Parmenides' Refutation of Motion

Abstract

1 Parmenides' Refutation of Motion* G. S. KIRK AND MICHAEL C. STOKES INCE Bumet at least (EGP3 pp. 179 and 1 8 1 ) it has been common to attributes to Parmenides the argument against motion described by Melissus in his fragment 7. A particularly clear example of this tendency is seen on pp. 13 f. of K. R. Popper's 'Back to the Pre- Socratics' (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, i 958-9) : 'Parmenides based his theory of reality on something like a logical proof; a proof which can be presented as proceeding from the single premiss "What is not