PARMENIDES’ THEORY OF NON-BEING AS A HISTORIC-PHILOSOPHICAL CORE OF PLOTINUS’ HENOLOGY

Introduction: immediacy of the problem of non-being for philosophy is givenness. Parmenides’ ontology is the origin of the problem of non-being in Western-European tradition. It was Parmenides who enunciated the first conceptual idea of non-being in the history of Western-European tradition. This intention became the basis for onto-epistemological searching of philosophers of the following epochs. This paper goes to the understudied problem of reception of Parmenides’ theory of non-being in Plotinus’ henology.

Materials and Methods: the problem approach is defining. Its employment is quite specific when it is referred to searching of the problem of non-being within the history of philosophy. This paper insists on the importance of a distinction of the concepts “category of non-being” and “problem of non-being” and uses the category such as “theory of non-being”. Parmenides’ theory of not-being is taken to mean as the presence of both the problem of non-being and its solution.

Research findings: the key point of Eleatic theory of non-being is the dialectic of being and non-being where the following pattern is uncovered. All the characteristics of being are ontologically possible as non-being is rejected. This principle is present in Plotinus’ henology too. The authentic nature of the All is transcendental. Transcendence of the All stipulates Its apophatic in the immanence.

Discussions and conclusions: the origin of Plotinus’ henology is the Platonic philosophy. The same goes for the apophatic theology of the All. However, Platonism is not the only source of Plotinus’ theory of the All. The author shows that Parmenides’ theory of non-being is one of the cores of this intention. The apophatic of non-being and the apophatic theology of the All stipulate existence itself in Parmenides’ ontology and transcendence of the All in Plotinus’ henology. This is the principle which makes it possible to state reception of Parmenides’ theory of non-being in Plotinus’ henology.

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