Melissus of Samos

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Melissus of Samos (in Greek, Μέλισσος ὁ Σάμιος — born probably at 470 BC) was a Samian statesman and naval commander who also contributed to philosophy, and bore influence upon the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus.

Melissus commanded a Samian fleet that defeated the Athenians in 441 – 440 BC. He was a pupil of Parmenides, whose philosophical ideas he extended.

His works, fragments of which are preserved by Simplicius of Cilicia and attested to by Aristotle, are devoted to the defense of Parmenides' doctrine. They were written in Ionic, and consist of long series of arguments. Being, he says, is infinite, having no beginning or end. It cannot have had a beginning because it cannot have begun from not-being (compare ex nihilo nihil fit)(εἴη γὰρ ἂν οὔτω καὶ οὐ γένοιτο). It cannot suffer destruction because it is impossible for being to become not-being, and if it became another being, there would be no destruction.

According to Simplicius (Physika, f. 22b), Melissus differed here from Parmenides in distinguishing between being and absolute being (τὸ ἁπλῶς ἐόν). He goes on to show that eternal being must also be unlimited in magnitude, and, therefore, one and unchangeable. Any change whether from internal or external source, he says, is unthinkable; the One, or unitary reality, of Parmenides, is unvarying in quantity and in kind. There can be no division inside this unity, for any such division implies space or void — but void is nothing, and, therefore, is not. It follows further that being is incorporeal, inasmuch as all body has size and parts.

The fundamental difficulty underlying this logic is the paradox more clearly expressed by Zeno of Elea and to a large extent represented in almost all modern discussion, namely that the evidence of the senses contradicts the intellect. Abstract argument has shown that change in the unity is impossible, yet the senses tell us that hot becomes cold, hard becomes soft, the living dies, and so on.

Neither Melissus nor Zeno seems to have observed that the application of these destructive methods struck at the root not only of multiplicity but also of the One whose existence they maintained. The weapons which they forged in the interests of Parmenides would be used with equal effect against their own theses.