Problems of Being

Evan Rodriguez

There was a rich array of ontological theorizing in fifth century Greece. Early Greek intellectuals
were interested in what there is in a broad sense, from the gods and cosmological phenomena to
the most fundamental elements of reality. When investigating what there is you might think that
there is little to say about the most general categories of being and not-being themselves; a
survey of the above-mentioned categories—the divine and cosmic realms and their underlying
constituents—might be sufficient for giving a comprehensive account of what exists. But fifth-
century thinkers found that giving an account of existence at the most general level is more
problematic than one might expect. Furthermore, ancient discussions of ontology soon led to
worries about how it is even possible to discuss being and not-being in the first place. The focus
of this chapter is ontology in this restricted sense, that is the study of being itself (in Greek, to
on) and its attendant problems, as discussed by the Greek sophists.
Some have doubted whether the canonical sophists played any role in discussions of
ontology in this sense. Sophists are better known today for their concerns about the nature of
language, politics, and other human constructions and are often portrayed as opposed to the rest
of the early Greek tradition.1 It is the Eleatic philosophers Parmenides, Melissus, and Zeno who
are more often associated with discussions of ontology. But sophists such as Gorgias and
Protagoras were indeed engaged in this broader discussion about to on. If both canonical sophists
and Eleatic philosophers discussed the same subject matter, then what justifies our distinguishing
the two with the conventional labels “sophist” and “philosopher”? What would make, say, for a
sophistic approach to the problems of being as opposed to a philosophical one?
In fact, the history of this distinction between sophist and philosopher is more fluid than
one might expect. In Antidosis 268, Isocrates mentions Parmenides, Gorgias, and Melissus all in
the same breath as “sophists” (sophistai) who discussed “the number of things that are” (LM
1T6).2 He uses the same “sophist” label for Zeno, along with Gorgias and Melissus, in Helen 3
(LM 1T7). Isocrates’ grave depicted Gorgias holding an astronomical sphere, an emblem
associated with natural philosophy (LM 32P35). As a witness much closer to these figures than
we are today, we should take seriously that idea that these Isocratean “sophists” were engaged in
similar projects and perhaps even took similar approaches to the study of being. Isocrates
distances himself from this type of study, portraying it as concerned with mere tricks and trivial
puzzles. Yet, while their writing was indeed more dialectical than dogmatic, we will see that this
is consistent with them engaging in serious discussion about problems of being.
This piece will focus on Gorgias’ On Not-Being, a clear sophistic contribution to
ontology and one for which we have the most surviving evidence. On Not-Being engages with
Eleatic discussions of being and not-being and also highlights problems that arise concerning
their knowability and communicability. Given its direct engagement with the broader Eleatic
context, we will begin with a discussion of Parmenides, the first of the Eleatics who set much of
the agenda for later ontological discussion.3 After looking at Gorgias’ work we will then turn to
1
This has not always been their reputation. In their own time the sophists were associated with a wide range of
intellectual pursuits, including cosmological ones, as evidenced by ancient comedy (especially Aristophanes’
Clouds). Laks and Most collect helpful relevant excerpts from Greek drama in an appendix (see e.g. LM 43T10, 18,
22, & 23).
2
All translations are from Laks and Most 2016 unless stated otherwise.
3
That is not to say that Parmenides was the first or the only Greek thinker of his time to discuss ontology. Much of

1
the Eleatics Zeno and Melissus to see how they too discussed ontology in a similar puzzle-
raising and puzzle-solving mode. The next section on Protagoras, Xeniades, and Lycophron will
focus on the more limited evidence that survives about these sophists’ contributions to ontology,
but evidence that nonetheless speaks to the broader conversation taking place on this topic. In the
conclusion I return to challenge the common accusation that the canonical sophists were
somehow less serious than other thinkers or held a radically different attitude towards truth.
Thus, while contemporary scholarship has tended to focus on the differences between
those figures that Isocrates and others grouped together, I will suggest that seeing them as part of
this broader discussion of ontology reveals important commonalities both in content and in
approach. If we come to each with an open mind as to what, if anything, is distinctive in their
approach, the evidence does not support a clear-cut distinction or privileging the so-called
“philosophical” contributions of the Eleatics over that of their sophistic contemporaries.

PARMENIDES
Parmenides’ poem—he appears to have written just one—is the locus classicus for ancient Greek
discussions of ontology in the sense outlined above. Written in verse, it begins with an elaborate
proem where the narrator describes being taken along a cosmic path to meet an unnamed
goddess. The goddess then begins her speech as follows, offering to give the narrator a
comprehensive account of all things:

I greet you: for it is no evil fate that has sent you to travel
This road (for indeed it is remote from the paths of men),
But Right and Justice. It is necessary that you learn everything,
Both the unshakeable heart of well-convincing truth
And the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true belief.
But nonetheless you will learn this too: how opinions
Would have to be acceptable, forever penetrating all things.4 (LM 19D4.26–32)

The last three lines line above may come as a bit of a surprise: the goddess promises to tell the
truth as one might expect, but then goes on to promise an account of the false opinions of mortals
as well. She makes good on that promise in two further sections, traditionally labeled “the way of
truth” and “the way of opinion.” But equally striking is the approach that the goddess takes in
both of these sections.
The goddess begins the way of truth by describing two “roads of inquiry” with bare
forms of the verb “to be” (einai in Greek). The description no doubt sounded as odd to ancient
readers as it still does today:

The one, that “is,” and that it is not possible that “is not,”
Is the path of conviction, for it accompanies truth;
The other, that “is not,” and that it is necessary that “is not”—
I show you that it is a path that cannot be inquired into at all.
For you could not know that which is not (for this is impracticable)

what I say here in terms of both content and approach could also be said about, for example, Heraclitus or
Xenophanes. I have limited myself to the Eleatics here for considerations of space.
4
The same Greek word, panta, is translated as “everything” in line 28 and as “all things” in line 32.

