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Parmenides’ Problem of Becoming and Its Solution

Article in History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis · November 1999

DOI: 10.30965/26664275-00201006

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Erwin Tegtmeier
Parmenides’ Problem of Becoming and Its Solution

From Plato to the present, the predominant view has been that Parmenides’ problem of
becoming arose from a misconception of being and/or knowing. However, I will try to
show that the problem is genuine and remains unsolved without a fundamental change in
our common notion of becoming. Moreover, I will plead for a return to Parmenides’ strict
concept of being which excludes any kind of non-being, of non-existence. Bringing in non-
existence is usually implicit and loose, especially with respect to the passage of time. It
was Parmenides’ eminent achievement to attend to it and to take it seriously. His
successors, Plato and Aristotle, saw no other way than to reject the strict concept of being
and to acknowledge some kind of semi-existence.
The strict concept is to be distinguished from the marks of being (timelessness, continuity,
indivisibility). Parmenides derives them from his main conclusions (the impossibility of
becoming, change, and plurality). Unlike the strict concept of being, the marks of being
have been undeservedly influential. In Plato the influence is obvious. But even in the
empiricist antipode to the rationalist Parmenides, in Aristotle, it is there despite his
dismissal of Parmenides, and by no means peripherally. At least in the Metaphysics the
central conception of being proper (ousia) is Parmenidian. Ousia is choriston, i.e., separate
from time and change, it is permanent (to a certain extent, at least). Think also of God’s
role as model existent in European metaphysics which he plays because of his eternity and
inalterability.

I. The Problem

Parmenides’ problem of becoming involves certain partly intertwined arguments which

lead to the conclusion that there is no becoming and hence that the world as we know it
from perception is an illusion. Unfortunately, those arguments cannot be gathered easily
from the fragments of Parmenides’ didactic poem which have come down to us, even
though the first part of it, in which the arguments occur, is nearly complete (Diels
estimated that we have nine tenths of it). The interpretations differ widely, are mostly
incomplete and highly speculative, not only because the order and grammar of the
fragments is sometimes uncertain, but also, because of the inevitably immature level of
conceptualisation still prevalent at that early stage of philosophy. That is why one has to
reconstruct Parmenides’ arguments. The reconstruction I will expound differs in important
respects from current interpretations . I came to Parmenides after developing a systematic
1

ontology which led me to appreciate his arguments, though not his conclusions. I find in
the first main part, the truth section (B2 to B8,51), four arguments against becoming which
I want to call the ontological, the logical, the epistemological and the causal argument.

II. Parmenides’ Main Thesis

In fragment 2 of Parmenides’ poem two routes of inquiry are distinguished, in fragment 6

three routes. Only the first is recommended, the other two are strongly warned against. The
first route is marked by the slogan: that it is and cannot not be, the second by: that it is not
and cannot be, and the third: it is and is not. The last one is also described as the way on
which mortals wander, knowing nothing, double-headed. There has been a controversy
about the meaning of the subject “it”. Owen has suggested that it stands for any object of

1 cf. e.g. S.Austin:Parmenides. New Haven/London 1986, D.Gallop: Parmenides of Elea. Toronto/London
1970, E.Heitsch: Parmenides. München 1974, A.P.D.Mourelatos: The Route of Parmenides. New
Haven/London 1970
 2

thought , Kahn, for any object of knowledge , Verdenius, for the universe . Now, in the
2 3 4

Greek sentence there is no subject at all, not even a pronoun. But that is a possibility of
Greek grammar not available in English, which does not rule out a semantic subject. My
reason for following Fränkel’s view that there is no subject to be provided has to do with
5

