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Once logos is placed at the center of the life of the city, then the contest of speeches gives rise to democracy in the political arena. Yet, soon democracy becomes representative democracy when it admits specialization and philosophy fragments into physics and meta-physics. However, when we look back at logos as one flow of speech, the political, metaphysical and physical are still all one pure stream of speech directed at manifesting authentic justice. Yet, we know that the logos itself, even demystified and made common, still has its own enchantment. Within the flow of words we continually hear primordial Being manifesting itself almost in every sentence. What happens when we take seriously the demand of logos and attempt to get to the center of the logos itself? The center of the logos is the manifestation of the Primordial Being. If we attempt to extract this, then we get the solidification of conceptual Being. Conceptual Being is the fusion of the triple characteristics of Primordial Being into a single conceptual symbolic or generalized other.

This fusion attempts to get at the core of true speech. It turns true speech into a speech about everything. It makes Conceptual Being identical with the Apeiron or Arche of all things. This solidification of Conceptual Being finally inaugurates the metaphysical epoch. Before the identification of the Apeiron with Conceptual Being there was play in the system, as noted from one gestalt to the next. The identification of the Arche with Being froze the system into a new gestalt within which all Western culture has struggled ever since. The evidence of that struggle is the history of the Epochs of Being. Heidegger has sketched these epochs in which the understanding of Being has changed over and over again. The identification of the Arche with Being is fateful for all of Western science and philosophy. When Heraclitus says "the wise is one," the focus is not on the "is." However, Parmenides sealed our fate by focusing in on the "is" as the center of true speech. He heard it as a grammarian would, instead of hearing its meaning. He focused on the linguistic substrate, instead of what it indicated. In order to understand the solidification of the concept of Being, it is necessary to think along with Parmenides when he says:

Parmenides is studying what true speech says. The thinking he apprehends in the discourse which attempts to express thinking is constantly saying what IS. With this recognition Primordial Being is transformed into fused Conceptual Being. Immediately Conceptual Being is seen as opposed to Non-Being, its supposed opposite, and the whole focus of discussion shifts away from the content of true speech to the almost grammatical obsession with what Being means. Until this point Being has been a subconscious element beneath the surface of the discourse. Now it comes to consciousness explicitly. Primordial Being is suddenly emptied of content, and Conceptual Being is set up against the straw man opposite Non-Being. The concern with authenticity and justice in true speech is lost to pedantic arguments over the relation of Being to Non-Being. Yet, in its first manifestation, the shift to concern with Being contained an essential insight which should not be overlooked. The Greeks discovered a crucial pre-ontological assumption in their discourse and made it visible.

Notice that Parmenides is not talking about a single city. His is a journey from city to city. This is important because Heraclitus sees the role of the sage as being confined to within the city governed by law. Each city is a separate gestalt, and here the man of knowledge is traversing those gestalts. Does this not remind us of the precessing of the proto-gestalt? Heraclitus' sage does not experience this precessing because he stays within his own city. Plato points out the importance of the identification of the sage with his city in his criticism of the sophists. When the sage sticks to his city, he is like the tree which emcompasses all the different opinions of men in the city. This proto-gestalt does not precess. But when the sage becomes uprooted, then he experiences the different cities as gestalts which change from time to time. The means of travel is a chariot -- a celestial chariot such as that ridden by the sun god across the heavens. The chariot is a device that connects two mares which might be identified with the opposites.

Along this way I was carried; for by this way the exceedingly intelligent mares bore me, drawing the chariot, and the maidens directed the way. The axle in the naves gave forth a pipe-like sound as it glowed (for it was driven round by the two whirling circles (wheels) at each end) whenever the maidens, daughters of the Sun, having left the Palace of Night, hastened their driving towards the light, having pushed back their veils from their heads with their hands. [p41]

Notice that the chariot contains the Sun which is analogous to the Ache. The chariot is the means by which the Arche is carried by the connected but separate opposites of the mares. The chariot is a platform for the Arche and a means of connecting the opposites which are driven forward. Here, in a single image, is the structure Heraclitus showed us in true speech. The body of the chariot is like the holoidal character of the whole. The reigned mares are like the holon with its Janus faces. The opposites are driven by the Arche that gives them guidance. A key feature of the chariot is the wheels and the axle that connects them. The turning of the wheels expresses continuous change. The Axle is the precessing proto-gestalt. It grows hot and makes a noise as it spins. There are two wheels on either side of the chariot. They give it balance and harmony. The wheel is composed of a hub, spokes and rim. The hub gathers together all the differences of the rim into a unity. The rim is the continuous flow that comes out of the discrete strides of the horses. Thus, the turning wheel represents the production of the illusory continuity of ideation artificially out of the natural strides of the horses. The wheel represents the identity wed to difference in harmony. Thus, the wheel represents, in some way, the well of the Primal Scene. Multiple wheels to single axle bears out this similarity even further. Together axle and wheels gather important features of the proto-gestalt, and sources form the Primal Scene. The Body of the Chariot and its tang represent the relation of the Arche to the opposites. Thus, in a single image Parmenides has summed up the entire transform from mythopoetic Primal Scene to meta/physical Apeiron/opposites configuration. This metaphor of the chariot is what Parmenides rides from the realm of darkness into the light where the goddesses lift their veils.