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 Nor could you show it. (LM 19D6.3–9)

Interpreting this “is” and “is not” is notoriously difficult.5 It is complicated by the fact that, just
as interpreters today disagree about how to translate and understand these lines, Parmenides’
contemporaries may have had various interpretations as well. Yet, on any interpretation, part of
what is striking about this way of beginning is that it suggests that reflecting on “is” and “is not”
themselves is important for giving a comprehensive account of all things. Parmenides gives a
clear injunction against the being, knowability, and communicability of “is not,” leaving us only
with “is” for a true account of reality.
We do get more information about this first road, “is,” a little later in the poem. There the
goddess specifies that what-is “is ungenerated, indestructible, / complete, single-born,
untrembling, and unending / […] together, whole / one, continuous” (D8.8–11). In addition to
ascribing these positive and negative attributes, Parmenides goes on to pick out the subject at
hand more clearly by using the substantive phrase “being” or “what-is” (to on), a phrase that
becomes standard in later discussions of ontology (D8.37–43, D10.2).6
These lines have inspired a monist interpretation of the poem where only one thing,
being, exists.7 On a strict monist interpretation, however, the poem undermines itself; if monism
is true, then the whole setup with the goddess addressing the narrator (not to mention the various
other beings mentioned or distinctions between author, poem, and audience) would be
impossible. And while the goddess does suggest that the way of mortals is mistaken, more than
half of the poem (nine-tenths on some estimates) was dedicated to the way of opinion, including
elaborate contributions to psychology, physiology, and cosmology.8 This may give us some
pause in straightforwardly accepting any single part of the poem as the author’s ultimate view.9
Parmenides’ poem presages how Zeno, Gorgias, and Protagoras in particular give opposed
arguments with similar effect.
Zeno and Melissus are both traditionally associated with Parmenides as fellow “Eleatics”
(Zeno and Parmenides were both from Elea, though Melissus was from Samos and only an
“Eleatic” in the sense of defending a Parmenidean position). The two seem to have taken
Parmenides’ project in very different directions. Melissus picks up on Parmenides’ description of

5
Sedley 1999 offers a particularly lucid and concise description of the difficulty. See also Curd 2004, Mourelatos
2008, and the introduction to Parmenides in Laks and Most 2016: 5.4–5.
6
In Parmenides’ Ionic dialect the phrase is to eon. I will use “what-is” and “being” interchangeably as translations
of to on and its cognates for the purposes of this essay. “Being” is the most literal translation of to on but gives a
more technical air than the term is likely to have had in its earlier uses. The common translation “what-is” has the
advantage of a less technical register. In Greek, too, there is not a single formulation that is consistently used across
authors or across contexts to discuss being at the most general level. Like Parmenides, Melissus often relies on the
unspecified subject of the verb to be in the singular (as in the phrase “it is only one”, LM 21D11) and at times
employs the participial phrase to eon (LM 21D9, D10, D11), but also uses “the one” (to hen, D11). Plato uses the
alternative phrase “the all” (to pan) to refer to the subject of Parmenides’ poem (Parmenides 128a8–B1 = LM
19R23).
7
There is controversy over how exactly to understand Parmenides’ monism. See Della Rocca 2020 ch. 1 for a recent
discussion of the underlying philosophical and interpretative issues.
8
For the deceptive nature of the way of opinion, see also D8.55–57. Tor 2017 gives a detailed analysis of the
relation between the two main parts of the poem (see especially ch. 4).
9
See McCabe (as Mackenzie) 1982 for a dialectical reading of the poem along these lines. On McCabe’s reading,
Parmenides’ poem uses dialectical strategies to highlight the problems that arise when trying to reconcile reason and
perception.

3
the one; he defends a strict form of monism on which only one thing exists and then emphasizes
the different predicates that are best used to describe the one being. Zeno did not explicitly
defend monism, nor did he straightforwardly defend any single view; instead, he challenged
common notions about what there is and what it is like, including the notions of place, motion,
and plurality. Plato allows that these arguments could be taken to defend Parmenides’ position
(Parmenides 127e8–8e4 = LM 30R2); but, regardless of Zeno’s intent, his arguments address
ontological concerns about the nature and extent of what-is at the most general level.10 We will
return to both figures and their relation to Parmenides and the sophists below.

GORGIAS
The final member of this group of “sophists” singled out by Isocrates is Gorgias. Gorgias, too,
takes up the project of discussing what-is at the most general level, in his On Not-Being or On
Nature (ONB, LM 32D26).11 Yet he takes Parmenides and Melissus’ already counterintuitive
monism and does it one better: Gorgias goes beyond rejecting pluralism to reject even the Eleatic
one, suggesting that nothing at all is. He also flouts Parmenides’ injunction against speaking
about “is not” by treating it on par with what-is, examining each equally as the subject for his
negative arguments. And while Parmenides asserted that what-is-not cannot be, be known, or be
communicated, Gorgias argues that even what-is cannot be, be known, or be communicated.
Thus, Gorgias ends up with an injunction even against Parmenides’ “is.”
In part due to historical accident, Gorgias’ ONB also does Parmenides’ poem one better
in the difficulties of interpreting the text. The text itself no longer exists, not at least in any
surviving version that we are aware of. Only two summaries survive, one in the anonymous On
Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias12 and the other in Sextus Empiricus’ Against the
Logicians.13 As a result, we have to triangulate between these two divergent summaries to
glimpse the missing original and, as with many early Greek texts, relinquish any certainty about
its content. But the summaries do agree in many details, including the tripartite structure of
Gorgias’ argument: nothing is; even if anything is it cannot be known; and even if it could be
known it cannot be communicated. And despite the incompleteness of our evidence, this is the
most extensive contribution to ontology among the canonical sophists that survives. For this
reason it is worth discussing each section as preserved in our two main sources to better
understand Gorgias’ arguments, his conversation with the Eleatics, and his interest in the
problems that arise when discussing being.
Anonymous’ summary of the first part in particular points to how Gorgias compiled a
systematic and structured series of arguments on the topic from other thinkers. Many of the
individual arguments in ONB are not original to Gorgias, and Anonymous is careful to
distinguish those that are borrowed from those that are new. Gorgias’ strategy involves
identifying pairs of opposites (for instance, eternal/generated, one/many) and collecting
arguments against anything having those properties. If, in order to be, something has to be either
one or many but, whatever it is, it can be neither one nor many, then we can reject the claim that
10
Take for example, LM 20D5: “If what exists (to on) did not have magnitude, it would not exist either.”
11
For more on the title see [[note on Melissus’ title, currently 36, beginning “Thus, Gorgias’ title…”]].
12
The work is attributed to Aristotle, though falsely so according to most scholars. Sedley 2017 suggests that the
work does come from the 4th century BCE (25 n43), while others have typically assumed it is from the 1st century
CE or later.
13
Laks and Most 2016 print them as D26a and D26b respectively. I will refer to the former author as “Anonymous”.