the role of the respective sentences. They are methodological slogans rather than
assertions.
What then do the methodological recommendations amount to? The answer I want to
submit takes a clue from fragment 4. The position of this fragment is uncertain and the
second part of it seems in one respect to fit better into the opinion-section, i.e., after
fragment 8. But the first part can be understood to continue fragment 3, which states that
what is knowable, is and that what is, is knowable. Fragment 4 responds to doubts about
the knowability of all things by pointing out that mind apprehends (noein) things which are
not present and cannot be known by perception.
Now, ”to be present” has both a temporal and a spatial sense. Likewise, ”to be near a
subject”. And mind is able to apprehend not only the spatially distant and non-present, but
also the temporally distant and non-present. However, there is a common conviction,
seemingly shared by Parmenides, that the temporally non-present does not exist. This
means that mental acts which have non-present (i.e., past or future) objects, have non-
existent objects. If we take becoming into account, we have many objects of mental acts
which exist and do not exist, which are taken to exist at certain times and to be non-
existent at other times. That, I would suggest, is what Parmenides calls the third route
wavering between being and non-being. The second way warned against first is
presumably the willingness to admit non-existent things, past things of which it is taken to
be true that they are not and cannot be. I submit that the route recommended is to avoid
strictly anything non-existent and to realise that what exists cannot be non-existent, e.g., by
passing away. Parmenides' deep insight, lost or obscured by most of his successors, is just
to take the customary thoughtless assumption of non-existents as, e.g. past and future
things seriously and to mind their non-existence. He saw that what does not exist cannot in
any way contribute to what does exist, it simply does not fit into the world.
I think Parmenides’ central thesis is this: the non-existent must have no status in a science
of ontology and hence the temporal has to be excluded. The common world-outlook
(doxa), of which Parmenides offers an improved systematisation in the second main
section of his poem may, nevertheless, occupy itself with it. That is why it is contrasted to
truth (aletheia).
There is an influential paper by Kahn, which advocates that Parmenides’ first route is
guided by the principle that what we know is always an actual state of affairs. Therefore,
6

the “is” does not apply to things, as most scholars supposed before, and as I do, but to
states of affairs. Correspondingly, the second route would be to acknowledge non-actual
states of affairs. Kahn thinks that we do so when we conceive of coming into being from
non-being. But, what would be the non-actual state of affairs, if b came into being? The
7

state of affairs that b does not exists involving existence as a predicate? The assumption of
an existence predicate is highly controversial. Moreover, the question arises, how there can
be a singular state of affairs about b if b does not exist. Does it not presuppose b in order to
be possible? So, it is not advisable to take Parmenides as having started from a thesis
involving states of affairs. Mourelatos, commenting on Kahn’s paper in the same volume,

2 G.E.L.Owen.: Eleatic Questions, in: G.E.L.Owen: Logic, Science, and Dialectic. London 1986, p.15f.
3 Ch.H.Kahn: The Thesis of Parmenides, Review of Metaphysics 22 (1969); p.713
4 W.J.Verdenius: Parmenides - Some Comments on his Poem. Groningen 1942
5 H.Fränkel: Review of W.J.Verdenius: Parmenides- Some Comments on his Poem,in: Classical Philology
41 (1946), p.169
6 op.cit. p.711f.
7 op.cit. p.716
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holds it to be certain that Parmenides’ single being falls under the category of individual 8

and Tugendhat calls it a bad anachronism to attribute to Parmenides the concept of state of
affairs. ’
9

Kahn’s interpretation has the advantage of maintaining the close connection in Parmenides
between ontological thesis and epistemological argument, states of affairs being regarded,
first of all, as truth-conditions, and, at the same time, of offering a rather plausible rationale
of Parmenides’ thesis, namely that knowledge depends on existing states of affairs.
However, the plausibility is weakened by wider ontological considerations. Not every
ontology comprising the category of states of affairs provides for a state of affairs for each
true sentence or belief. In the ontology of the early Wittgenstein (to which Kahn refers),
e.g., there are no states of affairs corresponding to compound, quantified and negative
sentences and beliefs even though they are true. The respective knowledge would
accordingly be knowledge of non-existents. Thus Parmenides’ rejection of the non-existent
is after all not self-evident in Kahn’s version. On the other hand, if Parmenides had his eye
on non-existing facts rather than non-existing things, the claim that we cannot have
knowledge of non-existents would be right provided knowing is taken in the narrow sense
of justified true belief. It seems that other kinds of mental states, such as imagining for
example, can have non-existent objects.
To sum up: in my view Parmenides’ main thesis aims at admitting only existing things into
ontology and at excluding in particular temporally non-present things and things not
completely present.

