Abstract

This section begins Part III of the book, dealing with various competing interpretations. In particular, the section reviews and rejects four proposals for saving the Governing Deduction from self-defeat. The first proposal by Owen attempts to save Parmenides’ arguments by appealing to the _Tractatus._ The second proposal by Furth offers a global assessment of the role played by the Governing Deduction in _WT_. The third proposal, by Austin, appeals to supposed linguistic facts about Parmenides’ use of negative idioms. The fourth proposal, due to Curd, suggests that ‘the esti is not to be read existentially and that when the existential reading is abandoned, Parmenides’ claim that the route of what-is-not is unsayable and unthinkable becomes far less controversial’.