From the Beginning to Plato

FROM THE BEGINNING TO PLATO 129
together) nor in any respect less: all is full of what is. Hence it is all
coherent, for what is comes close to what is.
(DK 28 B 8.22–5)
The underlying strategy here is parallel to that of section (a). Suppose that reality
(E) is divided. What that implies is that something divides E. What could that
be?
By the fact that E is ‘summed’, comprising all that is, anything other than E has
to be something that is not. By the same argument as before, it can never be true
to say that E is divided by something that is not. Hence E is not divided by
anything other than itself. This limb of the argument, though suppressed here as
obvious, appears in the parallel passage at 8.44–8.
What is here explored is the other possibility: that E is divided by itself, i.e. by
its own internal variations. The possibility of internal qualitative variations is not
mentioned; presumably they would not count as creating divisions. What is
mentioned is the possibility of variations of ‘more’ and ‘less’, i.e. in ‘quantity’ or
‘intensity’ of being. These are rejected, by the observation that ‘it is all in like
manner’. Being admits of no degrees; anything either is or is not.
(c)
Reality is complete, unique, unchanging (B 8.26–33)
The same, staying in the same, by itself it lies, and thus it stays fixed
there; for strong necessity holds it in the fetters of the limit, which
fences it about; since it is not right that what is should be incomplete,
for it is not lacking—if it were, it would lack everything.
(DK 28 B 8.29–33)
This is a train of argument in which exposition runs the opposite way to
deduction. It must be read backwards from the end. The starting-point is that
reality (E) is complete or ‘not lacking’. Once again the strategy is the same, that
of reductio ad absurdum. Suppose E is lacking; then E must lack something.
What is this something? It cannot be part of E, for then it would not be lacking
from E. Therefore it is not part of E, and hence is not; but it is not true that it is
not, by the now familiar argument.
Given that E is not lacking, it is complete, and has a ‘limit’. The word used here
has no close English equivalent: Homer’s usage applies it to anything that marks
or achieves any kind of completion. Here, the ‘limit’ functions as a constraint on
reality: the need for completeness is a (logical) constraint. Completeness rules out,
in particular, all change and movement, and enforces uniqueness: reality is ‘by
itself’ or ‘on its own’. Why?
Completeness has these consequences because it embodies the principle that E
contains everything that is. This now enables Parmenides to get some grip on the