Talk:Zeno of Elea

Paradoxes given by Aristotle
I removed the two paradoxes from Aristotle as they are contained in the more appropriate Zeno's paradoxes. Uriah923 07:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Pederasts?
Leaving aside the question of "Why would they not have been?" is not this sufficient indication that indeed they were: "Plato says that Zeno was "tall and fair to look upon" and was "in the days of his youth … reported to have been beloved by Parmenides". (Parmenides 127)" Haiduc 23:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Zeno wasn't a pederast. He was the child in the pederast relationship. Parmenides was the pederast.Mr. 123453334 (talk) 00:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Muse?
It is said that Pythagoras recommended the building of shrines to the Muses. Could Zeno have played the comic relief to Parmenides? He seems to have been a bit of a trickster who, like Hermes who gave Apollo a bad time of it, wreaked havoc on Parmenides' arguments. In Plato's Parmenides the Athenians give the impression that Parmenides was the better of the two. When asked for a copy of one of his works Zeno claims that it was a juvinile effort and that it was lost. He is supposed to have written a work containing forty paradoxes. His argument that points do not exist is interesting. Compare the present with eternity. --Jbergquist 22:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

"Greek philosopher of southern Italy"
Er... how exactly is he both Greek and Italian? --Jatopian 22:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Remember, Elea was a Greek colony in Italy. Presumably he was born there, making him Italian, but of Greek parents in a Greek-claimed city-state, thus making him also Greek. --Gwern (contribs) 02:04 22 August 2007 (GMT)

Betrand Russel Quote
The quote by Bertrand Russel quote seems out of place in the introduction. Would anyone have any problem if I just put some of its substance into the intro. (Lucas(CA) 23:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC))

Conflict of dates
The article alludes to Aristotle being awear of Zeno and his work, even though the current birth/death dates would make this pretty much impossible.

The article states that he lived between 490 BC – ca. 430 BC, and i do recognise that the exact year is unknown, but (according to the wiki page on him)Aristotle lived from 384 BC to 322 BC, so for them to know each other they would have had time time travel.

Can this please be fixed up, somehow... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.6.43.107 (talk) 06:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Where does the article say that Aristotle knew Zeno? Zeno died roughly 50 years before Aristotle was born. Nevertheless Aristotle knew of Zeno and his work. Paul August &#9742; 06:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Zeno's beliefs
Having devised his paradoxes, did Zeno in fact believe that motion was physically impossible and thus was only an illusion? Or were his paradoxes to him simply philosophical in nature, with no actual bearing on reality? — Loadmaster (talk) 16:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I doubt they were merely philosophical arguments; presumably if they were 'just' arguments, then Zeno's point would've been 'look at the odd results reasoning can produce!', no? But Zeno, Parmenides, and Melissus seem to've genuinely believe their results. Consider that the Parmenides doesn't seem to present Zeno as ironic, nor does Parmenides's On Nature seem to undercut itself; likewise, I've never seen any fragments of Melissus which cast doubt on his adherence.
 * Now, if the writings were from a Sophist like Gorgias, maybe then one could suggest that the author did not believe his arguments. :) --Gwern (contribs) 19:35 29 October 2008 (GMT)

Portrait
Singinglemon has pointed out that the person in the protrait is very probably Zeno of Citium. A visual argument (captions reflect identity claims):

Has anyone more info on this matter? Paradoctor (talk) 14:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I had a dig around for ancient representations of "Zeno", and all I can find are busts of Zeno of Citium:
 * A marble bust of Zeno of Citium in the Naples museum. This is the portrait of Zeno with the long beard, and it's clearly what the engraving currently illustrating this page is based on.
 * A marble bust of Zeno of Citium in the Capitoline museum. A somewhat cruder bust this one, and it may be what the alternative engravings of Zeno with a shorter beard are based on.
 * A bronze bust from Herculaneum, once thought to be Zeno of Sidon, but now accepted to be Zeno of Citium
 * Zeno of Elea was, relative to Zeno of Citium, a fairly obscure fellow in the ancient world - he didn't found a philsophical cult like the Cypriot did, and so no ancient portraits of him survive. As for the more modern engravings, they were often used, I think, to illustrate editions of Diogenes Laertius' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, and Zeno of Elea has only a short entry in that, compared with Zeno of Citium who heads up book 7. Most engravings of Zeno, I'm afraid, are likely to be of Zeno of Citium. Singinglemon (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The quote from Laërtius
The callout rquote from Laërtius does not expand its "box" properly when the reader increases his type size (zooms in), e.g., with ctrl+plus. If the reader has zoomed in even once, the ends of the nobreak lines are truncated in a way that makes the quote unintelligible. Either you have to do ctrl+zero and move closer to the screen and squint, or you can go to edit mode and try to read it, ignoring all the mark up characters, which are many. I do not know how to fix this.   Solo Owl   20:28, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

No solution has been agreed upon? Seriously?
Re. "Zeno's philosophy is still debated in the present day, and no solution to his paradoxes has been agreed upon by philosophers": Why don't they just integrate? This is high-school math. Philgoetz (talk) 02:01, 9 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Please, explain yourself. What is your point? I suppose you mean to say that a philosophcal paradox of this sort can have no clear solution, as is the case with mathematical problems (perhaps requiring integration). Well, this point is valid as far as epistemology is concerned, but it all comes down to how you interpret the term "solution". It doesn't have to be a numerical solution; could it not be taken to mean the "explanation"? L'OrfeoSon io 09:21, 9 December 2023 (UTC)