The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s8.35

v2.c41.s8.35

K. Reinhardt,⁴ again, insists that Parmenides admits no distinction between thinking and being,⁵ but in his doctrine of opinion he aims, not at describing any merely apparent reality, but at the world as it necessarily presents itself to man, a world in which being and not-being stand side by side commingled, although he has no means of explaining their union, whence arises this empirical universe, save by hinting (μορφὰς γὰρ κατέθεντο δύο γνώμας ὀνομάζειν) that it is conventional as opposed to the one reality. Parmenides, on this view, in lieu of being essentially a materialist, was rather a logician, who, however, had not reached the stage when thought could be held to be other than reality. Like Frank, Reinhardt⁶ rejects the idea of any connexion between Parmenides and the Pythagoreans; nor indeed is there any real ground for this suggestion, least of all for the conception of Burnet that Parmenides was a Pythagorean who was renouncing the false doctrines of his youth.