Abstract

Parmenides proposes a notion of φύσις somewhat different from the Milesian tradition, associating it no longer with some constituent such as water, earth, fire and air, but with “what it is” (τὸ ἐόν). With this, he favors the notion that φύσις is apprehended by thought (λόγος) and not by sensation, in order to be expressed in words based on the deduction of parameters for investigation. Our aim is to show that Parmenides uses a poetic language to guide the rules of philosophical language adopted by posterity, maintaining, however, the identity, arising from the archaic tradition, between φύσις and λόγος.