Parmenides is important because he was one of the first philosophers to argue that reality is unchanging and that change is an illusion. He also argued that reality is a single, indivisible substance, which he called “the One”.
Philosopher was born in Elea (now Velia), in South Italy, around 515 BCE. His family was wealthy enough for him to be educated at Athens. He then traveled widely as a young man and studied with the Sophists – an ancient group of itinerant teachers who taught rhetoric and political philosophy.
In his early twenties, Parmenides returned home to teach his own students. It is thought that he wrote only one poem during his lifetime – On Nature – but it was such an influential work that it has been described as “the most celebrated poem in the history of Greek philosophy”.
His most famous work, On Nature, describes his philosophical ideas about reality and truth. His view of reality is very different from that held by most other Greek philosophers at the time — they all believed that the world we live in changes from moment to moment; Parmenides argued instead that only one thing exists: “The One.”
Parmenides believed that The One is eternal and unchanging — it does not come into being nor does it pass away — and that everything else in existence is merely an illusion created by our senses: “There are two paths…one of descent into birth and darkness…and one of ascent out of darkness and birth…” (fragment 8).
