Parmenides and Upanishads Philosophies Essay

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The paper summarizes the guiding principles of two philosophical traditions, which are Parmenides’ and Upanishads’ dogmas. The author acknowledges that the doctrines are contrastive in its content since they reflect the opposite interpretations of objective reality. Still, one can point out several critical similarities between the ways of thinking that were adopted by the proponents of two philosophical thoughts.

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Parmenides, who was an early Greek philosopher, was a follower of Thales’ naïve theory that created space for scientific justification of the reality existence. His teachings provided an innovative approach to the philosophical ideas of world formation. Thus, he condemned the theory of Heraclitus, which claimed that every conception was rooted in the idea of change. In response to this doctrine, he argued that reality was a never-changing concept since al alteration stems from the notion of nonbeing, which can not exist in a stable world. Therefore, the philosopher made a conclusion: “nothingness is unthinkable and unreal” (Velasquez 45).

His idea was furthered by one of his early students, Zeno, who made an attempt to back up the doctrine by providing an example of a runner. Due to him, it is impossible for anyone to move from one point to the other, for one would be required to enter the immeasurable number of realities. Therefore, the modern philosophers claim that Parmenides’ doctrine created a framework of modern philosophy and assisted people in leaving the world of blind beliefs that relied exclusively on the idea of supernatural power. Instead, it underlined the logical explanations of the world existence as well as attempted to ground the idea of reality processes as the evictions of changing procedures in a never-changing space.

In contrast to Parmenides’ theory, the proponents of the early Eastern philosophy, the Vedas and Upanishads adopted a contrasted view of reality, which still contradicted with an innovative non-mythical way of thinking. Though the authors of Eastern dogma strived for a scientific explanation of objective reality, their ideas relied on the existence of the so-called unconditional world that explained every process in a mythical way. Thus, the Upanishads created a concept of Brahman that was an abstract reality. In the context of this absolute world, they started regarding a personal self as a stimulator and a single source of every process that reveals itself in a real world. Therefore, the Eastern thinkers created a doctrine of a deep understanding of human nature as a driving force of life. They were the first to contemplate the concept of human thinking, activities, preferences and desires.

Consequently, two theories differ in conceptual grounding, for the mode of Parmenides’ way of thinking stems from the idea of scientific and purely objective reality. In contrast to it, the Upanishads do not distance themselves from the conception of supernatural force that takes the upper hand over the human nature. Nevertheless, the doctrines coincide in the ultimate message. Thus, both theories view the world as a stable unit, which is susceptible to no congruity. Thus, the proponents of the Parmenides’ dogma regard a single reality through denying the idea of change. The Upanishads, in their turn, consider the evictions of alteration as the acting of separate selfs. In this way, the modifications that arise from an objective reality demonstrate the so-called “verbal differences”, which emphasize that a stable world unites a number of unstable objects that can reveal opposite reactions to the constituents of ultimate reality.

Reference

Velasquez, Manuel. Philosophy: A Text with Readings, Boston: Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2020) 'Parmenides and Upanishads Philosophies'. 12 June.

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IvyPanda. 2020. "Parmenides and Upanishads Philosophies." June 12, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/parmenides-and-upanishads-philosophies/.

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