Il significato dei riferimenti ad alcuni versi di Parmenide nella concezione damasciana dell’Essere come “Unificato”

This paper aims to examine the meaning and the function of some textual references to Parmenides’ doctrine in Damascius’ work De Principiis. In light of these references, he shows that Being in its original form is to be con-ceived of as intrinsically unitary and prior to any kind of differentiation and multiplicity. This original ontological level is identified with “the Unified” (to henomenon). The conception of Being as Unified is crucial to understanding in what sense Damascius interprets the Parmenidean ontological monism and, at the same time, in what way he tries to overcome some aporetic issues concerning the Neoplatonic conception of the unity-multiplicity of being. In the final analysis, a part of these aporetic issues seems due precisely to the postulation of the intrinsic multiplicity of being.