On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias

Aristotle. Aristotelis Opera, Volume 6. Bekker, Immanuel, editor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1837.

Open Greek and Latin · CC BY-SA 4.0

Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.

This philosophical treatise critically examines the ontologies, epistemologies, and logical consequences of the early Greek thinkers Melissus, Xenophanes, and the sophist Gorgias. Divided into sections corresponding to each figure, the work first summarizes their respective arguments before subjecting their premises and logical steps to rigorous scrutiny. The first part analyzes the Eleatic premise that 'nothing comes from nothing,' questioning the concepts of unity, immobility, and infinity of being, as well as the nature of a single, spherical deity. The author defends the existence of multiplicity, motion, and change by drawing on rival physical systems of other natural philosophers. The latter part focuses on Gorgias's famous threefold thesis—that nothing exists, that if it exists it cannot be known, and that if known it cannot be communicated. By exposing the logical contradictions in these claims and the asymmetry between sensory perception and language (logos), the text demonstrates the limits of radical skepticism. Ultimately, the work serves as a detailed logical exercise that challenges early monistic ontology and rhetorical skepticism.