There (in the Palace of Night) are the gates of the paths of Night and Day, and they are enclosed with a lintel above and a stone threshold below. The gates themselves are filled with great folding doors; and of those Justice might to punish, has interchangeable keys. The maidens skillfully cajoling her with soft words, persuaded her to push back the bolted bar without delay from the gates; and these, flung open revealed a wide gaping space, having sound their jambs, richly wrought in bronze, reciprocally in their sockets. This way, then, straight through then went the maidens, driving chariot and mares along the carriage rode.

Parmenides is taking a journey from the in-time to the endlesstime realm. He is going to the root of true speech where the water turns to fire. Here the opposites of the mares in the chariots are transposed into the "gates of the paths of Night and Day." From here the opposites issue and justice holds the keys to these gates. These keys are interchangeable. The key to night opens the day, and the key to day opens the night. The key in this case is the unity of the opposites. This unity relates to the balance of the opposites guarded by justice. Justice reigns over the world of endlesstime. When the gates are unbarred, a gaping space is revealed. What lies beyond the gate of the furthest limit is an empty void. The gate is framed by a stone foundation and a wooden lintel. The opposites are framed and set with hinges which operate reciprocally. The bolt is like the axle. The frame of the gate is like the wheel. The chariot is transferred out of time by stopping. When it stops, it is turned into the gate, and the Arche becomes personified by Justice. By stopping the chariot, it transforms into the gate to the endlesstime realm.

And the goddess received me kindly and took my right hand in hers and thus she spoke and addressed me:

Young man, companion of immortal charioteers, who comest by the help of the steeds which bring thee to our dwelling: welcome! -- since no evil fate has dispatched thee on thy journey by this road (fore truly it is far from the path trodden by mankind); no, it is divine command and Right. Thou shall inquire into everything: both the motionless heart of well rounded Truth, and also the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true reliability. But nevertheless, thou shalt learn these things (opinions) also -- how one should go through all the things that seem without exception and test them.

Beyond the gate of the opposites -- called in the Tao Te Ching the gate of the mysterious female -- in the open space is found "the motionless heart of well rounded truth," and it's differentiated from all human opinions. The motionless heart of the truth is Conceptual Being. True speech in Greek revolves around the is constantly claiming that something is the case. Parmenides sees this as the true Arche because whatever is claimed to exist must use Conceptual Being to do so. Parmenides merely makes clear what holds the chariot together. It is held together by the glue of Conceptual Being.

To think the above statements and to claim their Being* is the same! The is* here is the motionless heart of the well rounded truth. In the descriptions it remains the same as a substrata for all description. The substrata continuously appears the same throughout the discussion.

2 Come, I will tell you -- and you must accept my word when you have heard it -- the ways of inquiry which alone are to be thought: the one that IT IS, and it is not possible for IT NOT TO BE, is the way of credibility, for it follows Truth;

Conceptual Being, unlike the Arche, is opposed to not being. The Arche is opposed to the primal opposites Yin and Yang. When Being becomes Arche the opposites disappear. Being becomes monolithic and motionless -- it becomes empty, the symbolic other, over against all the beings which is contrasted with Non-Being or the unthinkable. By this way of thinking, whatever can be predicated is true. That which cannot be predicated cannot be thought. The predicated becomes simultaneously one, true and real. Individuals have fragmented views of this monolithic block of spacetime which give rise to various opinions. The opinions exist as false, different and unreal, as opposed to the one true reality of Being. Opinion is the illusory mixture of Being and Non-Being. But this mixture cannot really exist, and is a mirage.

6 One should both say and think that Being IS; for to be is possible, and nothingness is not possible. This I command you to consider; far from the later way of search first of all I debar you. But next I debar you from that way along which wander mortals knowing nothing, two-headed, for perplexity in their bosoms steers their intelligence astray, and they are carried along as deaf as they are blind, amazed, uncritical hordes, but whom TO BE and NOT TO BE are regarded and the same and not the same and (for whom) in everything there is a way of opposing stress.