4
it is in the first place. In other words, if we have a simple case where there are only two options
(for example, what-is is either one or many), and we have an argument from author A ruling out
the first (presumably to accept the second, for example a pluralist arguing against monism) and
one from author B ruling out the second (presumably to accept the first, for example a monist
arguing against pluralism), then Gorgias can combine the two arguments to challenge the
underlying presupposition (in this case, the presupposition that something is). An especially clear
case of his borrowings is the argument against what-is being eternal, involving an inference
familiar from Melissus that derives its being unlimited from its being eternal or ungenerated (LM
21D3).14 In this way, ONB is an early example of what is now known as doxography, collecting
the views of various thinkers—in this case, on the topic of ontology—and putting them in
conversation with one another.15
Sextus’ summary of this first part highlights an important feature of Gorgias’ setup that
parallels the methodology Gorgias uses elsewhere. Gorgias often surveys what are at least taken
to be an exhaustive set of hypotheses (that is, hypotheses that cover all possible scenarios
conditional on any underlying assumptions). He then shows that the same result follows from
each, in which case we can be confident of that result no matter what. This formal structure is
sometimes called “argument by cases” in a mathematical context.16 Time and again in his Helen
and Palamedes, the only two speeches of his that survive in full, Gorgias uses this structure to
prove some conclusion without taking a stance on the truth of any of the hypothetical scenarios
involved. In the case of the Helen, for example, Gorgias can prove that Helen was not to blame
for the Trojan war without discussing or even knowing what actually happened.17 This is the
structure we see in the argument for the first thesis of On Not-Being.18 According to Sextus,
Gorgias begins with a unique division of the possibilities at hand: if anything is, then either being
is, or not-being is, or both being and not-being are (D26b.66).19 He then examines each in turn,

14
Cf. 32D26a.9, b.69. Brémond 2019 cites other parallels and argues that Melissus is in fact Gorgias’ main
interlocutor rather than Parmenides. Anonymous does not mention any arguments derived from Parmenides
specifically, though one may see the arguments against what-is being generated as harkening back to Parmenides’
poem (19D8.11–19,25–6, though cf. 20D2). Anonymous does mention arguments borrowed from Zeno and
Leucippus as well, though parallels with surviving texts are not as clear as in the case of Melissus. Sedley 2017
reconstructs Zeno’s place paradox and explains how Anonymous might have seen Gorgias’ argument as related
(25).
15
Mansfeld 1986 makes this point and also discusses how Hippias appears to have compiled a proto-doxography in
his Collection (see LM 36D22).
16
I call Gorgias’ version of the method “playing both sides” and go through the applications in his extant works in
Rodriguez 2020.
17
The argument also appears to generalize so that almost no one is ever to blame for anything at all. See Barney
2016 for a philosophical discussion of the speech.
18
I offer a more detailed comparison between these structures as they appear in Gorgias’ extant works in Rodriguez
2019, where I also argue that Sextus’ summary gives a more accurate picture of the overarching structure in the first
part of ONB. Giombini 2018 offers another recent argument that Sextus preserves more of the argumentative
structure despite a recent trend to privilege Anonymous’ summary. For a recent study that puts more credence in the
structure of the latter, see Bett 2020.
19
The option that both being and not-being are stands out as potentially redundant, and Gorgias’ argument against it
is one of the cases where Anonymous suggests that it is Gorgias’ own invention. The three options may be seen as a
response to each of three possibilities to be found in Parmenides’ poem (is, is not, or is and is not, the latter
corresponding to the mistaken way of mortals). Either way, the division does have a striking parallel in the logical
form of the tetralemma or catuskoti common in Indian logic (A, not-A, both A and not-a, neither A nor not-a).

5
concluding that it is not the case that any of these proposed entities is. This way he can show
that, no matter what you take to be, an argument is available to deny that that thing is. If this is
right, then nothing is.
Next, Gorgias sets aside the argument of the first part in order to consider potential
attributes of being (as his Eleatic contemporaries did). He considers, granting that something is,
whether it can be known or communicated. He once again comes to a negative conclusion and
thereby challenges Parmenides’ claim that at least being can be thought of and known.20
Parmenides’ two roads of investigation are roads for thought (LM 19D6.2) and he implies that
what-is can be thought of in his claim that “it is the same, to think and also to be” (D6.8; cf.
D8.39–41, D10.1).21 Both summaries of the second section of ONB involve a direct response to
this thought, concluding that nothing can be grasped or known.22
Sextus begins with the following general framework: if things that are thought of are not
things that are, then what-is is not thought of (LM 32D26b.78).23 The antecedent denies the
Parmenidean claim that what is genuinely thought is, and this anti-Parmenidean claim is
precisely what Gorgias goes on to establish with two different arguments on Sextus’ account.
Having established the antecedent, he can then conclude that what-is is not thought of.24 Sextus
does not report a further inference, but since the argument he reports is for the stronger claim that
nothing can be thought of at all, it entails the weaker claim that nothing can be known. Thus,
Gorgias could conclude that even if something is, it cannot be thought of or known.
Anonymous, on the other hand, reports a different strategy of arriving at the weaker
conclusion that what-is cannot be known.25 Unlike Sextus, he has Gorgias accept the
Parmenidean claim that what is thought is and derive from it the claim that falsehood is
impossible. After all, if all objects of thought are and what-is-not cannot be an object of thought,
20
Whether being can be communicated on Parmenides’ view is less cut and dry. The goddess certainly seems
optimistic about communicating the way things are to the narrator, but this point is especially vulnerable to the
potentially self-undermining nature of Parmenides’ poem discussed above.
21
Long 1996 offers a detailed discussion of Parmenides’ point here.
22
The summaries use different language to report the main conclusion of the second part. Sextus in particular varies
the language he uses to report the conclusion, but both describe the conclusion at one point or another using the term
agnōstos (“unknowable”: D26a.1, 20; D26b.77). The term translated as “know” in 19D6 quoted above is gignōskein
(“know” or “come to know”). That being said, the argument in both versions focuses on the broader question of
what can be thought (here the Greek verb is phronein whereas the verb translated as “think” above is noein). Given
the status of our evidence it is difficult to know with any certainty what precise vocabulary Gorgias used, and even if
we did know there would be a question about how best to translate it. Caston 2002 distinguishes between what he
calls “the intentional reading” and the “epistemic reading” (210). The first is a stronger reading on which what is at
issue is what can be thought of at all, the second is a weaker reading on which what is at issue is what can be known
(or, more broadly, what can be thought of in some specific way).
23
This form of antithesis is common throughout Gorgias’ works. Compare this with similar instances in the
Palamedes (D25.5, 26) and the first part of ONB (D26b.72, 76).
24
As Caston 2002 points out, there are challenges when it comes to assessing the validity of this inference. There are
systematic ambiguities in terms of the scope of negation and quantification, and no clear way to interpret them such
that all of the inferences in this section are valid. Caston takes this as evidence that Sextus has misread the original,
though we cannot rule out that Gorgias himself could have taken advantage of these ambiguities (nor would this be
surprising for an argument with such a strong skeptical conclusion).
25
There are textual difficulties throughout the MXG, but they are especially severe in this section of the argument.
LM offer a possible reconstruction and references to other recent editions. Caston 2002 offers a philosophical
analysis that relies on a different reconstruction of the text and also offers extensive references to relevant earlier
literature.

