Everything about Melissus Of Samos totally explained
Melissus of Samos (in
Greek,
Μέλισσος ὁ Σάμιος; probably born in
470 BC) was a Samian
statesman and
naval commander who also contributed to
philosophy, and bore influence upon the
atomism of
Leucippus and
Democritus.
Melissus commanded a Samian fleet that defeated the
Athenians in
441 –
440 BC. He was a pupil of
Parmenides, whose philosophical ideas he extended.
His works, fragments of which are preserved by
Simplicius of Cilicia and attested to by
Aristotle, are devoted to the defense of Parmenides' doctrine. They were written in
Ionic, and consist of long series of arguments. Being, he says, is infinite, having no beginning or end. It can't have had a beginning because it can't have begun from not-being (compare
ex nihilo nihil fit)(εἴη γὰρ ἂν οὔτω καὶ οὐ γένοιτο). It can't suffer destruction because it's impossible for being to become not-being, and if it became another being, there would be no destruction.
According to Simplicius (
Physika, f. 22b), Melissus differed here from Parmenides in distinguishing between being and absolute being (τὸ ἁπλῶς ἐόν). He goes on to show that eternal being must also be unlimited in magnitude, and, therefore, one and unchangeable. Any change whether from internal or external source, he says, is unthinkable; the One, or unitary reality, of Parmenides, is unvarying in quantity and in kind. There can be no division inside this unity, for any such division implies space or void — but void is nothing, and, therefore, is not. It follows further that being is incorporeal, inasmuch as all body has size and parts. Following this logic Melissus also posits that movement is impossible as it's always movement into nothing or void, which according to monism can't exist.
The fundamental difficulty underlying this logic is the
paradox more clearly expressed by
Zeno of Elea and to a large extent represented in almost all modern discussion, namely that the evidence of the senses contradicts the intellect. Abstract argument has shown that change in the unity is impossible, yet the senses tell us that hot becomes cold, hard becomes soft, the living dies, and so on.
Neither Melissus nor Zeno seems to have observed that the application of these destructive methods struck at the root not only of multiplicity but also of the One whose existence they maintained. The weapons which they forged in the interests of Parmenides would be used with equal effect against their own theses.
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