About the True Beginning of Thought

Abstract

In Greek philosophy, Parmenides was sure of his destination: he knew where he had to go, but he didn’t know where he had to start. A brief review of how philosophy began is enough to show extreme heterogeneity. The multitude of starting points made philosophy highly suspicious of itself. Even when a physicist of the stature of Archimedes signaled the impossibility of finding a safe starting point, the situation of philosophy did not improve. All the more so since, through the suture with poetry (Alain Badiou), philosophy took note of a mythological manner in which such a starting point offered its services.