The difference between the holoidal and the ephemeron has been collapsed and contrasted with an imaginary opposite non-Being. Being has been identified with the holiodal which has been turned into a frozen block of spacetime. The free play of differences within Primordial Being has been lost. An imaginary opposite has been created only to be shot down. The ephemeron has been reduced to a mixture of the imaginary opposite and the empty concept of fused Being. Metaphysics has been emptied of all meaning, and physics has become like a chariot running wild without a driver. The idealization of a grammatical term has replaced the search for the Arche of all things. The history of the forgetfulness of Being has been set loose. Heidegger sketches the Epochs of Being in his book The End Of Philosophy. Within philosophical discourse, Being constantly transforms itself in order to hide itself. The epochs of Being form a substrate for all other epochal transitions within the fundamental metaphysical epoch. However, our freedom to view the Arche as anything other than Conceptual Being has been lost. Even more fundamental than our forgetfulness of Being is our forgetfulness of the Apeiron. Being has eclipsed the sun of the Good. We only see the black sun of Being now which blocks the access to the light of the Apeiron. Within Logos was a trap. When Being was conceptualized, the trap was sprung and Western civilization had been caught. The depth of the Primal Scene and Primordial Being was lost. The pursuit of philosophy became different from the pursuit of wisdom. Philosophy, which was to emancipate us from the mythopoetic, became boring. So everyone turned their attention to physics -- physics, chemistry, astronomy -- all the specialized disciplines. Yet, what no one noticed was that men became enslaved to a worse task master that before -- themselves. Heraclitus was suddenly seen as the opposite of Parmenides, advocating the way of Non Being as change. Parmenides set up the bounds for all subsequent metaphysical discourse. That discourse soon became the empty prattle of Sophists. Socrates attempted to reintroduce wisdom later by adhering to ignorance. But this was a failed attempt like Justinian's attempt to reverse the trend toward Christianity. To recognize that all philosophy after Parmenides amounts to sophistry as Plato defined and demonstrated it, is a stunning realization. We can not fully explore this dialectic of opinions circling around the forgetfulness of Being which has led to centuries of Epochal changes with regard to Being, Epistemes, and Paradigms. Instead we will attempt to make clear its formulation in Plato's Laws in which the fundamental tenants of this metaphysical position was laid down.

7, 8. For this (view) can never predominate, That Which Is Not exists. You must debar your thought from this way of search, nor let ordinary experience in its variety force you along this way, (namely that of allowing) the eye, sightless as it is, and ear, full of sound, and the tongue to rule; but (you must) judge by means of Reason (logos) the much-contested proof which is expounded by me.

By grasping Conceptual Being, Parmenides is able to propound the first idealistic philosophy. Parmenides makes the logos the measure of everything and rejects the evidence of the senses. In this way the dialectic of discourses are seen as illusory. His proof is contested within the universe of discourse, but it ultimately rejects all other views other than its own. Logos alone, with its core of Conceptual Being, is held to be the measure of all things. Since logos arises within the breast of man, we quickly come to the position of Protegorus:

What Hatab calls the modern view of self identity has fully developed at that point.

...self identity can roughly be summarized as: (1) self-consciousness, or the internal sense of separation from the external world and other selves; (2) independence as the initiator and the center of thought and action; and (3) continuity through time. But this notion of a subjective, personal self-consciousness -- ie. inwardness, autonomy, and unity -- developed only gradually in human history. As we shall see in archaic experience, the presence of such a self cannot be inferred. The primitive self is immediately fused with a feeling of community. ¹

In Parmenides' thought the foundation is laid for full self identity. The city of Heraclitus becomes internalized as the structure of the mundane self rather than that of the sage. The city within provides a model of inwardness. The walls provide important filters for disruptive experiences. The laws translate into the reasons which guide words and actions. The sage becomes the generalized other (super ego). The dialectic of contrary voices become the thought process. The whole structure is centered around the upwelling of Logos which provides the flow of illusory continuity. The cities' structure gives inwardness to the self. It also gives unity as the whole structure has a completeness as a pattern. It also provides for autonomy of action since actions are based on inner laws or inner thought rather than communal processes. Conceptual Being --- the symbolic other becomes the center of the self-identical mundane self. It provides the inner unity that connects all the diverse speeches. It provides the crucial concepts of identity, truth, and reality in a single conceptual package. Being becomes the unity around which the city of the shelf revolves. The self does not need to strive to be a sage to have this unity --- it is acquired through the grammatical structure of the logos itself. The sun of the Good is eclipsed. The crucial position of the single source has been ursurped by the symbolic other --- conceptual Being.