6
how could false thoughts come about in the first place?26 As in Sextus’ summary, the final
inference to unknowability is not made explicit, though it appears to be based on the idea that
knowledge requires the ability to distinguish between true and false.27
The third section of ONB goes on to argue that even if what-is is knowable, it cannot be
communicated to others. The two summaries differ in their formulations, but both use the verb
dēloun, often translated ‘make clear’, ‘show’, or ‘indicate’. Both summaries also base their
argument on the claim that speech has as its content simply speech, not things in themselves. As
Sextus puts it: “what we indicate by is speech (logos), but the things that underlie it (ta
hupokeimena) and that are are not speech” (D26b.84).28 Anonymous reports a similar line of
reasoning: “someone who speaks utters a speech, but not a color or a thing” (D26a.21). Both
suggest that the content of speech and that of reality are entirely different in kind. Anonymous
suggests that Gorgias added an additional argument that focuses on the inability of the hearer to
understand what the speaker says in precisely the same way that the speaker does.29
Thus, in addition to a clever engagement with Parmenides and his attempt to describe
being at the most general level, the final two parts of ONB are an early contribution to what
philosophers today would call skepticism about knowledge and the philosophy of language. But
why add these two parts in the first place? After all, if nothing is, as argued in the first part, it
seems to follow directly that nothing can be known or communicated. Why concede, if only for
the sake of argument, that anything is? Gorgias appears to have been interested in the problems
that arise when trying to give a general account of being, more specifically problems that arise
not just from describing what-is but from understanding our relationship to it as human beings.
And, as Isocrates recognized, he certainly was not the only one.

ZENO AND MELISSUS

We have already seen how Parmenides, too, offered surprising arguments for counterintuitive,
even self-undermining conclusions. It was common practice for early Greek thinkers to raise
philosophical puzzles or “sophisms” and to respond to the puzzles of others. Zeno and Melissus
are prominent examples of this trend; a survey of their contributions will highlight how Gorgias’
On Not-Being is right at home in this puzzle-raising and puzzle-solving context as well.
Zeno’s arguments all raise puzzles without giving any immediate indication for how to
resolve them. While Gorgias focuses on epistemological problems that arise in giving an account
of being, Zeno raises metaphysical problems with our ordinary notions about the things around
us in general as extended, moving, plural entities composed of different parts. Zeno frequently
used an argument form where contradictory statements are derived from some hypothesis. He
derived from the hypothesis that many things exist, for example, that they are both so small as to
have no size and so large as to be unlimited (LM 20D6). The same may be said for Zeno’s other
arguments against plurality and the argument against place (LM 20D4–11, D13). He received the
reputation for offering antilogiai or “opposed arguments,” a term often associated with the

26
This problem was widely influential in Gorgias’ time and takes center stage in Plato’s Sophist.
27
In Plato’s Euthydemus a similar line is taken in the opposite direction to the conclusion that everyone knows
everything (293b1–296d4). Xeniades, by contrast, suggested that all things are false and that nothing can be known
on that basis (see below).
28
Translation slightly modified. LM translate ta hupokeimena with the less literal but equally viable “the things that
exist”.
29
Mourelatos 1987 gives an extended discussion of this section of the argument.

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sophists; Zeno’s arguments aim to refute an opposed view and, more specifically, do so by
deriving opposed statements from that view.30 Gorgias uses this same form of argument in the
first part of ONB in addition to the broader structure of considering each of a set of opposed
hypotheses described above. Some have speculated that Zeno’s arguments, too, may have been
paired as part of a broader structure, though no direct evidence of this survives.31
Other arguments survive in a slightly different form. The arguments against motion do
not derive contradictory statements from a single hypothesis but set up a seemingly ordinary
situation and use it to derive a counterintuitive result. Aristotle reports four of them, all meant to
show that motion is impossible.32 Each argument makes this salient with concrete examples,
whether it be the impossibility of traversing some distance, Achilles overtaking a tortoise, or an
arrow flying through the air.33 The millet paradox stands out in that it is reported as a dialectical
conversation between Zeno and Protagoras. In this case, Zeno asks Protagoras a series of
questions, first getting him to admit that a single grain of millet does not make a sound when it
falls and then that a whole load of millet does make a sound when it falls. Zeno then derives
from the second claim the denial of the first.34
At least some of Zeno’s arguments were collected into a single work, later described as a
book of forty arguments (LM 20D2–3). But while we have some idea of the form and content of
individual arguments, it is difficult to pin down Zeno’s intent. This was as true in ancient times
as it is today. Timon, for example called Zeno “two-tongued” and said that he “catches everyone
by surprise” (LM 20R7). Some see him as a defender of Parmenidean monism, others as a
dialectician ready to refute any view put forward, still others as a nihilist, arguing along with
Gorgias that nothing exists at all. Of course, his intent may also have changed in the course of his
lifetime.35 But, either way, the arguments’ effect of provoking further reflection on being and its
most basic attributes is clear.
There are clear parallels, then, between Gorgias and Zeno in both form and subject
matter. Both have uncertain intentions and did not argue for a single view dogmatically. Are
there any grounds, then, for labeling one approach “sophistic” and the other “philosophical”?
Returning to Isocrates’ list of “sophists,” Melissus stands out for more straightforwardly
defending a monistic view. Again the subject matter is clear: Melissus titled his work On Nature
or On Being and follows Parmenides in the discussion of being in general and its most

30
Plato associates Zeno with antilogia at Phaedrus 261b6–e4 and Parmenides 128d2. Plutarch does as well (LM
20R6). Protagoras also used this specific form of antilogia: see the discussion of the Simonides poem portrayed in
Plato’s Protagoras for an example of Protagoras highlighting contradictory statements as part of an attempt at
refutation (338e6–9e3 = LM 31D42). For more on antilogia see Lee in this volume.
31
Sattler 2020: 134–36 discusses this possibility.
32
See LM 20D14–19. The details of the underlying arguments are at times difficult to decipher given how little
textual evidence survives. For more detailed contemporary reconstructions, see Huggett 2018; Palmer 2021; Sattler
2020.
33
The Stadium paradox, also called “the moving rows”, might still fit the general form of deriving contradictory
statements from some hypothesis. According to Aristotle, Zeno argued that “one half of a period of time is equal to
its double” (LM 20D18).
34
This may be part of why, according to Diogenes Laertius, Aristotle saw Zeno as the first dialectician (R4). Striker
1996 endorses calling the sophists “dialecticians” in the Aristotelian sense.
35
See Sedley 2017 p. 2–6 for a survey of these options. Sedley argues that we have a better case attributing nihilism
to Zeno than we do for attributing it to Gorgias.

