There is no question that Parmenides' poem was a watershed in the history of early Greek philosophy. No serious thinker could ignore his work. And yet it seems to pose insuperable problems for cosmology and scientific inquiry. The first generation to follow Parmenides includes thinkers who wished to continue the tradition of Ionian speculation. But how would they confront Parmenides? What would they make of him and what effect would his arguments have on their work? The first neo-Ionians, as they have been called, were Empedocles and Anaxagoras. Despite some salient differences, the two philosophers have much in common in their approach. They are near contemporaries, and as we shall see, they make similar moves in their approach to scientific speculation. Let us first examine the systems of Empedocles and Anaxagoras, and then discuss their responses to Parmenides.

EMPEDOCLES AND ANAXAGORAS

After warning us to seek a balance in our evaluation of sensory evidence (DK 31 B3), Empedocles goes on to identify the basic constituents of the universe and to develop a cosmology based on those constituents. There are four “roots,” (rizômata): earth, water, air, and fire (B6), which combine in whole-number ratios to form compounds.