Auditório Paulo Freire (TUCA) - Rua Monte Alegre, 1024 - Perdizes - São Paulo - São Paulo - Brasil
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The Language of Being, the Language of Nature: Parmenides and his reception
September 29–October 2, 2025
TUCA Theater, PUC-SP
About the conference:
The international conference "The Language of Being, the Language of Nature: Parmenides and His Receptions" will be held from September 29 to October 2, 2025 at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), in a hybrid format.
Parmenides is not just the first thinker to ever consider the notion of being in itself in Greek thought. He also associates this Being with a specific kind of knowledge (Aletheia) and a specific "persuasive" language that would account for it. Indeed, his poem constitutes our first document in the philosophical tradition that presents deductive arguments in Greek philosophy. This innovation explains why several critics consider Parmenides to be either the first philosopher, if one defines philosophy by its use of a certain kind of argument, or at least the one who gave philosophy a new starting point. However, Parmenides' language is not entirely innovative, both because of his use of epic hexameters and style and because of the physical description of the world that follows the examination of being, which is similar to what we may find in previous Pre-Socratic thought.
For a long time, the studies on Parmenides and his reception have focused almost exclusively on the question of being itself and its nature. In this conference, we intend to concentrate on Parmenides' language, in all its dimensions (stylistic, argumentative, rhetorical, predicative...). Our aim is to see both how this approach may bring new perspectives on much-discussed issues like the relationship between Being and Nature, Truth and Opinions, and how Parmenides' kind of reasoning shaped the language that philosophy, in particular ontology or metaphysics, used in later thought, which includes Parmenides' immediate successors up to late Antiquity.
Organizers:
Bruno Conte (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo)
Mathilde Brémond (Université Clermont Auvergne)
Liliana Carolina Sánchez Castro (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)
Sponsorship:
Capes
CNPq
Institut Universitaire de France
IAPS
Final Program of Activities
September 29
08h00: Registration09h00: Opening remarks
Chair: Miriam Peixoto
09:15-10:10: Alberto Bernabé (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) (online): Orphic Language in Parmenides
10:10-10:55: Andrei V. Lebedev (online): Textual and hermeneutic notes on Parmenides' Proem.
10:55-11:25: Coffee Break
Chair:
11:25-12:10: Luis Enrique Mata Quintero: El Proemio de Parménides: una lectura a partir de la noción de límite y la posibilidad de su superación
12:10-12:55: Marco Guerrieri (Federico II University of Naples) (online): Parmenides as a Poet
12:55-14:25: Lunch
Chair: Alexandre Costa
14:25-15:20: Bernardo Berruecos (Univ. Nacional de México): Limits of Being, Limits of Language. Iconicity, Metrical Anomaly, and Structural Dislocation in Parmenides' Hexameter.
15:20-16:05: Victoria Hsu (online): Parmenides' ??sµ' ??a???: Projecting the Underworld into the Heavens
16:05-16:35: Coffee Break
Chair: Bruno Conte
16:35-17:20: David Sider: The Proem: Sources, Language, and Purpose
17:20-18:15: André Laks (online): Parmenides on Searching
September 30
Chair: Arnaud Macé09:15-10:10: Gabriele Cornelli (University of Brasilia): Parmenides underground? Back to the katábasis in the Proem
10:10-10:55: José Gabriel Trindade Santos: 'Identity' and 'opposition' in Parmenides'
10:55-11:25: Coffee Break
Chair: Mathilde Brémond
11:25-12:10: Nazareno Eduardo de Almeida: On Parmenides' tautological monism: identity as the fundamental property of being
12:10-12:55: Marco Montagnino (online): The Parmenidean denial of the principles of "identity" and "excluded middle" (B8:53-59)
12:55-14:25: Lunch
Chair: Gabriele Cornelli
14:25-15:20: Gábor Betegh (Cambridge University): It is all full' A new look at the relationship between 'what-is' and the cosmos, and its ramifications for post-Parmenidean philosophy
15:20-16:05: Colin Smith: Being as p??e?? in Parmenides Fragment 8
16:05-16:35: Coffee Break
Chair: Daniela Furtado
16:35-17:20: Alexandre Costa: Parmenides and the mutual exclusivity between being and coming-to-be
17:20-18:15: Stephen White: Parmenidean Questions: What does the Goddess ask and why?
October 1
Chair: Bernardo Berruecos09:00-09:45: Lu Jiang (online): Persuasion, Necessity and Truth in Parmenides's Fragments
09:45-10:30: Nicola Galgano: Parmenides DK 28 B 4, the discovery of the abstraction
10:30-11:00: Coffee Break
Chair: André Braga
11:00-11:55: Arnaud Macé (Université de Franche-Comté): From the Molu to the Moon. Parmenides and Homer on the nature and power of things
11:55-12:40: Benjamin Folit-Weinberg (online): Parmenides' hodos, the early Greek concept of physis, and the importance of models
October 2
Chair: André da Paz09:15-10:10: Miriam C. D. Peixoto (Federal University of Minas Gerais): Conjectures about the Presence of the Attributes of Cosmological Principles in the Discourse on the Nature of "What Is" (DK28B8)
10:10-10:55: Enrico Piergiacomi (online): Parmenides and Eudaimonism? The Adaptation of the Eleatic Language of Ontological Stability in Democritus and the Megarian School
10:55-11:25: Coffee Break
Chair: Mathilde Brémond
11:25-12:10: Daniela Brinati Furtado: Parmenides' goddess and Gorgias' Helen: the problem of truth and persuasion
12:10-12:55: Francesca Gambetti (online): From the way of truth to the deductive method, between Parmenides and On Ancient Medicine
12:55-14:25: Lunch
Chair: Bruno Conte
14:25-15:20: Nestor Cordero: Les effets secondaires d'une malheureuse conjecture (Parmenide, fr. 6.3)
15:20-16:05: Bruno Fernandes Santos: Some reflections on the significance of dóxai in Parmenides' Poem
16:05-16:35: Coffee Break
Chair: Pedro Dotto
16:35-17:20: André Luiz Braga da Silva: Speaking correctly of the reality: Parmenides' PNC and Plato's reception thereof
17:20-18:05: Antonio Luis Costa Vargas (online): Parmenidean "Being" in Plotinus and Proclus