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fundamental attributes.36 Unlike Parmenides, Melissus organizes those attributes in a specific
explanatory order, deriving one from the next: from ungenerated to everlasting, from everlasting
to unlimited, from unlimited to one, and so on. But Melissus was also engaged in raising and
responding to problems that arise from a general discussion of being. He addresses head on the
tension between our everyday experience of a world of multiplicity and his monistic conclusions
derived from abstract reasoning about what-is.
We cannot help but perceive many different things around us, so to defend his monism
Melissus questions the accuracy of our perceptions. He argues that our impressions must be false
given that we perceive things as having contradictory properties (iron, for example, we perceive
as hard but is then rubbed away by a finger). Those false impressions include things seeming to
us to be many (LM 21D11, D18). He also responds to the sort of nihilism defended by Gorgias
(and perhaps Zeno?) by reflecting on the very fact of our communication about it: “If nothing is,
what could one say about it, as if it were something?” (D20).37 Finally, he continues the tradition
of thinking about both being and not-being by arguing for the impossibility of void. He then uses
the impossibility of void to argue for the impossibility of motion (D10).38
As David Sedley (1999) points out, Melissus bases his arguments on physical principles,
beginning with the impossibility of something coming to be out of nothing, that would have been
shared by contemporary cosmologists. This is in contrast to Parmenides’ focus on the logical
operations of “is” and “is not” or Zeno’s emphasis on ordinary assumptions about space and
time. As we have seen, Gorgias borrows liberally from earlier traditions but comes to a
distinctive focus on how we think about and communicate what-is. While each thinker has his
own emphasis, their concerns all share an underlying interest in what can be said about what-is
and what-is-not and the problems that arise when discussing being at such a general level. Thus,
even if Isocrates was overly dismissive of these works, he had good reason to group them
together.

PROTAGORAS, XENIADES, AND LYCOPHRON

Even granted Gorgias’ interest in ontology, perhaps he is simply an exception among the
sophists. Is there any reason to think that other canonical sophists also discussed being in this
general sense? The short answer is yes. We are unfortunate to have lost almost all of Protagoras’
writing, but even the scant evidence we do have suggests that he too was engaging with
Parmenides and this broader conversation about being. We can see this from testimony we have
about the titles of his works, especially in conjunction with his interest in opposed arguments,
antilogiai, and from one of the few fragments that does survive from his writings.
We need to be cautious when it comes to the evidence we have about the titles of
Protagoras’ works, especially since the different lists that survive vary significantly from one
another. But what is clear, no matter which individual titles are accurate, is that Protagoras wrote

36
Thus, Gorgias’ title On Not-Being or On Nature is likely a parody of Melissus’ title. Scholars are generally
skeptical of reports of early works being titled On Nature since it was not customary for early writers to title their
works; in many cases, later authors imposed this traditional title on earlier writings that were seen as covering
similar topics. The fact that we have the unique “On Being” for Melissus and “On Not-Being” for Gorgias suggests
that they may well have been titled as such by the authors themselves (cf. LM 23D2).
37
It is disputed whether this is a direct quotation or a paraphrase. See Harriman 2018: 38–43 for discussion.
38
For recent discussions of Melissus’ arguments and helpful references to earlier literature, see Brémond 2017;
Harriman 2018.

9
on a variety of topics that very likely included ontological discussions. We can get some sense of
Protagoras’ range from surviving book titles, from “On Truth” and “On the Original Settled
Order” to “On the Gods” and “On What is in Hades” (see LM 31D1–8). Cicero claims that
Protagoras (along with Prodicus and Thrasymachus) spoke and wrote “even about nature“ (D6),
and Aristotle reports his “refuting the geometers“ (D33). This breadth is not surprising given his
interest in antilogiai.39 But one title in particular sticks out for present purposes: Porphyry
reports that Protagoras argued against monism in a work titled “On Being” (D7).40
This title is not attested elsewhere, and it could be that it was just one piece of a larger
work. The testimony that he argued against monism is consistent with the possibility that he
offered arguments both against monism and against pluralism as paired antilogiai. But, either
way, Porphyry’s testimony suggests that Protagoras did indeed write on the topic of being. We
also have some corroboration of this idea in Plato’s Sophist. Plato highlights the connection
between a sophist being an expert at giving antilogiai and their speaking on a wide variety of
topics (Sophist 232a1–e2).41 His list includes topics one might expect for the sophists (law,
politics, and the gods) and topics one might not expect (crafts or skills, earth and the heavens).
Among the list of those one might not expect is general statements about being and becoming
(232c8). Plato then has his character Theaetetus make the connection to Protagoras specifically
(232d9–e1 = D2).42
In this light, we can also see Protagoras’ famous measure thesis as engaging with
contemporary discussions about being. We are told that the following appeared at the beginning
of one of his works (variously reported as “On Truth” or “Knockdown Arguments”):

Of all things the measure is man:43 of those that are, that they are; of those that are not,

39
Diogenes Laertius claims that Protagoras believed there to be two arguments on every issue (D26). Seneca
plausibly adds that Protagoras said one can even argue on either side of this very issue (that is, the issue of whether
one can argue on either side of an issue). Note, however, that Seneca portrays the issue as whether one can argue on
either side “equally” (D27).
40
Furthermore, he reports that Plato borrowed many of these arguments in his own work (see R2 for the full
context). Lee 2005, 24–29 discusses the surviving titles and their sources. She suggests that “On Being” may have
been one of several titles (including “On Truth”, “Knockdown Arguments” and “Opposing Arguments”) that survive
for a single work.
41
The sophistic Dissoi Logoi (“Dual Accounts” on David Wolfsdorf’s recommended translation) may well have
been influenced by Protagoras and gives us a more sympathetic glimpse of how such a case might be made. The
work gives numerous antilogiai in the first few sections and later announces:
I think that it belongs <to the same> man and to the same art to be able to discuss briefly, to know <the>
truth of things, to judge a legal case correctly, to be able to make speeches to the people, to know the arts of
speeches, and to teach about the nature of all things, both their present condition and their origin. (LM 41
8.1)
Unfortunately, the arguments in favor of this claim in what follows are obscured by gaps in the transmitted text.
Nevertheless, see Wolfsdorf 2020 for a reading of how each section of the text fits together, including section 8.
42
See Untersteiner 1971.
43
The Greek here is anthrōpos in the singular. ‘Man’ captures some of the ambiguities of the Greek: like anthrōpos,
it can be used in an abstract or generic sense on the one hand or refer to an individual human being on the other.
Unlike ‘man’ in the prevailing English sense, however, and more like ‘human’ or ‘person’, anthrōpos is gender-
neutral. “Men” in the quotation from Parmenides above translates this same word (LM 19D4.27).

