James Chastek, From truth to ideology:

We can see this dialectic between truth and ideology quite clearly in the progression of thought after Parmenides. It’s almost impossible for us to exaggerate the exhilaration of hearing Parmenides in his own day. Think of how excited we get when we do nothing but make a machine runs faster than the one that came before it, then think of what a thrill it would have been to discover for the first time all of the following: being as the subject of discourse, the force of logical argumentation, the principle of contradiction, the identity of being and thought, the unity of being and truth and the one, etc. Inseparable from this, however, is the conclusion that motion and change must be considered mere opinions – that is, they are not features that the world has of itself. To put this in modern terms, motion and change are merely “subjective”. The disciple of Parmenides is thus torn between wanting to hold the premises and deny their conclusion. This situation can last for centuries and reach no adequate resolution despite the best efforts of many very brilliant persons.


Enter Aristotle. With a single distinction that everyone knew but no one ever managed to notice, get a hold of, or name (the division between the per se and the per accidens) he manages to resolve the whole Parmenidean problem in a single stroke, and in such a way that preserves and even illuminates more fully logical argumentation, being as a subject of discourse, the various ways in which being and thought are one and many, etc. The solution is so simple and elegant we wonder how no one could have noticed it before. Once someone points it out and we get a clear view of the solution, we feel like fools for not having noticed it before. Over time, it becomes harder and harder for us to see why Parmenides could have even thought what he did.


Ideology and dogmatism have already begun to creep in. We flatter ourselves with the thought that Parmenides was simply a stage of thought that we have moved beyond. And isn’t this true? The difficulty is that Aristotle’s distinction is essentially a solution to a Parmenidean problem, and so in the measure that we no longer see Parmenides as a problem, Aristotelianism becomes the answer to a question that no one is asking. At this moment, the basis of the system is in some measure irrelevant and even arbitrary. Our great truth and great synthesis becomes words that we ask the students to memorize. “The truth” quickly becomes a principle of ignorance and arbitrary will.