In preparation for my lecture on Parmenides, I read a number of different interpretations of his poem, On Nature, and his philosophy as a whole. I found the following passage from D.W. Hamlyn both interesting and telling, especially in light of my convinction that human beings are and have always been dependent upon and in need of God’s revelation.
“What makes Parmenides so remarkable is his willingness to relay on strictly deductive argument and to hold fast to its conclusion however implausible that is. Some might see in this a kind of paranoia, but it also marks the birth of true philosophy or of one aspect of it—the appeal to argument that is as rigid as it can be. Deductive metaphysics of this kind will appear again in this history. It is always a failure, not simply because of the implausibility of its conclusions, but because reason alone cannot provide us with sound premises from which to deduce the nature of reality. All the same, it is remarkable that the enterprise begins so early with so little in the background to explain its incidence” (D.W. Hamlyn, A History of Western Philosophy, p. 25).