Non-Being

Being is full and solid, Non-Being is void and rare.

Dictionary of the History of Ideas SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

Since the void exists no less than the body, it follows that Non-Being exists no less than Being.

Dictionary of the History of Ideas SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

The concept of Non-Being (τὸ μή ὄν) occurs freely in Parmenides, and is probably due to

SPACE SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

Atomists for expressing the polarity between full and void in the quaint, and possibly misleading Parmenid - ean contrast between “Being” and “Non-Being,” and

Dictionary of the History of Ideas SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

Plato's inquiry in the Parmenides whether “Being is One or Many” and whether “Non-Being is or is not” proceeds semantically to avoid verbal contradictions, but to imagine that such exercises of language suffice to un - derstand the problems of existence, such as the struggle for existence, would be unfair to Plato's purpose.

PRAGMATISM PHILIP P. WIENER 1968

In their atomistic conception, the evenly distributed Being was shrunk from continuity to discreteness and had become concentrated in discretely distributed atoms; and, by the same token, Non-Being was metaphysically ele - vated to the all-important role of a spatial setting for the atoms, without which the activities of the atoms cannot be imagined.

SPACE SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

Democritus (fifth century B.C.), from their approach, made Non-Being into an appellation for space, to al - ternate with, or be a replacement for kenon.

SPACE SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

They viewed the relation between material atoms and their spatial setting as a contrast between the full and the void (τὸ πλη̃ρες καὶ τὸ κενόν), and expressed it as a duality between Being (τὸ ὄν) and Non-Being.

SPACE SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

This uni - verse, however ontological, was somehow also en - dowed with physical attributes of a uniform finite sphere (σψαι̃ρα), and as such it was continuous, indi - visible, unchangeable, and ungenerated and imper - ishable; whereas the Non-Being of Parmenides was only an obverse of Being, vacuous of determination, a sham polarity as it were.

SPACE SALOMON BOCHNER 1968

“Non-Being” is only a façon de parler without any negative intent or force.

Dictionary of the History of Ideas SALOMON BOCHNER 1968