10
 that they are not. (LM 31D9)44

Interpreting the text is controversial. In fact, there has been controversy over just about every
word. But it is undeniable that this thesis picks up our theme of discussing both what-is and
what-is-not. Like Gorgias, Protagoras also shows a peculiar interest in our relationship with
what-is, literally putting “man” at the center of his account.45 Without the full text (which, once
again, may have included statements opposed to this initial thesis), we inevitably will have to
resort to some level of speculation in understanding its significance. But by calling us a
“measure” he suggests that we have within us a standard for determining what-is and what-is-
not, even at the most general level. At least on the face of it, this sounds much more optimistic
than Parmenides on mortal opinions, Zeno on everyday notions, Melissus on perception, or
Gorgias on our ability to even grasp what-is in the first place. Granted, this depends on in what
sense we are a measure, and Protagoras does not specify in this opening line whether we are the
correct measure of all things.
Readers may be familiar with the tradition, going back to ancient times, of interpreting
Protagoras as a relativist in one sense or another based primarily on this fragment. One common
interpretation is that Protagoras is relativizing truth, or even reality, to the individual perceiver:
as something appears to that perceiver, so it is for them.46 But this is by no means the only
interpretation of the above line. There is a question, for example, about both the range of the
subject “man” (anthrōpos) and of the object, “all things”. Is Protagoras referring to individual
human beings or to human beings in general (as opposed to, say, gods or other animals)?
Furthermore, some have speculated that the word for “things” (chrēmata) implies a domain that
is restricted to things used by us humans, while others restrict the domain to what we directly
perceive. When it comes to the second half of the thesis, the word translated “that” (ōs) in the
phrases “that they are” and “that they are not” could also be translated “how,” perhaps implying
that we are the measure not of what exists but rather what qualities it has.47 And finally, does
calling us “the measure” (or “a measure” as the Greek metron without the article could also be
translated) mean that we are measurers, measuring instruments, standards of measurement, or

44
Note the similarity with later formulations of a correspondence theory of truth in Plato’s Sophist (240e10–a2) and
Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ (1011b25–9). Antiphon supposedly claimed that time is a thought or measure (LM
37D17). Like Protagoras he wrote on a wide variety of topics, including mathematics, cosmology, and a work of his
own titled “On Truth.” It would not be surprising if he too wrote about ontology, but no direct evidence of this
survives.
45
Thanks to Rachel Barney for pointing out to me how this must have had a dramatic effect. Upon hearing “of all
things the measure is…” the audience would have likely been surprised to then hear “man.” Van Berkel 2013 also
discusses how ‘man’ might have stood out here and situates the measure thesis within the broader tradition of Greek
wisdom literature (51–53). For example: “one must always measure all things according to his own point of view,”
Pind. Pyth. 2.34).
46
Plato has Socrates interpret the measure thesis this way in the Theaetetus (152a6–9 = LM 31R5). As a result,
whether or not the thesis itself was intended as such by Protagoras, it has inspired much discussion about relativism.
Lee 2005 acknowledges that this testimony from the Theaetetus is crucial for understanding Protagoras as a
relativist and surveys different types of relativism that may be at play (12–13, 30–35). Bett 1989 cautions against
understanding any of the sophists as straightforwardly espousing a robust form of relativism, and Rachel Barney
argues in a book manuscript that even Plato flags the fact that this interpretation goes beyond what is literally in the
text. See also Notomi 2013 for a survey of ancient interpretations.
47
The same issues surrounding how to understand the Greek verb “to be” in Parmenides apply here as well.

11
units of measurement? And does it imply that we are the only or best measures?48
While Protagoras is frustratingly difficult to pin down on this score, it also is also worth
remembering that he is not the only one. Parmenides, Zeno, and Gorgias offer similar difficulties
despite more evidence surviving about the nature of their texts. It may not simply be a feature of
our limited evidence, then, but rather of the provocative, puzzle-raising style of argumentation
shared by all of these thinkers. Despite the underlying differences in their strategies for doing so,
each has the effect of eliciting a similar type of puzzlement about how we might understand the
way things are at the most general level. Of course, this is precisely the kind of puzzlement that
later philosophers become famous for inducing as a crucial step in inspiring further philosophical
inquiry. While Protagoras’ measure thesis, read in isolation, raises more questions than it gives
answers, this may very well have been part of its design.
Xeniades and Lycophron, two lesser-known sophists likely a generation younger than
Gorgias and Protagoras, were also part of the conversation about being and not-being and the
puzzle-setting and puzzle-solving tradition that surrounded it. They were likely part of a
continuous tradition of discussing these topics that lasted through the time of Plato and Aristotle
and beyond. Little survives about Xeniades’ life or his exact dates, but what does survive is the
following description of a peculiar combination of Eleatic and anti-Eleatic views:

[Xeniades] asserted that all things are false, that every representation and opinion is false,
that everything that comes to be comes to be out of what is not, and that everything that
perishes perishes into what is not. (LM 39D1)

The author of the report, once again Sextus Empiricus, contrasts Xeniades’ assertion that every
representation (in Greek: phantasia) is false with an interpretation of Protagoras on which every
representation is true (LM 39R2).49 There is a close connection here to the arguments in the
second part of Gorgias’ On Not-Being (in fact, Sextus goes on to report that Xeniades inferred
that all things are unknowable from their being false). As in Gorgias’ case, this appears to take
the Eleatic skepticism about one domain (the domain of perception and mortal opinions) and
expand it. Unlike Gorgias’, Xeniades’ position may have been grounded in a positive
metaphysical thesis; his anti-Eleatic metaphysical position that everything comes to be out of and
perishes into what-is-not may have motivated his epistemological claim that all things are false.50
While many thinkers around this time appear more comfortable discussing not-being than
Parmenides might have liked, Xeniades is unique among them for directly contradicting the
Parmenidean injunction against generation from what-is-not, central also to Melissus’ arguments
and widely accepted by contemporary cosmologists. Xeniades not only embraces thought about
not-being, he makes it the fundamental starting point, above and beyond being, for all
generation.51 In doing so he must also embrace the attendant problems of discussing what-is-not,

