Parmenide in Damascio

Uni–molteplicità dell’essere e differenza ontologica nell’ultimo scolarca della Scuola platonica di Atene

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the references to Parmenides’ doctrine in Damascius’s
masterpiece De primis Principiis. Through the analysis of the concept of henomenon, i.e. the Unified, which is the being in its original unity, it is possible to understand which meaning Damascius ascribes to the Parmenidean ontological monism. He tries to overcome some aporetic problems concerning the Neoplatonic conception of the uni–multiplicity of being. He highlights the constitutive aporias of Neoplatonic metaphysics in its speculative development. Some of them seem ultimately to be due precisely to the postulation of the intrinsic multiplicity of being. This reveals further and indirectly the incontrovertible and ironclad logic of Parmenides’ ontological monism.