Zeno started the dialectical method as a way of systematic argumentation, despite being heraclitus the first to formulate a philosophy with a dialectical style. Roughly speaking, dialectics is an argumentative movement that consists in the withdrawal of a new thought or argument based on two arguments or theses contrary to each other. disciple of Parmenides, Zenão formed, together with his master and Melisso de Samos, the eleatic school or eleatic school. His philosophy had as its main characteristic the formulation of arguments armed as aporias, that is, demonstration of paradoxes that have no other way out than agreement with them.
Also access:Come learn about Thought Figures, like irony and paradox
Life
Some sources indicate that Zeno has born around 490 BC Ç. However, the section on the philosopher's life presented in the volume the pre-Socratics, from the Os Pensadores collection, curated by the greatest specialists in ancient philosophy in Brazil in the 1970s, says that Zenão was born between
504 a. Ç. and 501 a. Ç. the philosopher he died around 430 a. Ç. or 425 a. Ç., and was the most outstanding disciple of Parmenides, having developed aporias or paradoxes to defend the ideas of the Eleatic school and its master.It is speculated that Zeno's intellectual maturity occurred around 460 BC. C., when he was a student of Parmenides. Zeno was 40 years younger than his master and dedicated himself to deepening and defending his theories. Unlike most pre-Socratics, there is more than one complete work found by the philosopher. The main ones are: against physicists, Critical explanation of Empedocles, and about nature.
Zeno actively participated in the public and political life of his city, Elea. He legislated and held prominent positions in the civil service. The philosopher's participation in politics was so intense that his death was due to a conspiracy elaborated by Zeno against the tyrant Nearchus. Zeno was discovered, arrested and tortured to turn over the cronies of his conspiracy.
During the torture session, the philosopher stated that he wanted to be as much master of his body as he was of his tongue, not revealing any names. The intensity of the torture increased, and the philosopher assured the executioner that he would count the names, but secretly asking the torturer to bring his ear to his mouth. Upon getting the approach, Zeno would have bitten the executioner's ear. After this scene, Nearchus ordered the immediate execution of Zeno, which was soon fulfilled.
See too:Socrates, a philosopher also sentenced to death for his ideas
Main ideas
Zeno, as a representative of the ideas of Parmenides and the Eleatic school, does not develop a cosmology in the same way. that the Ionian and Pythagoreans did it, that is, thinking of an origin based on a kind of monism corporalist.
The word monism (originated based on the word mono — unique) refers to something singular, unique. When we talk about corporeality, we are indicating the existence of something material, physical. The ideas that the first pre-Socratics presented about the origin of everything can be called corporeal monistic ideas because they associate the origin of everything to a single physical element (water for Parmenides, air for Anaximenes, fire for Heraclitus etc.). For the Eleatics, the origin of the Universe is neither monistic nor corporeal, since, just as Parmenides thought there was no origin supported by an element, there wouldn't be either, for Zeno, an element that would have given rise to everything.
As already described in the philosophy of Parmenides, nature was characterized precisely by its immobility and yours eternal essences. If there was no change, there would also be no emergence, because things have always been and will always be the same way, in the Parmenidian conception. Change and movement were the result of illusions caused by the senses.
Zeno's works are not only linked to the theories of the Eleatic school, but consist of true defenses of the ideas of Parmenides. Zeno is considered the first dialectician, for dealing with the dialectic, already started before by heraclitus, as a heuristic means of defending ideas within an argumentative system. By defending that nature has a perpetual and inexhaustible flux that makes everything change over time all, Heraclitus is taking the first step towards formulating a dialectical way of doing philosophy.
The clearest dialectic ideas we have in philosophy come from the works of Plato and Hegel. Plato points out (and Hegel reinforces it in the 19th century) that dialectics is a argumentative set, in which any idea is presented (thesis). To this idea, an opposite idea must be presented (antithesis). Based on two opposing ideas, a new idea, a new concept or a new way of thinking emerges (synthesis). Therefore, dialectics is a set formed by thesis, antithesis and synthesis within the philosophical argument.
Zeno is the first to use this method more regularly, as he formulates a philosophy expressed by paradoxes. The word paradox, of Greek origin, literally means “against opinion” or opposite opinion. In his paradoxes, the Eleatic philosopher launches a common sense idea that apparently attests to the existence of movement. Then he makes an argumentative move trying to prove that the move doesn't exist. Thus, what results is a synthesis of the two previous ideas, generally agreeing with the antithesis (that movement is absurd, meaningless) presented by Zeno.
Know more:The Being for Parmenides
Zeno's Paradoxes
To defend the ideas of Parmenides, Zeno would have written a series of 40 aporias, of which only nine were found by modern historians. Zeno's nine aporias (or paradoxes), despite talking about different subjects and presenting different ways to conclude the central idea, have in common the fact that they are theses against the movement. They all conclude that there is no movement and change in the world, which is a confusion resulting from misperception of the senses.
- Dichotomy paradox: a body wants to move between point A and B. Despite making an effort to do so, he will not achieve the feat, because, between points A and B, there is a certain distance that it can be halved infinitely many times, resulting in an infinite sequence of spaces that the object will have to traverse.
- Achilles and the turtle: the paradox exposes the figure of Achilles, the most agile runner among the heroes of Greek mythology, that if placed in a race with a turtle in which the turtle was given a small advantage, it would have no chance of catching the animal. This would be because movement is an illusion, since at each instant there is a space occupied by a separate body and, in Zeno's theory, it would not be possible to take into account the instants in sequence. Between Achilles and the turtle, there would be a space that would never be filled.
- The Archer: in this paradox, Zeno claims that an arrow fired by an archer would never reach its target. This would happen for two reasons: between the archer and the target, there is a space that, in Zeno's mathematical theory, could be divided infinite times, having infinite spaces to be covered. Also, thinking about the movement of the arrow would actually be thinking that at each moment it occupies a space, which in Zeno's view does not configure movement, but successive states of rest.
Zeno's paradoxes seem silly in our eyes and easily refutable. However, this kind of rudimentary physics about the movement of bodies was hardly refuted by Aristotle, who doesn't seem to treat it as a silly theory. The theses about Zeno's movement were only actually buried by physics Newtonian, which assumes the idea of movement from a reference point. If you are more interested in the topic, read our text: Zeno's Paradoxes.
Sentences
"What moves is always in the same place now."
“If multiple are (things), they are necessarily small and large; small to such an extent that they have no greatness, large to such an extent that they are infinite.”
“A thing that does not have greatness and thickness, nor mass, could not exist. For if it were added to something else, it would not increase it at all; for if a magnitude that is nothing to another is added, nothing can gain in the latter's magnitude. And so the added nothing would be.”
Know more:Get to know more pre-Socratic philosophical schools like the Eleatic School
by Francisco Porfirio
Philosophy teacher