There is only one other description of the way remaining (namely), that (What Is) IS. To this way there are many sign posts: that Being has no coming-to-be and no destruction, for it is whole of limb, without motion, and without end. p43

Becoming is separated from Pure Being. Incompletion is separated from Completion. Conceptual Being is associated with only one part of its internal structure: One True Reality -- the holoidal. The other parts are consigned to the realm of becoming which is taken to be an illusory mixture of Being and Non-Being. This part is rejected. Only completion is kept. This is a reiteration of the fundamental injustice embodied by Conceptual Being. Conceptual Being is first of all unjust to Primordial Being by taking part and rejecting the rest. The part which is kept is "whole of limb" the ideal of wholeness and completeness. Conceptual Being abstracts the holoidal and freezes it so that it is "without motion." It is taken to be all of reality and the endless Arche of all beings thus "without end."

Conceptual Being as Arche is completion now. As St. Augustine has pointed out, the past and future have no Being. Only the now point. Everything which is now is considered Whole and One because of its interpenetrating holoidal nature. It is undivided because any division in Being would have to be demarcated by Non-Being. Conceptual Being also does injustice by forgetting its origin in the pre-ontological Primordial Being. Upon becoming the symbolic other, it rejects its origin and the imaginary opposites which gave rise to its definition. By tearing free of the imaginary opposites, it loses the true nature of the holoidal and becomes only an abstract image which soon becomes empty. Rejecting its origin, it floats free but simultaneously loses all meaning.

Notice a further injustice to Parmenides of the Goddess instructing Parmenides who will not allow the interlocutor to "speak or think..." Parmenides' position is given as a divine command ostensibly to Parmenides himself, but concretely from Parmenides to his audience. Who is the goddess who gives this command?

Alexander P.D. Mourelatos in The Route Of Parmenides² claims that the goddess is Pietho which is an aspect of Aphrodite. Pietho stands for "willing consent" but appears in Parmendies poems as the one who "binds." The way up to Pietho is balanced by the way down to Aphrodite's cave. This, of course, calls to mind Phophery's essay "on the cave of the Nymphs." The opposite of the holoid is the ephemeron. The ephemeron is identified with the illusion and fragmentation of the senses. Aphrodite is the one who enchants the senses. Witness Sopho's lyric poetry as proof. Strange that we should meet another aspect of the same goddess in the celestial sphere giving metaphysical discourse on Being as Arche.

Or is it so strange, it gives us a hint that what has been rejected as part of Primordial Being is still part of its whole. In fact, perhaps it demonstrates the inner connection between Primordial Being and Desire. Perhaps Primordial Being is desire. As C. Garma Chang says, Being is a subtle clinging to existence. It is the injustice of beings who have "completion now" towards the incomplete or those past their prime. They do injustice to the incomplete, or those past completion, in order to hold on to their completion. This is the subtle clinging to completeness now -- retention, remaining, preserving and adhering. What is rejected from Conceptual Being is still retained by Aphrodite under the earth where the rest of Primordial Being still exists. There Aphrodite is not afraid to show her real name and claim Primordial Being as her own. Above the earth in the celestial realm she disguises herself in one of her five disguises as Peitho, and does not give her name. Yet, she appears as one who brings man to a single route that rejects both Non-Being and Opinion. As such, she does injustice to the interlocutor by not revealing herself as she is, by not revealing the rest of Primordial Being which she retains below the earth, and by binding the interlocutor as a slave to the path of Being only. Western man has been bound to this path ever since. Being, as Arche, has exercised his mind and made him forget that anything else could be the Arche. This fascination with Being has turned out to be a narcissistic fascination with himself -- he looks into the distorted mirror of the universe where Man, has truly become the measure of all things. That is mans tyranny over himself.

This is a key question. By identifying Conceptual Being with the Arche, the single source is covered over. The sun of the Good is eclipsed. Since there can be only one Arche, it is difficult to imagine what could give rise to Being if Being is the Arche. In the configuration of Primordial Being the holoidal is only one of eight manifestations of Being. The single source gives rise to all of them together. By identifying the holoidal with the Arche, a paradox similar to that of a class being a member of itself is created. The part (the holoidal) is substituted for the source of the whole. This makes the aspects of Primordial Being apparently self generating. A neat formulation, if true. But unfortunately, it makes the whole substrate of Primordial Being collapse, leaving the Symbolic Other of Conceptual Being high and dry without any inner meaning. When Conceptual Being loses its relation to the rest of Primordial Being, it loses its relation to the Earth. This is the beginning of idealism. The other aspects of Primordial Being are exiled to the cave of Aphrodite.

