Parmenides and Ancient Mereology

Abstract

This Ph.D. thesis aims to demonstrate that Parmenides’ account of What-Is provides a conception of Monism that, in unprecedented ways, answers the philosophical problem of the relation between Parts and Wholes, which overlaps with that of the relation between One and Many. Specifically, according to my reading of Parmenides’ Monism, What-Is is a complex yet singular entity that is to be considered a ‘whole’, rather than an ‘all’.
The innovative methodology developed in this thesis combines contemporary mereological theories with concept studies of Parmenides and his predecessors (especially Homer and Hesiod) in order to offer a historically grounded and philosophically stimulating reading of Parmenides’ work. As a result, Parmenides’ mereological views are shown to be an attempt to address and solve live philosophical problems that involve many apparently distinct areas (e.g., cosmology, ontology, epistemology)—appealing to, and at the same time going beyond, the conceptual tools offered by Epic tradition.
Although in their studies of Plato’s mereology scholars have observed that his views about the relation between Parts and Wholes might go back to Early Greek Philosophy, an in-depth study of Plato’s central mereological models has never been conducted. Through a dedicated study of Parmenides’ mereology, this thesis not only fills a gap in the field, but its results could have wider impact in the field of ancient philosophy. For, on the one hand, its methodology offers theoretical gains to the study of mereology in other Early Greek philosophers (e.g., Empedocles, Heraclitus, the Pythagoreans). On the other, it paves the way to new approaches to the study of Plato’s mereology.