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La filosofia eleatica al vaglio di Aristotele

Abstract

Aristotle affirms that Eleatic philosophy is close to madness because it denies becoming and multiplicity, which are attested by experience. This judgment is without exception in case of Zeno and Melissus; instead it would seem inadequate for Parmenides who, according to Aristotle himself, in the “third way” attributes some relevance to the experience. Through a detailed analysis of Eleatic arguments and of Aristotle’s objections it is shown that the judgment of proximity to madness also strikes Parmenides because in reality the relevance that this philosopher attributes to experience and to nature’s knowledge is bogus: in fact this knowledge is the object of « doxa », although true, and not of « science », as for Aristotle is physics.