Zeno of Elea
Famous for his paradoxes, which challenged the concepts of motion and plurality.
Most quoted
"If it is, each thing must have some magnitude and thickness, and part of it must be apart from the rest. And the same reasoning holds concerning the part which is in front. For that too will have magnitude and part of it will be in front. Now it is the same thing to say this once and to say it always. For no such part of it will be last, nor will there be one part not related to another. Therefore, if there are many things, they must be both small and large; so small as to have no magnitude, so large as to be infinite."
— from Paradoxes of Plurality
"If Being is divided, it is either divided into beings or into non-beings. But it cannot be divided into non-beings, for non-beings are nothing. And if into beings, then each of these beings is further divisible, and so on forever. So Being is infinitely divisible and thus has no ultimate parts."
— from Arguments against plurality
"If things are many, they must be just as many as they are, no more and no less. And if they are just as many as they are, they must be finite. But if things are many, they are infinite; for between things that are there are always others, and between those yet others. So things are infinite."
— from Paradoxes of Plurality
All quotes by Zeno of Elea (155)
Achilles can never catch the tortoise if it has a head start.
At any instant, the arrow occupies a space equal to itself, hence at rest.
In a stadium, bodies moving past each other create impossibilities.
The now is never a now, but always becoming.
Nothing can be added to the whole or subtracted.
If parts exist, the whole is infinite; if no parts, no whole.
Motion is an illusion of the senses.
The Eleatic school holds that reality is one and unchanging.
To argue against plurality leads to absurdity.
The path to truth lies in paradox.
What seems divided is in truth indivisible.
Infinite regress proves the impossibility of change.
Being is eternal and motionless.
The tortoise's lead is insurmountable in logic.
Time itself is a series of still points.
No thing moves; all is at rest in being.
Paradox reveals the flaws in common sense.
The one cannot become many, nor many one.
Division leads to the infinite, which is absurd.
Reality defies the senses; reason rules.
Contemporaries of Zeno of Elea
Other Philosophys born within 50 years of Zeno of Elea (-490–-430).