Life
Not much information remains regarding the life of Melissus. He may have been born around 500 BC; the date of his death is unknown. The little which is known about him is mostly gleaned from a small passage in Plutarch’s ''Life of Pericles''. He was the commander of the Samian fleet in the Samian War, and defeated Pericles and the''On Nature''
Much of what remains of Melissus’ philosophical treatise, ''On Nature'', has been preserved by Simplicius in his commentaries on Aristotle’s ''Philosophy
Eternal
Melissus argues that since The One neither came to be nor is subject to destruction, it is therefore eternal. While fragment 1 is merely a summary of Parmenides’ arguments against coming to be and perishing (8.5-21), fragment 2 provides Melissus’ argument. Melissus’ argument is twofold, addressing the temporal aspect of The One somewhat as a timeline: granting the reality of the present moment, he argues that The One has existed eternally into the past and will exist eternally into the future. His argument is as follows: #Whatever comes to be must have a beginning. #According to fragment 1, The One did not come to be. #Therefore, The One does not have a beginning. #Therefore, The One is eternal (has always existed in the past). in addition: #Whatever has a beginning must also end. #According to fragment 1, The One did not have a beginning. #Therefore, The One will not end. #Therefore, The One is eternal (will always exist in the future). He restates his argument for The One as eternal in fragments 6 and 9.1. It is in this respect that Melissus differs from Parmenides, although some argue that the difference is not as important as it might seem. Parmenides’ view is that there is only one moment (the eternal present), while Melissus argues for an infinite number of moments. The existence of a changeless, motionless, eternal present is an arguable position (after all, change and motion depend on time); however, the existence of a changeless, motionless, infinite succession of moments is a much more difficult position to defend (after all, if there is no other change, there is still temporal change, the change from one moment to the next). There are several problems with Melissus’ reasoning. His second argument is based on a dubious premise (i.e., that whatever comes to be must also end at some point). Furthermore, both arguments, which can be reduced to “If A, then B; but not-A, therefore not-B”, are logically flawed.Unlimited
Melissus contends that The One is unlimited. Fragments 7 and 8 apparently indicate that Melissus is speaking in terms of spatial infinity, although regarding fragment 3, which first argues this point, Simplicius explicitly denies this: “But by ‘magnitude’ he does not mean what is extended in space.” Simplicius undoubtedly had more of Melissus’ treatise at his disposal, as well as other commentaries and notes which have not survived to the present day. In any case, Melissus’ argument for this claim is unclear, and it is possible that it has not been preserved for us. Alternatively, he may intend for this argument to follow from the arguments of fragments 1 and 2, either directly or indirectly. In the former case, unless the argument is based on a now lost theory on the relationship between time and space, it is, as McKirahan says, “grossly fallacious”.McKirahan, p. 297. In the latter case, granting the “beginning” and “end” of fragment 2 spatial as well as temporal qualities leaves Melissus open to the charge of equivocation. In fragment 6 Melissus connects an eternal existence and the quality of being unlimited. Melissus may have argued for this quality due to certain issues arising in Parmenides’ thesis (8.42-9). The argument is as follows: #Whatever has a beginning and end is neither eternal nor unlimited. #Being has no beginning or end. #Therefore, it is eternal and unlimited. This argument, as fragment 3, is logically flawed, being basically: “If not-A, then not-B”.One
Melissus’ argument for the oneness of what-is, given mainly in fragments 7 and 8, is undoubtedly his best. His argument is clearer and more concise than the one provided by Parmenides. Melissus argues that, because what-is is unlimited, it must also be one, because if it were more than one it would have limits (namely, the boundaries between what-is and the other existing objects). His argument is founded on the premises that what-is is both spatially and temporally unlimited and is as follows: #What-is is temporally unlimited. #Therefore, nothing else temporally unlimited could exist at the same time. #What-is is spatially unlimited. #Therefore, nothing else spatially unlimited could exist at a different time. #Therefore, what-is is one.The same
In ''Changeless
Melissus argues that The One cannot undergo any change. He specifically states that The One cannot be rearranged, become greater or smaller, or undergo any kind of distress, but we may safely expand his argument to include all kinds of change. If The One underwent any kind of change whatsoever, it would become different and thus would no longer be unified or whole. His argument is as follows: #Whatever undergoes change is altered. #Whatever is altered is not unified or whole. #The One is unified and whole. #Therefore, The One does not undergo any type of change.Motionless
In fragment 9.7-10 Melissus makes the argument for motionless with the qualities of full and empty. He states that The One is full, because if it were empty it would be nothing, and what is nothing doesn’t exist. He then states that because The One is full, it can’t move. The argument is as follows: #To be empty is to be nothing. #What is nothing does not exist. #The One exists. #Therefore, The One is not empty. #What is not empty must be full. #Therefore, The One is full. and further: #Whatever has motion is not full. #Whatever is full (i.e., has no empty spaces) must be motionless. #The One is full. #Therefore, The One is motionless.Incorporeal
In fragment 5, Melissus makes the remarkable claim that The One is incorporeal. Just as his insistence that The One is unlimited, this claim may also be his attempt to address a potential problem inherent in Parmenides’ philosophy (8.42-9). His argument is as follows: #The One is whole in and of itself. #Therefore, The One has no parts. #Therefore, The One has no thickness. #Therefore, The One does not have a body. This argument, on the surface, does not coincide with Melissus’ claim that The One is extended and full. After all, why can something that is extended not have any parts, and how can something that is full have no thickness? McKirahan offers an interesting interpretation for what Melissus may have been arguing. A body not only has extension, but also limits, and something infinitely large, such as The One, is unlimited; an object, then, with no limits, is not a body. Furthermore, thickness is simply the measure of the distance between a body’s limits. Since The One is unlimited, it cannot have thickness.Influence and reactions
While not as influential as his fellow Eleatics, Melissus' treatise did have an important impact on philosophy. Whether or not Leucippus was his student, it is clear that his treatise was as influential onSee also
* '' On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias''Notes
Bibliography
Primary
*Aetius, ''Fragments'' *Aristocles, ''Fragments'' * * John Philoponus, ''Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics'' *Tzetzes, ''Chiliades'' *Plutarch, ''Life of Pericles'' *Plutarch, ''Life of Themistocles'' *Pseudo-Aristotle, ''On Melissus, Xenophanes and Gorgias'' *Simplicius, ''Commentary on Aristotle's On Heaven'' *Simplicius, ''Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics''Secondary
*Baird, Forrest E. and Walter Kaufmann, ''Ancient Philosophy'', 4th Ed., Philosophic Classics, Volume I. Prentice Hall, 2003. * Barnes, Jonathan, ''The Presocratic Philosophers''. Routledge, New York, 1982. * Diels, Hermann and Walther Kranz, ''Die Fragmente Der Vorsokratiker'', (1903), 7th Ed. Berlin: Weidmann, 1954. * Kirk, G.S., J.E. Raven and M. Schofield, ''The Presocratic Philosophers'', 2nd Ed. Cambridge University Press, 2004. *Makin, Stephen, "Melissus and his opponents : the argument of DK 30 B 8", ''Phronesis'' 2005 50 (4), pp. 263–288. * McKirahan, Richard D., ''Philosophy before Socrates'', Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994. *Rapp, Christof, "Zeno and the Eleatic anti-pluralism", in Maria Michela Sassi (ed.), ''La costruzione del discorso filosofico nell'età dei Presocratici / The Construction of Philosophical Discourse in the Age of the Presocratics'', Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006, pp. 161–182.External links
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