Knowledge and Perceptions between Alcmaeon and Parmenides

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine Alcmaeon and Parmenides’ doctrines of knowledge, trying to highlight parallels and differences, eventual influences of the physician from Croton upon the physiologos from Elea. I will try to argue that Parmenides – in deconstructing ancient cosmogonies and in his quest for an explanation of all that exists – may have used Alcmaeon’s new findings on perceptions, which provided him with a strong epistemological set of tools and with a theory of knowledge, capable of validating his work. Both represent an important turning point in the criticism of mythical thinking and the development of a rational investigation of the human body and nature. Some scholars have tried to downplay his role, but the attention that ancient doxography paid to Alcmaeon is a sign of how innovative his research was considered to be, and how we too should take it into account, not only with respect to medicine but also to philosophy.