48
Van Berkel 2013 offers an extensive semantic and cultural analysis of the word metron, surveying these and other
possibilities for interpreting the measure thesis. She also gives a summary of the controversy surrounding other
words in the fragment with helpful references on pp. 38–39.
49
Castagnoli 2010 conjectures that Democritus applied the same sort of self-refutation argument against both (97).
50
Brunschwig 2002 argues for this connection between his metaphysical and epistemological claims.
51
Brunschwig 2002 conjectures that Democritus would have seen several points of commonality between his own
position and that of Xeniades, specifically their both positing not-being as a type of starting point or principle for
their metaphysical system. Democritus, however, puts being and not-being on par with one another, while Xeniades
appears to have privileged not-being.

12
and seems to have done so in part by accepting Parmenides’ position that there is no accurate
perception or true judgment on a theory that embraces not-being. Of course, as in the case of
Gorgias’ ONB, this raises its own puzzle about how Xeniades’ own statements could be
accurately known or communicated.
What we know of Lycophron presents a picture of someone who was interested in
resolving some of these puzzles about the contradictions involved in giving an accurate account
of what-is. There are several affinities between Lycophron and Gorgias: his interest in rhetorical
style (LM 38D6), his composition of praise speeches (D5) and, most importantly for us, his
concern with problems of being and knowledge. According to Aristotle, Lycophron was
concerned about how, when something is correctly described as having multiple properties, it
might thereby also be described as having the contradictory properties of being both one and
many. Lycophron responded by simply suppressing the word ‘is,’ presumably replacing
statements of the form “Socrates is white” with simply “Socrates white.”52 This suggests an
attempt to preserve our everyday understanding of individual objects as unified despite
simultaneously displaying different properties.
Lycophron also posited an underlying unity involved in knowing. In a different context,
Aristotle reports as follows:

Some people [scil. speak, in order to explain how the terms of a definition are united,] of
‘coexistence,’ as Lycophron says that knowledge is [scil. the coexistence] of the act of
knowing and the soul. (LM 38D2)

We can speculate that Lycophron may well have been worried about the kind of puzzles about
knowledge and communication raised in Gorgias’ ONB, especially given the other affinities with
Gorgias mentioned above. Those puzzles relied in part on a separation between the objects of
thought and things themselves, as well as a separation between thought and perception.
Lycophron’s definition may have been an attempt at unifying the psychological processes
involved in knowing in order to respond to these problems.

CONCLUSION
From the above survey it is clear that sophists and Eleatic philosophers alike discussed being and
not-being at the most general level, engaged in similar puzzles, and even did so in a similar way.
Even so, there is still the Isocratean charge that these works are somehow trivial. It is still
common today to think that a certain attitude or intent, say a lack of seriousness or a disdain for
the truth, sets the sophists apart; one might, for instance, disagree with Isocrates’ characterization
of Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus on this score, but embrace it in the case of the canonical
sophists. But there is good reason for thinking that both Gorgias and Protagoras were, in this
respect, more “philosophical” than they are often portrayed.
In Gorgias’ case, this lack of seriousness is often detected in his other extant works and
used that as a frame for understanding his On Not-Being. Yet, while his other work does show an
interest in and awareness of our limitations when it comes to accurately understanding the world
around us, he also leaves room for us taking those limitations into account while still striving for
truth. The Palamedes, a fictional court speech where Palamedes defends himself against

52
Or so Simplicius reports in his commentary on this passage in Aristotle’s Physics (91.13–14, not in LM). For
more on this argument in its Aristotelean context see Clarke 2019 ch. 3.

13
Odysseus’ accusation of treason, draws a distinction between two bases for the accusation:
knowledge and mere opinion. Gorgias has Palamedes go as far as to call opinion “the most
untrustworthy of things” and contrast it with knowing the truth (LM 32D25.24, cf. 3, 22–23,
D24.11). On its own, this is compatible with thinking that either (a) knowledge is impossible and
therefore we are left with mere opinion, however unreliable it may be, or (b), because of the
unreliability of mere opinion, we should seek knowledge wherever possible. The Helen does
reflect on the effects of speech (logos) in general and especially on its power to mislead. Most
famously, the narrator says that “whoever has persuaded, and also persuades, whomever about
whatever [does so] by fabricating a false discourse (logos)” (D 24.22). Thus, we might be
tempted to think that (a) is Gorgias’ preferred position. But it would be a mistake to see this as an
interest in the effects of logos to the exclusion of the truth of the underlying content. Both
speeches do in fact suggest that speech has normative dimension that includes an accurate
representation of the truth (see D24.1–2; 25.4–5, 15, 33, 35).53
Proclus confirms that Gorgias’ view was more along the lines of (b) above. According to
Proclus, Gorgias said: “being is without evidence if it does not encounter appearing, and
appearing is without force if it does not encounter being” (LM D34). Here the word translated as
“appearing” (to dokein) is related to the word translated as “opinion” (doxa) above. The first
clause can be read as a criticism of Eleatic monism, which conflicts with the way things appear.
Yet the second clause suggests that appearances alone are not enough either. This leaves room
for an evidence-based understanding of being that fits with our appearances; in fact, it suggests
an attempt by Gorgias not only to lay out the problems as in ONB but also suggest a way that
being and appearing can be reconciled.54
Returning to ONB, then, there is no good reason based on his other works to assume that
it was completely dismissive of the shared project of seeking truth through discourse and
reasoning. The level of detail and sophistication that can be gleaned from these summaries,
incomplete though they are, gives the impression that Gorgias took the theorizing of his
contemporaries seriously enough to be worth engaging with. Like the contributions of the
Eleatics, ONB serves as a goad to further thinking in response to Parmenides and to ontological
theorizing more broadly. Gorgias’ conclusions, especially for the first thesis that nothing is, are
highly dependent on the success of individual arguments, not all of which are especially
compelling; all a follower of Parmenides would need to do to be off to the races again is respond
to a few choice points (as we saw both so-called “philosophers” and “sophists” continued to do).
In other words, just as Gorgias has taken an Eleatic framework and tweaked a few arguments to
get a radically different result, others can tweak Gorgias’ framework to change the overall result
once again.
In this way, there is a parallelism between the structure of the work, an elaborate
sequence of negative arguments that sets itself up for similar treatment in kind, and its content, a
claim about nonexistence, unknowability, and incommunicability that, if it is right, cannot itself

