Melissus of Samos, who flourished in the fifth century BC, was the third and last member of the ancient school of Eleatic philosophy, whose other members included Zeno and Parmenides. Little is known about his life except that he was the commander of the Samian fleet in the Samian War. His contribution to philosophy was a treatise of systematic arguments supporting Eleatic philosophy: like Parmenides, he argued that reality is ungenerated, indestructible, indivisible, changeless and motionless, and he further sought to show that reality is wholly unlimited and infinitely extended in all directions, and that because existence is unlimited it must also be one.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own accountUncertain; Wikipedia Life section says he may have been born around 500 BC. Date of death unknown. Defining MomentSourced to the subject's own accountArgued that reality (the One) is ungenerated, indestructible, indivisible, changeless and motionless, and wholly unlimited in extent and therefore one 1 Notable PublicationSourced to the subject's own accountOn Nature, the title later given to his sole surviving philosophical treatise, known mainly through Simplicius's commentaries on Aristotle 1 Office HeldSourced to the subject's own accountCommander of the Samian fleet in the Samian War; defeated Pericles and the Athenian fleet in 440 BC 1 BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own account TraditionSourced to the subject's own accountEleatic philosophy; third and last member of the Eleatic school, after Parmenides and Zeno 1 Classification
NationalitySourced to the subject's own accountCity-State of Athens (Historical) 1 Connections
Influenced
Why this is disputed. Reported by ancient sources but treated with skepticism in modern scholarship.
Source Melissus of Samos (Wikipedia)
Influenced By
Why this is disputed. Reported by ancient sources but treated with skepticism in modern scholarship.
Source Melissus of Samos (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Melissus of Samos (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Life section, first sentence
He may have been born around 500 BC; the date of his death is unknown.
Lead section, first words (name and origin epithet)
Melissus of Samos
Lead section, first sentence
was the third and last member of the ancient school of Eleatic philosophy, whose other members included Zeno and Parmenides.
Lead section, second and third sentence
Like Parmenides, he argued that reality is ungenerated, indestructible, indivisible, changeless, and motionless. In addition, he sought to show that reality is wholly unlimited, and infinitely extended in all directions; and since existence is unlimited, it must also be one.
Philosophy section, first sentence
Much of what remains of Melissus's philosophical treatise, later titled On Nature, has been preserved by Simplicius in his commentaries on Aristotle's Physics and On the Heavens, and several summaries of his philosophy have come down to us.
Life section, third sentence
He was the commander of the Samian fleet in the Samian War, and defeated Pericles and the Athenian fleet in 440 BC.
Influenced By: Parmenides, Life section, fourth sentence
Melissus was reputed to have been the pupil of Parmenides, and the teacher of Leucippus, though one must regard such claims with a fair amount of skepticism.
Influenced: Leucippus, Life section, fourth sentence (Leucippus clause)
Melissus was reputed to have been the pupil of Parmenides, and the teacher of Leucippus, though one must regard such claims with a fair amount of skepticism.
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