Dr. Tamer Nawar (tamernawar@gmail.

com)

http://tamernawar.weebly.com/

Zeno
Zenos arguments about motion, which cause so much trouble to those who try to answer
them, are four in number.
The first asserts the non-existence of motion on the ground that that which is in locomotion
must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal []
The second is the so-called Achilles, and it amounts to this, that in a race the quickest runner
can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the
pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. This argument is the same in
principle as that which depends on bisection, though it differs from it in that the spaces with
which we have successively to deal are not divided into halves. The result of the argument is
that the slower is not overtaken; but it proceeds along the same lines as the bisectionargument (for in both a division of the space in a certain way leads to the result that the goal
is not reached, though the Achilles goes further in that it affirms that even the runner most
famed for his speed must fail in his pursuit of the slowest), so that the solution too must be
the same. And the claim that that which holds a lead is never overtaken is false: it is not
overtaken while it holds a lead; but it is overtaken nevertheless if it is granted that it traverses
the finite distance. These then are two of his arguments.
The third is that already given above, to the effect that the flying arrow is at rest, which result
follows from the assumption that time is composed of moments: if this assumption is not
granted, the conclusion will not follow.
The fourth argument is that concerning equal bodies which move alongside equal bodies in
the stadium from opposite directionsthe ones from the end of the stadium, the others from
the middleat equal speeds, in which he thinks it follows that half the time is equal to its
double. The fallacy consists in requiring that a body travelling at an equal speed travels for an
equal time past a moving body and a body of the same size at rest. That is false. E.g. let the
stationary equal bodies be AA; let BB be those starting from the middle of the As (equal in
number and in magnitude to them); and let CC be those starting from the end (equal in
number and magnitude to them, and equal in speed to the Bs). Now it follows that the first
B and the first C are at the end at the same time, as they are moving past one another. And it
follows that the C has passed all the As and the B half; so that the time is half, for each of the
two is alongside each for an equal time. And at the same time it follows that the first B has
passed all the Cs. For at the same time the first B and the first C will be at opposite ends,
being an equal time alongside each of the Bs as alongside each of the As, as he says, because
both are an equal time alongside the As.
Aristotle Physics 6.9, 239b5240a17 (J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of
Aristotle, the Revised Oxford Translation [Princeton, vol. 1]).
The same method should also be adopted in replying to those who ask, in the terms of
Zenos argument, whether we admit that before any distance can be traversed half the
distance must be traversed, that these half-distances are infinite in number, and that it is
impossible to traverse distances infinite in numberor some put the same argument in
another form, and would have us grant that in the time during which a motion is in progress
we should first count the half-motion for every half-distance that we get, so that we have the
result that when the whole distance is traversed we have counted an infinite number, which is
admittedly impossible.
Aristotle Physics 8.8, 263a411 (J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle, the
Revised Oxford Translation [Princeton, vol. 1]).

Dr. Tamer Nawar (tamernawar@gmail.com)

http://tamernawar.weebly.com/

Antiphon said that Pythodorus said that Zeno and Parmenides once came to the Great
Panathenaea. Parmenides was already quite venerable, very grey but of distinguished
appearance, about sixty-five years old. Zeno was at that time close to forty, a tall, handsome
man who had been, as rumour had it, the object of Parmenides affections when he was a
boy. Antiphon said that the two of them were staying with Pythodorus, outside the city wall
in the Potters Quarter, and that Socrates had come there, along with a number of others,
because they were eager to hear Zeno read his book, which he and Parmenides had just
brought to Athens for the first time. Socrates was then quite young. Zeno was reading to
them in person; Parmenides happened to be out. Very little remained to be read when
Pythodorus, as he related it, came in, and with him Parmenides and Aristotle the man who
later became one of the Thirty. They listened to a little of the book at the very end. But not
Pythodorus himself; he had heard Zeno read it before.
Then Socrates, after he had heard it, asked Zeno to read the first hypothesis of the first
argument again; and when he had read it, Socrates said, Zeno, what do you mean by this: if
things1 are many, they must then be both like and unlike, but that is impossible, because
unlike things cant be like or like things unlike? Thats what you say, isnt it? It is, said
Zeno. If its impossible for unlike things to be like and like things unlike, isnt it then also
impossible for them to be many? Because, if they were many, they would have incompatible
properties. Is this the point of your arguments simply to maintain, in opposition to
everything that is commonly said, that things are not many? And do you suppose that each of
your arguments is proof for this position, so that you think you give as that what youre
saying or do I misunderstand?
No, Zeno replied. On the contrary, you grasp the general point of the book splendidly.
Parmenides, Socrates said, I understand that Zeno wants to be on intimate terms with you
not only in friendship but also in his book. He has, in a way, written the same thing as you,
but by changing it round he tries to fool us into thinking he is saying something different.
You say in your poem that the all is one, and you give splendid and excellent proofs for that;
he, for his part, says that it is not many and gives a vast array of very grand proofs of his own.
So, with one of you saying one, and the other not many, and with each of you speaking in
a way that suggests that youve said nothing the same although you mean practically the
same thing what youve said you appear to have said over the heads of the rest of us.
Yes, Socrates, said Zeno. Still, you havent completely discerned the truth about my book,
even though you chase down its arguments and follow their spoor as keenly as a young
Spartan hound. First of all, you have missed this point: the book doesnt at all preen itself on
having been written with the intent you described, while disguising it from people, as if that
were some great accomplishment. You have mentioned something that happened
accidentally. The truth is that the book comes to the defence of Parmenides argument
against those who try to make fun of it by claiming that, if it2 is one, many absurdities and
self-contradictions result from that argument. Accordingly, my book speaks against those
who assert the many and pays them back in kind with something for good measure, since it
aims to make clear that their hypothesis, if it is many, would, if someone examined the
matter thoroughly, suffer consequences even more absurd than those suffered by the
hypothesis of its being one. In that competitive spirit, then, I wrote the book when I was a
young man. Someone made an unauthorized copy, so I didnt even have a chance to decide
for myself whether or not it should see the light. So in this respect you missed the point,
Socrates: you think it was written not out of a young mans competitiveness, but out of a
mature mans vainglory. Still, as I said, your portrayal was not bad.
Plato Parmenides 127b129e [= DK 29 A1112] (trans. Gill & Ryan [in J. Cooper
(ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Hackett)])