This is the epitome of Will to Power. Being wills itself to be absolutely. Unfortunately, this is a world of process where perishing is inevitable. So the second clause is the more probable outcome of this act of Hubris. Completion is but a moment in a process of ascent and decent. To Be absolutely is to always live in completion. This does not occur in this world. But it does occur in the next world where everything is completed before returning to the single source. By substituting Being for Arche, the vision of the next world is obscured. The substrate of this world where justice is done is lost. The result is injustice with no hope of retribution.

Nor will the force of credibility ever admit that anything should come into being, beside Being itself, out of Not-Being. Justice has never released (Being) in its fetters and set it free either to come into being or to perish, but holds it fast.

We can interpret this statement in the opposite way to what is meant: Being was not set loose. Justice, which prevails as a Fire in the next world, kept the injustice of Conceptual Being bound. To say that justice holds Being in existence is a travesty because Conceptual Being is the embodiment of injustice.

The decision on these matters depends on the following: IT IS, or IT IS NOT. It is therefore decided -- as is meritable -- (that one must) ignore the one way as unthinkable and inexpressible (for it is no true way) and take the other as the way of Being and Reality. How could Being perish? How could it come into being? If it came into being, it IS NOT; and so too if it is about to be at some future time. This Coming-into-Being is quenched and destruction also into the unseen.

This is a fateful turn for Greek and all Western thought. This is a rejection of the Void and the Dionysian formlessness below all forms. The formulation is tainted. The formulation of the impossible opposite is it *is* not. The is and the not are brought together. It hides the possibility of the not by itself. If Being does not exist, then its opposite is void. and not "is not." Dionysian formlessness is merely the recognition of the death of the Immortals too; that individual forms arise and perish constantly from the stream of the waters of life. They arise from the Void; they return to the Void. The void masks the Single Source. The Void stands between the single source and endlesstime. The void is the unbridgeable gap. What did Parmenides find when the door was opened? "A wide gaping space" appeared to him. The door is the image from endless time. Beyond the door: the Abyss. Parmenides took one aspect of Primordial Being and projected it onto this void as Arche. Aphrodite, in disguise, delivered the lecture abstracted in part from her dark cave. The Arche is certainly beyond that veil but it is not a subtle form of desire cut off from Primordial Being.

We must go back and throw that gate open again. There we must discover the Void which is the veil to the single source. In fact, we need to take the path beyond the void. But first it is necessary to fully understand our overburdening baggage of Conceptual Being. Man looks into the mirror of the void through the door of the eternal (the well transformed -- sealed off) to see only a part of himself. There is another interpretation for the waters of life taken by the Buddhists. The waters of life are emptiness. Emptiness running through all things. The Buddha came to reform the Hindu conceptions of Sat and Asat with the doctrine of Anatman. The Antidote to the concept of Being is the concept of emptiness. Taken to its logical conclusion, the concept of emptiness is itself empty (ie self destructs conceptually). Thus having disarmed the concept of Being, it self-destructs, leaving no dangerous side effects or bitter aftertaste. Parmenides should have stuck with his first vision upon the opening of the Aeternal gate. It was the true vision. What came afterward was a fantasy which left the Western tradition in a morass within which it only could get more and more deeply entrapped.

Nor is Being divisible, since it is all alike. Nor is there anything (here or) there which could prevent it from holding together, nor any lesser thing, but all is full of Being. Therefore it is altogether continuous; for Being is close to Being.

Conceptual Being does not admit of any Other. Squeezed out of it are all differences which might disrupt its continuity. It is the continuity that makes possible ideation. Ideation is a pure flow of the complete now forward through time. On the surface of that continuity forms appear. (The Body without Organs is an idealized unstoppable flow which becomes a recording surface, to use Deleuze's terminology from Anti-Oedipus.) Conceptual Being is the original idea which supports all other ideas. Every idea within that flow is only another manifestation of the continuous substrate itself. The banishment of all difference within the substrate makes visible the differences between forms projected on the substrate. Both the substrate and the forms that arise from the substrate manifest Conceptual Being. The difference between the substrate and the forms is called Ontological Difference. Between continuity and difference is the key difference of Ontological Difference. The statement "Being is close to Being" contains ontological difference as "closeness." It says "Being is close to itself." Being gets close to itself though the differences of the beings. Each different entity expresses Conceptual Being in a different way. Yet Conceptual Being is greater than the sum of its parts. Conceptual Being is the "complete Now." No one being captures everything as it exists complete; as it exists now. Only Conceptual captures everything in its completeness at the Now moment. Yet conceptual being shows its injustice because it forgets that Now not everything is complete at the same time. Some things are past their prime, while others have not yet reached their prime. Thus, Conceptual Being forgets the entire range of what primordial Being supports. For Primordial Being supports what is becoming and perishing as well as what is complete. Primordial Being supports differences in the continuum itself. The differences in the continuum are not suppressed. Conceptual Being achieves its continuity at the price of solidification which forgets the importance of difference within the continuum. Primordial Being hides in the "closeness" of Being with itself. Ontological difference becomes over-stressed because of this suppression of difference within the continuum. When the differences within Primordial Being are allowed to be articulated, then the contrast between Being and beings is not so stark. With Primordial Being, beings swim in the sea of Being instead of being forced to its surface. With Conceptual Being, the sea freezes solid, and the life that inhabited those depths now float lifelessly to the surface.

