by calling him the inventor of dialectic, which is just the art of arguing, not from true premisses, but from premisses admitted by the other side. The theory of Parmenides had led to conclusions which contradicted the evidence of the senses, and Zeno's object was not to bring fresh proofs of the theory itself, but simply to show that his opponents' view led to contradictions of a precisely similar nature.
158.Zeno and Pythagoreanism. That Zeno's dialectic was mainly directed against the Pythagoreans is certainly suggested by Plato's statement, that it was addressed to the adversaries of Parmenides, who held that things were "a many."[1] Zeller holds, indeed that it was merely the popular form of the belief that things are many that Zeno set himself to confute;[2] but it is surely not true that ordinary people believe things to be "a many" in the sense required. Plato tells us that the premisses of Zeno's arguments were the beliefs of the adversaries of Parmenides, and the postulate from which all his contradictions are derived is the view that space, and therefore body, is made up of a number of discrete units, which is just the Pythagorean doctrine. We know from Plato that Zeno's book was the work of his youth.[3] It follows that he must have written it in Italy, and the Pythagoreans are the only people who can have criticised the views of Parmenides there and at that date.[4]
It will be noted how much clearer the historical position of Zeno becomes if we follow Plato in assigning him to a later date than is usual. We have first Parmenides, then the
- ↑ The view that Zeno's arguments were directed against Pythagoreanism has been maintained in recent times by Tannery (Science hellène, pp. 249 sqq.), and Bäumker (Das Problem der Materie, pp. 60 sqq.).
- ↑ Zeller. p. 589 (Eng. trans. p. 612).
- ↑ Parm., loc. cit.
- ↑ Empedokles has been suggested. He was about the same age as Zeno, indeed (§ 98), and he seems to criticise Parmenides (§ 106), but the arguments of Zeno have no special applicability to his theories. Anaxagoras is still less likely.
ὑποθέσθαι, Attic προθέσθαι). If the conclusions (τά συμβαίνοντα) which necessarily follow from the ὑπόθεσις are impossible, the ὑπόθεσις is "destroyed" (cf. Plato, Rep. 533 c 8, τὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀναιροῦσα). The author of the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς knows the word ὑπόθεσις in a similar sense.
