The third head of the Eleatic school was Zeno. He is described by
Plato in the
Parmenides as accompanying his master to Athens on the visit already
referred to, and as being then “nearly forty years of age, of a noble figure
and fair aspect.” In personal character he was a worthy pupil of his master,
being, like him, a devoted patriot. He is even said to have fallen a victim
to his patriotism, and to have suffered bravely the extremest tortures at
the hands of a tyrant Nearchus rather than betray his country.
His philosophic position was a very simple one. He had nothing to add to or
to vary in the doctrine of Parmenides. His function was primarily that of an
expositor and defender of that doctrine, and his particular pre-eminence
consists in the ingenuity of his dialectic resources of defence. He is in
fact pronounced by Aristotle to have been the inventor of dialectic or
systematic logic.
The relation of the two is humorously expressed thus by Plato (Jowett,
Plato, vol. iv. p. 128); “I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno is
your second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way,
and would fain deceive us into believing that he is telling us what is new.
For you, in your poems, say, All is one, and of this you adduce excellent
proofs; and he, on the other hand, says, There is no many; and on behalf of
this he offers overwhelming evidence.” To this Zeno replies, admitting the
fact, and adds: “These writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments
of Parmenides against those who scoff at him, and show the many ridiculous
and contradictory results which they suppose to follow from the affirmation
of the One. My answer is an address to the partisans of the many, whose
attack I return with interest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis
of the being of many if carried out appears in a still more ridiculous light
than the hypothesis of the being of one.”
A History of Greek Philosophy /
THE ELEATICS /
ZENO
