SOURCE: Scott Austin, in an introduction to Parmenides: Being, Bounds, and Logic, Yale University Press, 1986, pp. 1-10.

In the following excerpt, Austin introduces Parmenides's poem and considers claims that it is self-referentially inconsistent.

Parmenides was born in Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy. He was the founder of Western rational theology, as well as of scientific explanation as we now know it. His innovations in logic, in the metaphysical characterization of ultimate reality, and in the construction of standards for explanation have been passed down to us by Plato and Aristotle, who departed from his insights only in order to further the quest for truth that he had begun. He may also have been a civic leader: it is reported that he constructed a code of laws for his city. He is supposed to have sat at the feet of the philosopher Xenophanes when the latter traveled...