But it is motionless in the limits of mighty bounds, without beginning, without cease, since Becoming and Destruction have been driven away, and true conviction has rejected them. And remaining the same in the same place, it rests by itself, and thus remains there fixed; for powerful Necessity holds it in the bonds of a Limit, which constrains it round about, because it is decreed by divine law that Being shall not be without Boundary. For it is not lacking; but if it were (spatially infinite), it would lack everything.

Now we approach the crux of the matter. The lifeless conceptual Being is held in thrall by mighty bonds. The holoidal nature of the one true reality has been separated from the rest of Primordial Being. The rest of Primordial Being has been driven far away. This cleavage of Primordial Being has created Ontological Difference. Conceptual Being is held in exile and "powerful Necessity holds it in the bonds of a limit." Were this not the case, the natural unity of Primordial Being would reassert itself. Yet, the rest of Primordial Being could not serve as an Arche -- could not masquerade as the Apeiron. Only by dividing Primordial Being can a part of it serve as the Arche, and this obscures the true Arche -- the single source of all causality. However, we must ask why Parmenides wants to substitute Conceptual Being for the Arche. What is the necessity which creates the bonds that hold the holoidal part of Primordial Being prisoner?

Here we hear that Being itself has a limit for the first time. This discovery is as important as the discovery of the limits of the immortals through Dionysus. The Boundary of Conceptual Being appears at the point it is cut off form Primordial Being. And through this limit we get a glimpse of its relation to the single source: the true Arche; the sun of the Good.

When Parmenides mentions divine law, we immediately think of his mysterious goddess tentatively identified with Aphrodite. Mourelatos identifies four aspects of this devine agent.

It is now clear that the divine who controls the identity and coherence of the Parmenidean WHAT-IS has not three but four faces or Hypostases: As ... CONSTRAINT she holds it "enthralled in bonds" and "restrains it all around;" as ... FATE, she applies the "fetters" or "shackles" of its doom or destin; as ... JUSTICE, she "holds it" to its appointed station, without loosening the "shackles;" finally as ... PERSUASION, she holds it in the bond of fidelity and infuses or endows it with the gentile power characteristic of her office. We have in this a complete spectrum from brute force to gentle agreement, from heteronomy to autonomy. So the real is not only an ineluctable actuality but also that which shows good faith. Coming-to-be and perishing by contrast, are pictured as outlaws and alien intruders who might be driven off.³

To forestall misunderstanding here, let me emphasize that this analysis of PEITHO words in Parmenides serves primarily to articulate a speculative metaphor. The only reality for Parmenides metaphysics is the WHAT-IS. In none of her four faces or hypostasis is the goddess an element of the ontology. The four faces of the polymorph deity are aspects of the modality of necessity that controls WHAT-IS, and of the same modality as it applies to the route "_____ IS _____." This modality is a composite of "must," "is doomed," "is right," and "would." The four faces are equally important, and each serves as a commentary on, and is a corrective to, the other three. When we think in ontological terms -- of the WHAT-IS and its necessity -- the language of PIETHO reminds us that the necessity is internalized: a necessity of autonomy. On the other hand, when we think in epistemological terms, it is important to remember that the Pietho residing in WHAT-IS is that of a superior authority. It is illuminating to think of the polymorph deity and the WHAT-IS as partners in PIETIS,⁴ and is correct to think of ourselves as partners in, and the beneficiaries of, that relationship. But it would be wrong to think that we are partners on the same terms. In the PIETIS that obtains between us and the real the initiative is entirely on the side of reality.⁵

The polymorphic deity of Parmenides mythos is what controls Conceptual Being and delimits its boundary that cuts it off from Primordial Being. In this deity is hidden the effects of the Single Source. We notice that while Conceptual Being has no divisions, the ploymorphic Deity is divided into four aspects. The Arche cannot be divided, so we see the division appearing within the Deity. The division inherent in Primordial Being has been transferred to the Goddess when Conceptual Being was separated out. I agree with Mourelatos that for Parmenides the Goddess has no ontological function. Parmenides is attempting to set up Conceptual Being as the Arche par excellence for the entire metaphysical epoch. Yet he knows that he must deal with the problem of Fate and Necessity which, in effect, he is shelving for another problematic. Parmenides converts them into a mythos of his own design. By converting them into a mythos, they may be conveniently disregarded as part of the receding mythopoetic. The Goddess will bow out, leaving Conceptual Being as the Arche. This transference, in effect, allows the switch from the Arche of the Apeiron to the Arche of Conceptual Being. The Goddess stands for the prior Arche and places it in the mythopoetic realm. This is a smooth move in metaphysical sleight of hand.

