Abstract

In this article I reopen some basic problems in the interpretation of Parmenides’ ‘Way of Truth’ familiar to anyone who has wrestled with his poem. The hub of my discussion is fr. B2, in which the goddess formulates two ‘routes of inquiry’, an affirmative one—‘is’, and a negative one—‘is not’. The former she commends, while the latter she rejects as ‘wholly unlearn-able’, on the ground that ‘thou couldst not know what is not, nor couldst thou point it out’.