This is a ‘résolument linguistique’ (p. 18) analysis of the fragments of Parmenides. The book consists of an interpretative essay, ‘Énoncer le verbe être’, plus a translation of the fragments based upon it.
A linguistic study is a welcome addition to the literature on Parmenides. A. holds that logical and ontological studies of a poem of Parmenides' era are anachronistic, and proposes instead ‘une analyse structurelle, sémantique, morphologique, et enfin énonciative de l'ensemble des fragments’ (pp. 19–20). Moreover, Parmenides' poem ‘n'a pas de valeur philosophique en soi’, though those who read or heard it in ‘un autre état de langue donné’ might have derived some philosophical value and meaning from it (pp. 144–5). None the less, there is much in this original and provocative work that will be of value to scholars of Parmenides as philosopher.
All of the ‘“Présocratiques”’, A. asserts, were ‘des savants kosmologues’ (p. 10), meaning that their concern was with the order of things. They were also poets, in the sense of craftsmen in the medium of language. Their artistry worked with the deep and irreducible ambiguity of that language to represent the world in a way that was ‘totalisant, à l'image du fonctionnement sémantique de la langue archaïque’ (p. 11). Parmenides was especially virtuosic in this regard. A. argues that the poem should be understood as establishing Parmenides' poetic discourse as authoritative and infallible (p. 20); and that it achieves this through its remarkable uses of ‘le verbe être’, chiefly in the esti form: ‘Le monstre linguistique qu'est le verbe être parménidien, holosémantique et métamorphique, est une totalité continue qui est autant l'effet que la cause de la totalité continue du kosmos, pour la simple raison que … toutes deux reposent sur la même fonctionnement sous-jacent de la signification’ (pp. 105–6, cf. 140–1).
Parmenides' uses of esti and relatives are not, for A., innovations in meaning or sense, but rather realisations of the possibilities offered by existing terms and locutions. She argues that the esti form in particular ‘se définit fondamentalement comme un “être là” total’ (p. 42). In Parmenides' fragments, this totality fuses the various other functions and senses, and incorporates completion and incompleteness, movement and pause and immobility, a timeless and a temporal nun. In response to the problem of translating pelô/pelomai in the fragments, viz., whether these echo or contrast with eon or esti, A. suggests that the poet uses pelô/pelomai to connote both being (or being-there) and movement or circulation. In this, pelô becomes ‘un parfait équivalent sémantique du verbe être’ (p. 63).
This sense of circulation, of movement back and forth about a centre, is for A. reflected in the passage from ateleston to ateleutêton to tetelesmenon (B8.4, 32, 42; pp. 29–33, 69). It is reflected again in the ‘sphere’ of B8.44, as the locus of these tensions and movements; and yet again in the shifts from first to third persons and first to an implied second person in the proem: ‘Le verbe être que Parménide élabore pour fonder l'autorité de son discours ne saurait donc être complet et efficace s'il n’était aussi le centre d'un autre mouvement de va-et-vient, duquel dépend l'existence même de tout discours … le mouvement énonciatif de réciprocité qui existe entre le je d'un locuteur et le tu d'un interlocuteur' (p. 123). Add to this the shift to the third person (eidota phôta) in B1.3, and the effect is the establishment of a koinônia (pp. 127–8). Thus the spoken or written esti, the ordered world, and the community of discourse are interdependent.
A.'s subtle accounts of some of the most difficult terms and features in the fragments – eidota in B1.3, ateleston-ateleutêton-tetelesmenon in B8, the tensions between temporal and atemporal and between completion and incompleteness – and her emphasis on the dialogic aspect of the poem are important contributions to scholarship on Parmenides and fifth-century poetry. Without breaking the resolution to approach the fragments ‘en-deçà des considérations conceptuelles et philosophiques’ (p. 79), though, one might raise questions concerning the scope of the discussion.
For example, A. finds in Parmenides' fragments parallels with Tyrtaeus fr. 12 West. From these and from resonances in Parmenides with military senses of kosmos, she concludes that Parmenides' poem ‘assume sa tonalité parénétique et s'affirme comme parole d'autorité’ (p. 118, cf. p. 116). We may note that Parmenides' fragments incorporate an unusually high density of words connoting inference, in passages that almost all commentators see as arguments. A.'s translation is consistent with this. The density of these terms and the structure of the passages where they appear contrast sharply with the Tyrtaeus fragment. The presence of inferences, reflecting argument or explanation, suggests a different kind of authority than that invoked by Tyrtaeus: the authority Parmenides establishes would be an authority of understanding. Because he presents the inferences, the understanding would not be limited to those of high birth or those with access to gods. It could be shared by anyone who grasps the reasoning. Further, the pronouncements pertaining to eon, esti and so on appear within a discussion of roads of inquiry. The notion of roads of inquiry suggests a more active role for the listener than merely the recipient of wisdom, and thus suggests that the poem itself may not be intended to be a self-sufficient and all-inclusive body of wisdom.
One might also ask how the book's interpretation bears on Parmenides' relationships to other poets. If some features of Parmenides' tone, language and composition bring him close to Tyrtaeus, so do other features connect Parmenides closely to Homer, Hesiod, Bacchylides, Pindar and others. What is it that would make the parallels with Tyrtaeus more decisive, as far as the overall tone and aim of Parmenides' fragments are concerned, than those with other poets? How might the elements shared with the other poets affect Parmenides' tone, aim and resources?
Another source of questions is the presence of chains of inferences, at least some of which are widely thought to reflect an awareness of something like a principle of non-contradiction. A. holds that the claims represented in B8.51–61 and B9 (and arguably other ‘cosmological’ fragments) as ‘opinions of mortals’ are of a piece with the assertions of B6, B7 and B8.1–49 (pp. 105–8); this implies that they are endorsed by goddess and poet. One might ask not only how this interpretation fits with the goddess's disparagements of the opinions of mortals, but also whether Parmenides could be identifying the polysemy and oppositional ambiguity of esti and relatives as a problem for understanding, rather than (or in addition to?) constructing the order of that which is, in the image of what is said. (On the second issue, cf. M. Miller, ‘Ambiguity and Transport: Reflections on the Proem to Parmenides’ Poem', OSAP 30 [2006], 1–47.)
Finally, there is the question of whether Parmenides engaged in philosophy. If suggesting that human inquiry can be oriented by alêtheia, using inferential reasoning to investigate the nature and structure of what is or what is said to be, and recognising principles or standards for reasoning are ways of engaging in philosophy; then there is reason to think Parmenides' poem was a work of philosophy (even if different from later ancient philosophy). If that is so, then a linguistic investigation of the fragments could encompass philosophical locutions without the sort of anachronism against which A. guards.
These observations do not vitiate A.'s conclusions, but suggest an avenue for further investigation that might lead to some modifications. Her study brings us to see the strangeness and force of the conception of esti as the ultimate totality; and shows us the complications, instabilities and ambiguities in what might seem today a familiar universalisation (‘is’ is used in speaking of each and all things, including what ‘is not’). That is a noteworthy contribution not only to our understanding of Parmenides in his context, but also to the project of inquiry and inference that his poem announces.
