, had rejected physical phenomena and propounded metaphysical paradoxes that cut at the roots of belief in the very existence of the natural world. Parmenides uproots the theories of his predecessors by bearing to light the logical possibilities of any philosophical inquiry. He argues that that the only things about which we can inquire about must exist, else our search is fruitless. Through deductive reasoning, Parmenides proves that if something exists, then it cannot come to be or perish, change or move, nor be the subject to any imperfection. His proteges were left with an enormous problem: how could one reconcile Parmenides' rejection of change with the possibility of giving a rational account of the changing world of sense experience? By accepting only certain parts of his doctrine of being, his successors ultimately fail in their attempts to explain the changing universe in light of the Parmenidean paradox.

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