SOURCE: Edward Hussey, "Parmenides and Zeno," in The Presocratics, Duckworth, 1972, pp. 78-106.

In the following excerpt, Hussey considers the proofs in Parmenides's poem, attempts to explain what "that which is" means, and summarizes the arguments of Parmenides's disciple Zeno.

The foundation, around the year 540, of the city of Elea in southern Italy has already been mentioned. The city settled down to an undistinguished and provincial history. But in philosophy, at least, its name is as immortal as any other, on account of two of its citizens who were active as thinkers in the first half of the fifth century: Parmenides and his pupil Zeno, the former born in all probability about 515, the latter about 490.

Parmenides is the first Presocratic of whose thought we still have a nearly complete and continous exposition in his own words. That this is so is due entirely to one man, the Neoplatonist scholar...