EARLY GREEK THINKING
By indicating this difference we are at the same time giving an indication of the degree to which our own interpretation of Parmenides' saying arises from a way of thinking utterly foreign to the Hegelian approach. Does the statement esse = percipi contain the proper interpretation of the saying τὸ γὰρ αὐτο νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εῖναι? Do both propositions—provided we may call them propositions—say that thinking and Being are the same? And even if they do say so, do they say so in the same sense? To the attentive eye a distinction at once makes itself clear which might easily be dismissed as apparently external. In both places (Frags. III and VIII, 34-41) Parmenides words his saying so that νοεῖν (thinking) each time precedes εῖναι (Being). Berkeley, on the other hand, puts esse (Being) before percipi (thinking). This would seem to signify that Parmenides grants priority to thinking, while Berkeley grants priority to Being. Actually the situation is just the reverse: Parmenides consigns thinking to Being, while Berkeley refers Being to thinking. To correspond more adequately to the Greek saying, the modern proposition would have to run: percipi = esse.
The modern statement asserts something about Being, understood as objectivity for a thoroughgoing representation. The Greek saying assigns thinking, as an apprehending which gathers, {GA 7: 243} to Being, understood as presencing. Thus every interpretation of the Greek saying that moves within the context of modern thinking goes awry from the start. Nonetheless, these multiform interpretations fulfill their inexorable function: they render Greek thinking accessible to modem representation and bolster the latter in its self-willed progression to a "higher" level of philosophy.
The first of the three viewpoints that determine all interpretations of Parmenides' saying represents thinking as something at hand and inserts it among the remaining beings. The second viewpoint, in the modern fashion, grasps Being, in the sense of the representedness of objects, as objectivity for the ego of subjectivity.
The third point of view follows one of the guidelines of ancient philosophy as determined by Plato. According to the Socratic-Platonic teaching, the Ideas endow every entity with "being," but they do not belong in the realm of αἰσθητά,, the sense-perceptible. The Ideas can be purely seen only in νοεῖν, nonsensible perception.
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