Noematic plenitude and epistemic completeness in Parmenides

Abstract

Based on a particular interpretation of τὸ γὰρ πλέον ἐστὶ νόημα (DK 28 B 16.4), I argue that Parmenides saw the way ὡς ἔστιν and the mortal δόξαι (as presented in his poem) as satisfactory theories on their own level because both accounts were supposed to cover τὸ πᾶν in its entirety. Parmenides realized that every cognitive act has noematic content and believed that adequate explanations cannot imply something for which there is no noematic content. Since he did not pretend to explain just one particular object, but the whole of reality, he made sure that both his true and his verisimilar explanation exhausted the totality of the real in their own way: while the former explanation omitted, the latter took into account all distinct things known to human beings. This article demonstrates that, despite their disparate epistemic statuses, Parmenides’ two doctrines satisfy the principle of “noematic plenitude”, according to which adequate explanations cannot involve gaps in noematic content. For I side with those who find similarities between Parmenides and Kant, and think that “noematic plenitude” can be understood as both a regulative principle with respect to mortal δόξαι and a constitutive principle with respect to the way ὡς ἔστιν.