III. Parmenides’ Arguments Against Becoming

Becoming, i.e., transience of being, is a problem experienced in everyday life. Parmenides

made it a continuing problem of philosophy by advancing his four arguments and
concluding that there is no becoming. One can distinguish two kinds of becoming,
emergence and passing away. For the sake of simplicity, I will examine the arguments only
with respect to emergence. Since passing away is the mirror image of emergence, the
results concerning the latter can easily be transferred to the former.

a. The Ontological Argument

I start with the ontological argument which I consider central and as being based on the
strict concept of being. In contemporary terms, Parmenides’ first route is to grant
ontological status only to existents. The first argument which moves on this route and
which I therefore called “the ontological argument”, which I gather chiefly from fragments
2,6 and 8, can be subdivided into the following steps:
1. The emergence of a thing b is a transition from its non-existence to its existence.
2. The non-existent and its non-existence have no ontological status whatsoever.
3. Whatever involves something without ontological status, has no such status either.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The emergence of b does not have ontological status.
By ” having ontological status” I mean ”being brought up specifically in an ontological
account”. The first premise is common to all the arguments. It is the customary conception
of emergence, of coming into existence (as is usually said), which is taken for granted by
common sense and apparently by Parmenides, too. Nowhere does he state it explicitly, but
it is implied by 8,20. That Parmenides considers in 8,6ff. the alternative possibilities of
emergence from a non-being or from a being might be thought to conflict with the
assumption that he holds the first premise. The conception of emergence as the transition

8 op.cit. p.741
9 s. E.Tugendhat Das Sein und das Nichts, in: V.Klostermann(ed) Durchblicke. Frankfurt 1970, p.138
 4

from non-being to being seems to exclude the second possibility. In reality it does not. The
emergence of a thing x from another thing y (which existed before x) is compatible with
the transition from the non-existence of x to the existence of x, just because x and y are
diverse. The second premise occurs as 8,11, where there is also an indication that
Parmenides takes it to be a necessary truth.

b. The Logical Argument

The logical argument is advanced in fragment 7. Its crucial premise is a specification of the
law of non-contradiction with respect to being, to existence. Parmenides states that the
existing can never be forced to be non-existent. This statement is indicated as a premise by
an initial “for” (“gar”). Naturally, Parmenides does not have a sophisticated concept of a
logical law. But he catches the character of lawfulness quite well by conceiving of it as a
limit of our making and as a forcing something to be. Since the argument against becoming
hinges on a logical law, I call it the logical argument. It runs:
1. The emergence of b is a transition from the non-existence of b to the existence of b
2. The conjunction of the existence of b and the non-existence of b is impossible.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The emergence of b is impossible.

This argument has been gravely underestimated by subsequent philosophers and by

philosophers in general who take for granted, with common sense, that time dissolves the
contradiction. It is part of Parmenides’ greatness to have realised the depth of the problem.
There is a customary and seemingly easy way out of the contradiction by relating existence
to time. That b does not exist at t0 but exists at t1 does not appear contradictory. However,
to relate one-place predicates to time points implausibly turns them into two-place
relations. Existence becomes a relation between the existent and the time point. Basically,
existence is taken for temporal location. With respect to spatial localisation my point is
seen more easily: to say that x exists at place o is nothing but saying that x is located at
place o. This view of existence refuses from the start ontological status to universals and
other entities which are not temporally located including time points themselves.
Moreover, time points are ontologically doubtful entities anyway. There is a strong case for
a relational ontology of time and such an ontology would not allow to analyse time points
in such a way that they could serve as relata of existence. Finally, one can object against
relating the existence of the thing b to time points, that the existence in question concerns
only b and not the time points. Similarly, one could argue against turning the predicate “is
red” into a relation between a surface and a time point: the property of redness belongs to
the surface only.
Finally, I want to draw attention to the incompatibility of this relating to time points with
the customary tensed conception of becoming which centres on the existence of b
cancelling or repealing the non-existence of b or the non-existence of b cancelling or
repealing the existence of b while the relating to time places them side by side. To exist at
an earlier time point t is different from having existed. The latter clearly implies non-
existence, the former does not. Thus, the way out of the contradiction defends a view
different from that attacked by Parmenides. Parmenides obviously opposes the tensed
view.
Accustomed as we are to the tensed view one may even wonder whether the second
premise of the logical argument has to be assumed and is in accordance with the
phenomenon of becoming. It seems to me that Parmenides is quite right in putting in this
premise. Becoming implies not only a temporal order but also a combination of two
opposite states. These two states form the transition together. Hence their conjunction is
required.
 5

To sum up, I hold that the ontological and the logical arguments are sound. Later on, after
reconstructing the remaining two arguments, I will discuss Plato’s and Aristotle’s criticism
and their alternatives.