53
Valiavitcharska 2006 draws on Agathon’s speech in Plato’s Symposium, a parody of Gorgias’ style and approach,
and the emphasis on correct speech (orthos logos) both there and in the Helen to support this claim. Interestingly,
the parody also suggests a strategy of first praising something for what it is, then for what it does, which
Valiavitcharska identifies operating in the Helen as well (154–155). Bermúdez 2017 also argues that there are
several dimensions along which speech can be evaluated above and beyond mere persuasion on Gorgias’ view.
54
Segal 1962 emphasizes Gorgias’ wide-ranging interests and pushes back on the idea that Gorgias’ writings were
not serious for reasons similar to the ones I offer here (see esp. 100–104). Bonnazi 2020 ch.2 also discusses how
generalizations used to distinguish sophists from philosophers can be misleading.

14
exist, be known, or be communicated. Like the Helen or Palamedes, what may at first seem like
an exaggerated exercise given its defense of an extreme or insupportable view might instead be a
serious challenge: negative arguments are easy to come by, so it is on his interlocutors (or on the
reader) to figure out where these arguments might have gone wrong. As in the case of the
Eleatics, puzzles can be an effective tool for provoking further inquiry into a less problematic
ontology.
This is compatible with seeing Gorgias as offering a serious challenge to previous
thinkers, including Parmenides. The Helen suggests as much when it emphasizes the mere
opinions and false speech of contemporary intellectuals (D24.13).55 But Gorgias challenges
others by highlighting what can get in the way of their (and our) understanding rather than
suggesting we replace one individual authority with another. To be convinced that knowledge is
impossible or that mere appearance is all we have to go on would be to rely on either Gorgias (if
that is the best way to understand what he says) or ourselves (whether as speaker or audience) as
the ultimate authority. This is precisely the kind of authority that his dialectical style (something
he shares with both so-called “philosophers” and “sophists” as discussed above) invites us to
question.
Protagoras, too, is often thought to have a more cavalier attitude towards the truth. But
not only is this nowhere directly evident in the early and most reliable testimony about
Protagoras—as we saw, it is by no means a straightforward consequence of the measure thesis—
it is also not obvious that Protagoras was even interested in presenting his own doctrines. We
have some evidence that Protagoras stressed the importance of being able to think for oneself in
his teaching rather than expecting his audience to accept some view on his authority. Plato
portrays Protagoras as advertising good judgment (euboulia; Protagoras 318e5 = LM 31D37),
which may very well be the kind of human ability needed to adjudicate the path forward when
presented with opposed arguments.56 In this way, he need not have presented himself as an
expert with a rival theory in order to impress his audience or attract new students. Instead, the
practice of antilogia could serve to undermine rival claims to authority and provide an alternative
ideal for his students to strive for. Even if this was not as explicit as Plato makes it out to be, we
can see the practice of antilogia as speaking for itself and challenging the audience to make
sense of its background and implications on their own.
Seeing this in the light of Eleatic engagement with the problems of being, which itself
was often more dialectical than dogmatic but still no less serious, once again shows how hard it
is to justify treating some as “philosophical” and others as “sophistic.” The commonalities
between the likes of Parmenides and Protagoras or between Zeno and Gorgias suggest a shared
conversation about the nature of reality and our access to it as well as a shared approach that
encourages the reader or listener to think for themselves rather than simply deciding on a most
55
Here Gorgias is parodying the end of Parmenides’ proem. Gorgias says “it is necessary to learn first the arguments
of those who study the heavens, who, abolishing and establishing one opinion instead of another, have made things
that are unbelievable and unclear appear to the eyes of opinion.” Contrast with Parmenides: “It is necessary that you
learn everything, / Both the unshakeable heart of well-convincing truth / And the opinions of mortals, in which there
is no true belief. / But nonetheless you will learn this too: how opinions / Would have to be acceptable, forever
penetrating all things” (LM 19D4.28–32, also quoted above). Gorgias takes the goddess’ description of mistaken
mortal opinions and replaces them with a description that fits Parmenides’ own poem, using much of the same
terminology.
56
See Woodruff 1999 and 2013 for an account of Protagorean euboulia and the role it played in his teaching. An
overarching interest in giving opposing arguments would have necessarily involved multiple viewpoints and
complicated the extent to which a single argument could be read as presenting Protagoras’ own view.

15
trusted authority. This is not to say that the figures discussed here agreed on everything, but it is
to say that their disagreements, rather than indicating a wholesale rejection of the others’
projects, arose out of a serious interest in and commitment to ontological inquiry.57 For Gorgias
and Protagoras, that interest suggests that they were as “philosophical” as their Eleatic
counterparts. For the Eleatics, the fact that they engaged in this discussion in an often indirect
and self-undermining way suggests that they were equally “sophistic.” Though all of these
figures highlighted the various barriers that we face when seeking to understand reality, they
opened up a conversation about being at the most general level that was as serious as it was
provocative.58

57
Given our limited evidence it is difficult to know with any certainty to what extent these figures actually had the
opportunity to talk with one another, whether face-to-face or through their work. Zeno certainly would have had the
chance to speak with Parmenides in their native city of Elea, and Plato portrays them as close acquaintances in the
Parmenides. The same dialogue gives some indication of Zeno’s engagement with other thinkers as well; Plato
portrays Zeno as writing his book as a response to those who argued against Parmenides’ logos (Parmenides 128b7–
e4, LM 20R1). Protagoras is a plausible candidate for one of these detractors given his reputation for antilogia and
the way he picks up on both the form and content of Parmenides’ poem. Plato also uses the verbal form of antilogia
(antilegein, 128d2) to describe Zeno’s response (128d2); we also already saw that Simplicius reports Zeno’s millet
paradox as a dialectical exchange between the two thinkers. There could of course have been others that Zeno was
responding to as well, including Gorgias (see Nestle 1922; 558, 560–561). I give further reasons for thinking that
Plato alludes to Gorgias throughout the Parmenides in Rodriguez 2020.
58
Thanks to the Center for Hellenic Studies and the Idaho Humanities Council for support during the drafting of this
piece. Thanks also to Rachel Barney, Eric Guindon, Verity Harte, Suzanne Lye, Katy Meadows, Jacob Stump, the
participants of the ISU Department of English and Philosophy Works in Progress seminar, and especially to this
volume’s editors for their insight and for various helpful conversations along the way.

16
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