Yet Parmenides simultaneously offers us a profound picture of the role of the transformed Apeiron before it fades from the scene. The fourfold structure of the goddess summarizes the role of the single source in a fascinating way not found prior to Parmenides. It shows that Parmenides understood deeply what he was rejecting. It shows that the problematic of the single source always stands behind Conceptual Being, providing its limit. Parmenides merely shifts our attention to the realm within this limit and away from the problematic of Fate and Necessity.

The individual entity arises from its origin in time and grows (physis) until it reaches its epitome of completion in a certain moment. Then that entity begins to perish until it reaches its end. That entity may or may not be allowed in time to become whole. But following Anaximanders' dictum that entity will become whole in the endless time realm, we may see this trip that the entity makes as its own odyssey, in which it departs from its holoidal source to wander in time until it can return, as a homecoming. For Parmenides the point of "completion now" has been identified with the holoidal. Departure and arising, as well as perishing and homecoming have been banished to the realm of non-existence. Change becomes a mere illusion due to perspective on the block of spacetime that results from the identity of the holoidal with completion now. Everything is always complete. But this is achieved by sundering the internal diversity of Primordial Being and separating out Conceptual Being to make it the arche. However, the old arche, the apeiron, does not just disappear. It exerts its influence over the entity/holoid in four distinct ways.

The apeiron holds the entity in a bond which is unbreakable. By that bond it leads the entity from its birth to its necessary fate or destiny. The apeiron then renders justice for all injustices done to the entity in-time when it makes its homecoming in the realm of endlesstime. These are the three obvious aspects of the rule of the apeiron which exhibits the control of the single source. There is, however, another more subtle aspect to the goddess, which is persuasion. The single source can lead the entity, either willing or against it will. If the entity goes willingly, then it exhibits the aspect of persuasion. The entity is persuaded that whatever is decreed is for its own good. It is persuaded thus because it knows that whatever it loses in this world will be returned to it in the Next World.

But persuasion has another aspect which is very important. That is the influx of justice from the Next World into this world. If men live by laws and render justice unto one another in this world, then the retribution in the Next World will be lessened. Thus, persuasion reminds us of the city of Logos of Heraclitus. The city of Logos is governed by Laws. Men govern their behavior by those laws and do justice to eachother in this world. In the city governed by law, men are able to persuade each other in democratic assembly. They are allowed to criticize descriptions of reality and persuade each other that their description is most fitting. The contest of weighty speeches allows the most complete and best description to prevail. The contest of speeches seems to be strife, but they have an inner harmony of persuasion. The best description of reality becomes part of the laws by which everyone lives and to which everyone has access. This vision of the gate which Parmenides opens serves as the city wall. The speech of the goddess is the law laying down three routes and legitimating only one. And at the center of the city ruled by law is the Arche of Being separated off from the doxa of opinions within the city. All opinions use the "is," but the "is" alone is the One True Reality. The "is" is a fire burning in the center of the water of logos. That fire lights up the world, making reality visible. When the gate is opened, the light flows out into the world. Being stands as the unmoving pivot at the center of all these speeches which attempt to describe reality. Those purified speeches which withstand criticism from all sides stand out, and the pivot of Being -- in those speeches -- exhibits the closest approximation to the one true reality to which men might attain.

To think is the same as the thought that IT IS; for you will not find thinking without Being, in (regard to) which there is an expression. For nothing else either is or shall be except Being, since Fate has tied it down to be a whole and motionless; therefore all things that mortals have established, believing in their truth, are just a name; Becoming and Perishing, Being and Not-Being, Change of Position, and alteration of Bright color. [p44]

The arche is the pivot of all Logos -- that is Conceptual Being. It is this pivot which is exhibited in every speech, and which comes to its pinnacle in the true speech. The things that mortals name are concepts that appear on the surface of the continuous, whole and motionless Conceptual Being. Only it has reality, whereas all the speeches exist only to display the One True Reality seen through the gate of the city governed by laws. The waters of life have frozen, leaving ice sculptures of concepts. These exist only because the Sun of the Good is eclipsed.