c. The Epistemological Argument

The epistemological argument which can be gathered from fragment 3 in connection with
fragment 8,2-9 is this:
1. The emergence of b is a transition from a non-existent b to an existent b.
2. A non-existent b is unknowable.
3. What is unknowable in essential parts, is unknowable as a whole.
4. Its initial non-existence is an essential part of b’s emergence
-------------------------------------------------------
The emergence of b is unknowable

The second premise is also brought forward at the end of fragment 2 against the route of
non-being and in support of the route of being and, hence, also in support of the crucial
premise of the ontological argument, which says that the non-existent has no ontological
status. Here the arguments are interwoven.
The epistemological argument does not go down well with many Parmenides scholars. It is
seen as resulting from a primitive view of mental acts, extending to all kinds of mental acts
what holds only of perception. Fragment 3 pronounces a principle of correspondence
between knowing and being. Some philosophers have taken Parmenides to mean that
thinking and being of something is the same. This would make Parmenides an idealist. It
has to be admitted that the key word “hauto” is ambiguous. However, the usual reading is
that it states a principle of correspondence between the existing and the thinkable.
A similar principle is to be found in the phenomenological movement (most explicitly in
Meinong), namely the principle that every mental act must have an object and that this
object must have ontological status. It derives from the view that mental acts stand in an
intentional relation which has two terms. Gustav Bergmann who shares the principle calls
it principle of presentation .
10

Thus Parmenides’ second premise is not as naive as some interpreters think. They merely
took for granted the nominalistic and conceptualistic doctrine that thinking proper is not
based on the world but flows mainly from reason. This doctrine suggests that some kinds
of thoughts (presumably the more abstract ones such as generalisations or negations) do
not have objective counterparts.
I agree with Parmenides’ critics that the epistemological argument is weaker than the first
two, because its second premise is controversial. At least, the principle of presentation is
not obviously false. Its advocates take into account imagination and false perceptions and
beliefs. And they furnish objects for all acts, including what are traditionally called
judgements, by acknowledging facts or similar entities such as e.g. Meinongian objectives.

d. The Causal Argument

The causal argument seems weaker still. It turns up in fr.8 as the first branch of a double-
branched argument against becoming or, rather, against emergence. The first branch
concerns the case of emergence from a non-being and the second branch the case of
emergence from a being. And the causal argument runs as follows:
1. The emergence of b is a transition from a non-existent b to an existent b.
2. The emergence from something non-existent is causally unexplainable.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The emergence of b is causally unexplainable.

10 G.Bergmann: New Foundations for Ontology. Madison, Wisc. 1992, p.61

 6

It has been frequently noted that Parmenides appeals implicitly to a principle of sufficient
reason. Such a principle may be hard to defend after what has been called “the stochastic
revolution”. The traditional principle “ex nihilo nihil fit” derived from Parmenides is not
self-evident. It implies that any becoming is really change and that the universe has no
beginning. The latter conflicts with recent cosmology.
As to the second branch of Parmenides’ whole argument, the denial of emergence from a
being derives from his extreme monism, i.e., the view that there is only one simple thing.
This view is certainly mistaken. Hence, the argument as a whole and the causal branch of it
are very weak and no challenge of contemporary ontology. The same seems to be true of
Parmenides’ reasoning against pluralism. It does indeed depend on misunderstandings
which I cannot go into here. But as I pointed out, that is definitely not the case with the
ontological and the logical argument.

IV. Plato’s Criticism of the Ontological Argument

In The Sophistes Plato rejects the second premise of the ontological argument. Plato claims
ontological status for non-existence because of certain facts such as that (255e,256a)
motion is not rest. Obviously, the examples have nothing to do with existence, but only
with diversity. Plato’s argument is misguided. It hinges on the ambiguity of the verb “to
be” (the Greek einai) which may stand for existence, for sameness, or for the predicative
connection. Plato does explicitly name Parmenides as the aim of his criticism. And he cites
Parmenides' repudiation of the route of non-being (237b). Nevertheless, his objection is
obviously irrelevant, at least to the problem of non-existence and becoming.

