Eleatic

Eleatic refers to anything connected with the ancient Greek city of Elea (modern Velia) in southern Italy, and in philosophy to the Eleatic school that gathered there in the early 5th century BCE. The Eleatic tradition is named for its principal centers and figures, especially Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus of Samos, who are regarded as its main representatives. The Eleatics are known for a form of rational metaphysics that emphasizes argument and deduction over sensory perception.

A central tenet of Eleatic philosophy is monism: being is single, unchanging, indivisible, and eternal. Parmenides argued that reality is a unity that cannot admit of true negation or plurality, and that appearance and sensory experience misrepresent the nature of what is. In this framework, change, motion, and multiplicity are considered illusory or mere appearances. Zeno of Elea developed paradoxes aimed at defending Parmenidean claims by showing that common beliefs about plurality and motion lead to logical contradictions. Melissus of Samos continued and refined Eleatic positions, asserting that Being is infinite, ungenerated, and completely without internal division or change.

The Eleatics rejected the reliability of sense observation as knowledge of true reality and promoted a rigorous, deductive method. Their work influenced later Greek philosophy, contributing to debates about the nature of existence, the limits of knowledge, and the problem of change. The term Eleatic can also describe nouns or ideas associated with Elea or its philosophical lineage.