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MELISSUS OF SAMOS

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 95 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MELISSUS OF See also:

SAMOS , See also:Greek philosopher of the Eleatic School (q.v.), was See also:born probably not later than 470 B.C. According to See also:Diogenes Laertius, ix. 24, he was not only a thinker, but also a See also:political See also:leader in his native See also:town, and was in command of the See also:fleet which defeated the Athenians in 442. The same authority says he was a See also:pupil of Parmenides and of Heraclitus, but the statement is improbable, owing to discrepancy in See also:dates. His See also:works, fragments of which are preserved by See also:Simplicius and attested by the See also:evidence of See also:Aristotle, are devoted to the See also:defence of Parmenides' See also:doctrine. They were written in Ionic and consist of See also:long See also:series of See also:argument. Being, he says, is eternal. It cannot have had a beginning because it cannot have begun from not-being (cf. ex nihilo See also:nail), nor from being (ern yap av See also:arras Kai of; yivoero). It cannot suffer destruction; it is impossible for being to become not being, and if it became another being, there would be no destruction. According to Simplicius (Physica, f. 22b), he differed here from Parmenides in distinguishing being and See also:absolute being (rb airAws i6v). He goes on to show that eternal being must also be unlimited in magnitude, and, therefore, one and unchangeable.

Any See also:

change whether from See also:internal or See also:external source, he says, is unthinkable; the One is unvarying in quantity and in See also:kind. There can be no See also:division inside this unity, for any such division implies space or void; but void is nothing, and, therefore, is not. It follows further that being is incorporeal, inasmuch as all See also:body has See also:size and parts. The fundamental difficulty underlying this See also:logic is the See also:paradox more clearly expressed by See also:Zeno and to a large extent represented in almost all See also:modern discussion, namely that the evidence of the senses contradicts the See also:intellect. Abstract argument has shown that change in the unity is impossible; yet the senses tell us that hot becomes See also:cold, hard becomes soft, the living See also:dies, and so on. From a comparison of Melissus with Zeno of Elea, it appears that the spirit of See also:dialectic was already tentatively at See also:work, though it was not conscious of its own See also:power. Neither Melissus nor Zeno seems to have observed that the application of these destructive methods struck at the See also:root not only of multiplicity but also of the One whose existence they maintained. The weapons which they forged in the interests of Parmenides were to be used with equal effect against them-selves. See See also:Ritter and See also:Preller, §§ 159-166; See also:Brandis, Commentationum eleaticarum, pt.', p. 185; Mullach, Aristotelis de Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia ; See also:Pabst, De Melissa samii fragmentis (See also:Bonn, 1889), and histories of See also:philosophy.

End of Article: MELISSUS OF SAMOS

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