Idea

Being

What is real? What truly exists? Parmenides asked the question, and philosophy has never stopped trying to answer it.

Parmenides argued that only Being exists, unchanging, whole, and indivisible. Change is impossible, because for something to change, it must become what it is not, and what-is-not cannot exist. This radical claim forced every philosopher after him to respond. Plato developed his theory of Forms partly in answer to Parmenides. Aristotle’s metaphysics (the study of being as being) takes its name and its starting point from this question.

Thinkers Who Shaped This Idea

Ancient Greece· 624–262 BCE

Anaximander

c. 610 BCE – c. 546 BCE

Parmenides

c. 515 BCE – c. 450 BCE

Gorgias

c. 483 BCE – c. 375 BCE

Plato

c. 428 BCE – c. 348 BCE

Aristotle

384 BCE – 322 BCE

Rome & the Stoics· 106 BCE–485 CE

Plotinus

c. 204 CE – 270 CE

Porphyry

c. 234 CE – c. 305 CE

Proclus

412 CE – 485 CE

Classical China· 571–233 BCE

Hui Shi

c. 370 BCE – c. 310 BCE

The Islamic Golden Age· 800–1274 CE

Ibn Arabi

1165 CE – 1240 CE

Classical India· 600 BCE–550 CE

Kapila

c. 6th century BCE

Badarayana

c. 2nd century BCE

Medieval Europe· 354–1349 CE

John Scotus Eriugena

c. 815 CE – c. 877 CE

Meister Eckhart

c. 1260 CE – c. 1328 CE

Duns Scotus

c. 1266 CE – 1308 CE

Early Modern· 1561–1716 CE

Anne Conway

1631 CE – 1679 CE

Thinkers Who Shaped This Idea

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