V. Aristotle’s Criticism
Aristotle makes the ambiguity of being his crucial point. And he proposes in Physics
(185a) that Parmenides’ arguments turn out to be untenable, as soon as one takes that
ambiguity into account. Now, the ambiguities which Aristotle elaborates on (in
Metaphysics and Categories) are further differentiations of the predicative and the
sameness-“is” and do not concern existence at all. Aristotle’s categorical differentiations
are irrelevant to Parmenides’ problem of becoming and to the ontological argument, even if
one takes Arisotle, as many scholars do, to be concerned with existence and conceiving his
categories as kinds or ways of existence. This is because becoming cannot be seen as a
11

transition from one category to another category. Only Aristotle’s modes of being,
potentiality and actuality, are applicable in an analysis of becoming. However, they do not
occur in Physics. In Metaphysics (1048) and On Generation and Corruption (317a)
Aristotle applies them to becoming. Emergence is taken to be the transition from matter in
the mode of potentiality to a substance in the mode of actuality. Aristotle associates
potentiality with non-being (On Generation and Corruption 317b, Metaphysics 1032a).
But since matter and the potential in general has a certain ontological status, even though
having no form, it is unintelligible. So it is best rated as semi-being or semi-existent. 12

Aristotle’s analysis of becoming seems calculated to block the ontological and the causal
argument by introducing potential entities. And he is widely credited with having found the
final solution to Parmenides’ problem of becoming. But what he does is just to reject the
problem rather than solve it. He grants ontological status to something not fully in

11 This is not the interpretation, e.g., of J.Owens, see The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian
“Metaphysics. Toronto 1978, p.309
12 Recently, U.Meixner turned the Aristotelian concept of actuality against Parmenides and accused him of
using the term “being” ambiguously, partly in the sense “actual” and partly in a wider sense. In a comment
on Meixner’s paper I argued that the distinction has no place in Parmenides’ ontology. See U.Meixner:
“Parmenides und die Logik der Existenz” Grazer Philosophische Studien 47 (1994), and E.Tegtmeier:
“Meixner über Parmenides” Grazer Philosophische Studien 51 (1996).
 7

existence. Thus he simply walks Parmenides’ second route. Aristotle is not afraid of
non--being, mentioning only in passing that the oldest wise men were (317b).

VI. Plato’s and Aristotle’s Reaction to the Logical Argument

As was said before, the logical argument depends on the law of non-contradiction. There is
a sentence in Parmenides’ poem which may be taken to state this law. It says (at the
beginning of fragment 7) that it is impossible to force to be what is not. We may here take
the verb to be in the predicative and the existential sense. Obviously, Parmenides does not
distinguish between these senses. Thus we get a statement that is of unrestricted generality
and is to this extent in harmony with modern standard logic. Plato and Aristotle, though,
specify the law temporally (Plato: Politics 435b, Aristotle:Metaphysics 1081b). In
Aristotle’s Metaphysics Book K the law is explicated as the impossibility of something
being the case and not the case at the same time. The temporalized law of non-
contradiction would exclude p & Øq & G (p,q), where ”G” stands for the relation of
simultaneity, while the non-temporalized version excludes p & Øq in general. Note, that
Plato and Aristotle refer in the places quoted to time with respect to the logical law, not
with respect to predication.
Neither Plato nor Aristotle introduces the law of non-contradiction with reference to
Parmenides’ logical argument, but it is apt to undermine this argument. If the second
premise is changed, the conclusion no longer follows because the non-existence and
existence of b do not occur simultaneously. Therefore the transition from the non-existence
of an emerging b to its existence and the respective conjunction is in accordance with the
temporalized law.
But is such a temporalized logical law adequate? As mentioned, the customary version of
the law of non-contradiction in modern logic is unrestrictedly general and not related to
time. And one has to see that the temporalization of the law is different from the
temporalization of predication. That b is green at t0 and not green at t1 is not excluded by a
non-temporalized law of non-contradiction. Thus a temporalisation of predication would
remove the reason to temporalise the law of non-contradiction. A decisive objection
against a temporalisation is that the logical law would be inapplicable, then, to temporal
predications. It makes no sense to say that an event e cannot for logical reasons be
simultaneously simultaneous with an event e’ and not simultaneous with e’. Only a
nonspecified law does not lead to such absurdities. Moreover, a logical law has to be
unrestrictedly general. But an unrestricted law of non-contradiction would, of course, keep
Parmenides’ logical argument in force.
 8

