Zeno of Elea
Zeno of Elea, born circa 490 BCE, followed a very different approach to Heraclitus'. Where Heraclitus said, Panta rei, all things change; Zeno’s teacher Parmenides said, Hen ta panta, all things are one, and never change. Not many people took Parmenides’ idea of a static universe all that seriously; but Zeno proved that, at least theoretically, the idea of constant change was just as absurd. As an exercise in perversity, and to amuse his youth, Zeno published a book of paradoxes, of which nine have come down to us. The most famous are the Dichotomy Paradox and Achilles and the Tortoise, where simple observations of motion are reduced to absurd consequences. Through these, Zeno delves into the mathematical concept of the limits but unfortunately does not go much further than to annoy a few colleagues. Another paradox, The Moving Rows, shows that if we think of time in finite chunks, motion is virtually impossible. The discussion of these paradoxes has gone on from Pato to Bertrand Russell, and may continue as long as words are mistaken for things. For these and other reasons, Zeno, Parmenedes, and others like Xenophanes (not discussed here) are associated with the so-called “idealist” philosophers: not as influential as Socrates and his followers, and not as consequential as the Ionian scientists.
In his old age, Zeno, having become a man “of great wisdom and learning,” complained that the philosophers had taken too seriously the intellectual pranks of his youth. It is said that Socrates saw Zeno speak once and was so infected with his ideas that they never left him. Zeno’s final escapade was more fatal to him: he joined in an attempt to depose the tyrant Nearchus at Elea, was foiled and arrested, tortured and killed.
Source: Durant, Will, 1885-1981, The Life of Greece: A history of Greek government, industry, manners, morals, religion, philosophy, science, literature and art from the earliest times to the Roman conquest. Simon and Schuster, 1939.
Public Domain
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!