Chapter 7: ELEATIC ONTOLOGY FROM XENOPHANES TO PARMENIDES AND BEYOND.

The article presents a discussion on eleatic ontology as explained by Xenophanes, Parmenides and other ancient Greek philosophers. Parmenides of Elea, near Paestum on the south-western tip of Italy, is generally recognized as the founding father of a tradition of ontological thought which profoundly influenced the development of Classical philosophy. Along with philosopher Heraclitus he is the single most important individual thinker in shaping the language and general world-view of European metaphysics. In this chapter, the author wish both to uphold this literary representation and open lines of interpretation which qualify the thesis that "Western thought" begins with Parmenides. He suggests that the roots of Western metaphysics are to be found in poetry, not logic. Before turning to Parmenides' thought, however, the author explores the ideas of an earlier figure--Xenophanes of Colophon, who formulated a remarkably similar conception of the unity of God one generation before Parmenides' birth. Xenophanes' logos, in fact, is the key link between the earlier Milesian tradition of cosmology, Pythagorean mathesis, and Parmenides' poem on Being.