VII. The Differentiation of Existence

Both Plato and Aristotle try to meet the challenge of Parmenides by a differentiation of
being. As mentioned already, Aristotle makes it the central point of his metaphysics. He
distinguishes several categories as kinds of being and also potential and actual being
having in mind the predicative ”is”. The division of categories is, as the Greek word says,
in the first place a division of predicates. Plato points out in his Politics (477a), where he
deals with becoming, that existence has to be differentiated and even graded. His view is
that things which emerge or pass away are situated between existence and non-existence
because they participate in both. In Aristotle, too, there is a gradation of being. Substance
and actual being is put higher than potential and accidental being.
Plato and Aristotle can be taken to offer analyses of becoming suited to invalidate
Parmenides’ arguments. These analyses differ. According to Plato, the emergence of a
perceptual thing is a transition not from non-existence to existence, as Parmenides assumes,
but from non-existence to semi-existence. In contrast, Aristotle takes emergence to be a
transition from semi-existence to existence. The semi-existent entity from which a
perceptual thing (substance) emerges and into which it dissolves is matter. Matter has
potentiality, the completed thing actuality.
Though Plato and Aristotle see themselves as having overcome Parmenides’ arguments,
they stay, as was said already, with his marks or criteria of existence. Nevertheless, they
arrive at different results with respect to the perceptual thing. Plato denies it full existence
because it lacks the permanency, independence and simplicity which he attributes to ideas,
while Aristotle argues that the substantial form of a perceptual thing fulfils the criteria and
that the thing is thus at bottom an existent in the full sense.

VIII. The Strict and Univocal Concept of Existence

The conceptions of semi-existence and of grades of existence, however influential
historically, seem to me mistaken. Examining these, one quickly discovers difficulties.
Plato (Politics 477a), as was mentioned earlier, starts from the premise that becoming
things exist and do not exist (namely exist for some time and do not for the rest of the time)
to infer that they are situated between non-existence and existence, which can only mean
that they have a semi-existence. Yet, if existence is graded from non-existence to existence,
existence proper is full existence and semi-existence is incompatible with it, as well as with
non-existence, each grade of existence competing with each other, as in every gradation.
Hence, having semi-existence entails having neither existence nor non-existence, thus the
falsity of Platos premises namely that the transient thing has existence as well as non-
existence.
However, one might feel that the attribution of semi-existence to a an object b does not
amount to a denial of b existence. If this feeling is correct, then existence must be different
from full existence. In the same vein one would want to continue the talk of beginning and
ceasing to exist with respect to the allegedly semi-existing thing. This shows, I think, that it
is not really existence which has been graded by Plato but rather duration. I would argue
that existence and non-existence do not form a dimension which has grades and that it just
does not make sense to grade existence. 13

In Aristotle the difficulties are more external than internal. An application exhibits the
implausibility of his conception of semi-existence. Consider his example of the block of
wood designed to become a statue. That the block is a potential but no actual statue,
obviously, does not diminish its existence. As was noticed already, it is not clear whether
Aristotle wants to grade existence here or merely distinguish potential and actual

13 This is also one of the main points of Brentano’s ontology, s. F.Brentano: Kategorienlehre. Hamburg
1974, Part 1 Chap.III
 9

predication. In the latter case, he would offer no contribution to Parmenides’ problem.

There is a context in which Aristotle explicity grades being. Where he discusses certain
difficulties of his analysis of relations, he characterizes the relation because of these
difficulties as ”least a being” (Metaphysica 1088a). This way of immunizing his ontology
against empirical test disqualifies itself and the conception of grading existence involved.
I would like to praise Parmenides for his strict concept of existence. There is no basis in
reality for a grading of being. Either something exists or it does not. Think, on the one
hand, of an apple on the table. And imagine, on the other hand, that it does not exist at all.
If you eat it piece by piece, it, presumably, becomes less and less an apple. Nevertheless,
the stalk does not exist less than the whole apple. There are no grades of existence. And
being, in the sense of existing, is not ambiguous at all. It is univocal, as Duns Scotus said.