But since there is a (spatial) limit, it is complete on every side, like the mass of a well-rounded sphere, equally balanced from its center in every direction; for it is not bound to be at all either greater or less in this direction or that; nor is there Not-Being which could check it from reaching to the same point; nor is it possible for Being to move in this direction, less in that, that Being, because it is an inviolate whole. For, in all directions equal to itself, it reaches its limits uniformly."

Conceptual Being is a sphere. Because it has a form we know it is not the Sun of the Good. It is like the sun of the Good -- an imitation which is dark by comparison rather than light. The sphere is the perfect shape. For Parmenides this meant that holoidal Conceptual Being must be spherical in order to express perfection. What is complete now always expresses this perfection which is inherent in all things. If we refuse to look at that which is incomplete -- doing injustice to it -- then we see a shadow of the perfection of everything in endlesstime beyond the in-time realm. However, this is not a dark sun because it does not shed light on the incomplete which never reaches its prime or which is past its prime. The Sun of the Good shines its light on everything and completes everything in endlesstime, making each thing pay retribution to every other wronged thing.

They have established (the custom of) naming two forms, one of which ought not be (mentioned): there is where they have gone astray. They have distinguished them as opposite in form, and have marked them off from one another by giving them different signs: on one side the flaming fire in the heavens, mild, very light (in weight), the same as itself in every direction, and not one same as the other. This (other) also is by itself and opposite: dark night, a dense and heavy body. This world order I describe to you throughout as it appears with all its phenomena, in order that no intellect of mortal man may outstrip you.

Notice that the goddess of Parmenides herself points out that the order of her words might be deceptive. One would normally jump to the conclusion that Conceptual Being represented the Light. However, if we remember that Conceptual Being as Arche has eclipsed the Sun of the Good called Apeiron, then we will get a clearer picture of the situation. The "meta" of meta/physics, the arche, has been usurped by the center of Greek speech -- the "it is." Man has truly become the measure of all things through his language, and the universe has been created out of the pluriverse. The transformation out of the mythopoetic into the metaphysical epoch is complete. The metaphysical, from this point on, will be concerned solely with Being in the form of Ontology. Divinity will be subsumed under ontology since the gods are also beings, and when monotheism rules, god will be considered the supreme being. The goddess with four faces will be forgotten along with the whole problematic of "fate and necessity." The identification of completion now with the holoid will satisfy all the intellects within the epoch of the metaphysical. The tyranny of man by himself will be justified based on the injustice inherent in Conceptual Being. Yet even Being has a limit. The meta/physical era must come to an end. Fate haunts it still. The goddess still stands behind her gate, holding Being in thrall until its epoch is ended. The end of metaphysics is near when that gate will open again, ushering in a new world order. Meanwhile, there are successive epochs of Being in which the fundamental concept of Being is reinterpreted. Heidegger has sketched this history in his book The End Of Philosophy.

This rigidification confirms the most extreme blindness to the Oblivion of Being. But man wills HIMSELF as the volunteer of the will to will, for which all truth becomes that error which it needs in order to be able to guarantee for itself the illusion that the will to will and nothing other than empty nothingness, in the face of which it asserts itself without being able to know its own completed nullity.

Before Being can occur in its primal truth, Being as the will must be broken, the world must be forced to collapse and the earth must be driven to desolation, and man to mere labor. Only after this decline does the abrupt dwelling of the Origin take place for a long span of time. In the decline, everything, that is, brings in the whole of the truth of metaphysics, approaches its end.

The decline has already taken place. The consequences of this occurrence are the events of world history in this century. They are merely the course of what has already ended. Its course is ordered historico-technologically in the sense of the last stage of metaphysics. This order is the last arrangement of what has ended in the illusion of a reality whose effects work in an irresistible way, because they claim to be able to get along without an unconcealment of the essence of Being. They do this so decisively that they need suspect nothing of such an unconcealment.

Metaphysics became ruled by Ontology through the claim of divine inspiration of Parmenides. In this way the mythopoetic realm left a lasting mark on the metaphysical by placing the Arche of Being at its center. Yet, all eclipse eventually ends, and the Sun shines once more. The eclipse, by Conceptual Being of the Single Source of causation once called Apeiron, may soon be at an end. This calls us to think deeply concerning what the next epoch after the metaphysical might be like. Thinking deeply, the Parmenidian institution of Ontology calls us to think as well its end. It could be that at the end of the epoch of Metaphysics the Apeiron becomes visible again which was eclipsed by the dark planet of Conceptual Being. The Apeiron is the representative of the single source of all causation within the metaphysical realm. So in the end perhaps we are taken back to the beginning to those who saw the Apeiron most clearly. We are taken back to the thought of Anmaximander, Heraclitus, and Democritus who thought a different destiny for the metaphysical realm other than Ontology.