IX. The Solution to Parmenides’ Problem

That the perceptual thing, after having emerged, exists is assumed by Parmenides only to
reduce it to absurdity. His final result is that no perceptual thing exists at all, because none
is permament, because every perceptual thing emerges and passes away. This is a
disastrous result, indeed, and someone sticking to his strict concept of existence has to do
something about it.
My solution is to reject the first premise of Parmenides arguments and to suggest a very
different view of becoming: becoming is not a transition from non-existence to existence or
the other way round. It is a purely temporal affair and has nothing to do with existence or
non-existence. Becoming is based on things having a beginning and an end. The beginning
and the end could be conceived as temporal parts of the thing, the beginning the earliest
and the end as the latest. The temporal parts of a thing are connected by the relation
‘earlier’. That a temporal part is an earliest means that no other temporal part of the thing
bears the earlier-relation to it. And that a temporal part is a latest means that it bears the
earlier-relation to no other temporal part of the thing. According to my relational ontology
times are analysed as relations to clock states. If a soap-bubble emerged at 10 a.m. and
burst ten seconds later, this grounds on the first and last temporal parts of it being
sumultaneous with the respective signals of the standard clock.
It would be tempting to express my view of becoming by saying that the a becoming object
exists before its beginning and after its end or even by saying that it existed before its
beginning and will exist after its end. But these expressions are wrong. They represent a
connection of temporal location and existence or of tense an existence which differs from
the usual connection and does not make much sense. I advocate a complete separation of
time and existence . 14

Whatever exists does so independently of its duration and temporal location. There is no
past. present and future existence but only existence simpliciter. Nor is there existence
related to time points. There are no time points, no temporal absoluta.. Like Russell I am
convinced that temporal absolutism is wrong, that time is nothing but a group of relations
such as ‘is simultaneous’, ‘is earlier than’, ‘lasts as long as’ and ‘lasts longer than’. Date
and duration are relational. They base on relations to events which are used as measuring
standards. To the group of temporal relations belongs also the relation of temporal part.
Everything which changes has temporal parts by virtue of this relation or rather by virtue
of the respective relational facts.
My ontological analysis implies that becoming is not an existential transition, but not
necessarily that it is no transition at all. A transition is a temporal succession of opposite
states. Temporal succession bases on the relation ‘earlier than’(ER), which is a two-place
relation of the first order and hence holds between individual objects only including

14 For this I argued in detail in E.Tegtmeier: Zeit und Existenz.Parmenideische Meditationen. Tübingen
1997
 10

temporal parts. Temporal parts belong to the ontological category of individuals . 15

The transition or change of an lamp l from red to green colour bases on the temporal
succession of the temporal parts of l, l1 and l2. The transition can be represented
symbolically b ER(l1,l2)&Rl1&Gl2, where ”R” stands for the colour red and ”G” for the
colour green. Now, becoming is an extraordinary transition. It is no change of properties or
relations because a persisting object is missing. So an object of comparison c seems
idispensible in order to have a temporal succession corresponding to the becoming of an
object b. In the case of an emerging b the object of comparison c has to begin earlier than b
and in the case of b’s passing away the object of comparison has to last longer than b. The
emergence of b would then be the following fact: ER(c1,c2)&Ø($x)TP(x,b)&SI(x,c1)&
($y)TP(y,b)&SI(y,c2), where TP is the relation ‘temporal part’ and SI the relation of
simultaneity. The transition thus is represented by a sentence which contains what its
usually called the “existential quantifier”. So, it seems to imply existence. But the term is
misleading. The facts in question are numerical rather than existential. By the logical
phrase “there is no” expresses in my view that the number of entities of the kind specified
is not greater than zero .16

Now, the sketched relational conception of becoming may appear doubtful and leading to
an infinite regress. If there is no eternal object, i.e. no object of infinite duration in both
directions, each becoming requires an earlier or later becoming. And most likely there is no
such eternal process. However, the threatening regress reveals only the circumstance that
the earliest and the latest object (if there are such objects) would mark the beginning and
end of time itself. And the possibility of a beginning and end of time is entirely in
accordance with the relational view of time.

X. The Timelessness of all Existence

To offer a certain view as a solution to a problem is to support that view. The strength of
the support depends on the seriousness of the problem. So, my first task was to show that
Parmenides’ problem of becoming is real. If Parmenides’ arguments do not arise from
misunderstandings they constitute a very serious problem indeed since they lead to the
denial of a basic and ubiquitous phenomenon of the world. It supports the non-existential
view of becoming that it is not exposed to Parmenides’ arguments which refute the
existential view. Note that I did not make any ontological presuppositions when I showed
that at least some of Parmenides’ arguments are sound. I did not take for granted, e.g., that
there are no time points. Hence, I did not in delineating Parmenides’ problem rely on the
ontology into which the non-existential view of becoming is embedded.
The non-existential view of becoming implies that a object does not not exist before its
emergence and after it passing away. So, if one assumes a connection between time and
existence one has to countenance a constant connection, i.e. whatever exists at all would
have to be taken to exists always. Such an assumption would not make much sense,
however, especially since it would grant an object existence at times at which it is not
located. Hence, it turns out that the non-existential view of becoming entails a separation of
time and existence. Such a separation is not only required with respect to temporal location
but also with respect to tense. The existential view is in tense terms that becoming involves
past non-existence and present existence or present non-existence and past existence. If one
does not accept that a becoming thing is non-existent before its emergence and after its
passing away, one has to reject also solpresentism, i.e. the association of existence and the
present. Obviously, the becoming thing is not present outside its duration which entails

15 For my ontology and my conception of temporal parts which differs from Quine’s see E.Tegtmeier:
Grundzüge einer kategorialen Ontologie. Freiburg 1992, §4 ,8, 9 and E.Tegtmeier: Zeit und Existenz
§20,21,34,35.
16 For the relation between number and existence see E.Tegtmeier: Zeit und Existenz, §20
 11

according to solpresentism its non-existence at those times.

To separate time and existence is to reject any relating of existence to temporal location
and to tense. I hold that existence is independent of time. The common combination of
existence and temporal location is not is not as plausible anyway. It seems so only as long
as it is not articulated ontologically. The relating of existence to time points turns it
implausibly into a two-place relation. Likewise with the relating of other attributes to time
points which would make the property a two-place relation and the n-place relation a n+1-
place relation. Less convincing still is the tensing of existence and solpresentism. It
constricts the world to a now point and cuts off any temporal continuity because it prevents
succeeding states to exist together and form a sequence. Because such a sequence is
indispensible for any transition Parmenides rightfully assumes in his logical argument that
the transition between the non-existence and the existence of something entails a
conjunction of its non-existence and existence.
Rather than hindering inquiry, problems further it. So Parmenides’ problem made us see
that becoming is different and that time and existence are separate. In a way, Parmenides
who held on to the customary view of becoming arrived at a separation of time and
existence, too, namely by denying becoming (fr.8,21), motion and change (fr.8,40f.) and
thus denying the temporal altogether. If there are no temporal entities there is no
connection between time and existence.
In Parmenides only timeless entities exist. I grant that some entities are timeless, e.g.
universals. Time (i.e. certain universals) itself is nontemporal. To be nontemporal or
timeless means, in my view, merely, not to stand in temporal relations. However,
nontemporal entities do not do better with respect to existence than do temporal ones.
Existence is timeless, most existents are not. Existence is not a matter of duration. Duration
is not quantity of existence. The ephemeral exists no less than the permanent. Existence is
neither related to time-points nor is it tensed. Future and past things exist as well as present
things. When we say that x existed or that y will exist, the fact referred to is that x is earlier
and y later than the respective statement. There is no beginning or ending, no transition of
existence. This is part of the strict concept of existence.
Now, contemporary philosophy of time is strongly influenced by an opposition, due to
McTaggart, between the transitory and the extensive (sometimes also paradoxically called
static) aspect of time. The earlier-than-relation is assigned to the second aspect and
considered as a static order-relation. So, one might suspect that the analysis of becoming
proposed does not capture dynamism and thus cannot really overcome the Parmenidean
static world view, even though it does not eliminate time and change.
Actually, McTaggart initiated a major misconception of the relation ‘earlier than’ and of
Russell’s ontology of time. Russell takes the relation to be empirically given in cases of
rapid succession of events or rapid change. Obviously, these cases are processes, if
anything is a process. That a relation is an order relation means only that it fulfils certain
formal conditions. These do not prevent it from being dynamic. A serial order is dynamic
and a literal succession just in case it is generated by the temporal relation ‘earlier than’ . 17

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17 See Tegtmeier “Der Hyperdynamismus in der Ontologie der Zeit” Logos 2 (1994). My view of time is
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unsatisfactory and I would deny that there is an opposition between temporal relations and temporal
becoming. See Oaklander: Temporal Relations and Temporal Becoming 1984 and Oaklander and Smith: The
New Theory of Time. New Haven/London 1994.
 12

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