An investigation on negativity in Ancient Greek philosophy in guidance of hegelian dialectics

With its special focus on negativity the study is a (me)ontological research which investigates an early stage in the history of philosophy, i.e. the period from Parmenides to Plato. Parmenidean concept of "being" is a revolutionary invention which supposedly founded the Western tradition of ontology, metaphysics and logic. Yet remarkably the establishment of the Parmenidean being spontanously manifests itself as a radical exclusion of not-being, which created both problems and opportunities for the succeeding philosophy. Tracing those consequences the study investigates the philosophies of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Atomists, Gorgias, Socrates and Plato in their continuity, while adopting the guidance of Hegelian dialectics in order to better cope with its versatile concept of "negativity". The thesis makes use of different interpretations of various commentators, but the linguistic contributions of Charles H. Kahn come particularly into prominence, which make one grasp the less familiar connotations of the Greek "being" and "not-being". Appealing to both Hegel and Kahn the investigation detects in Plato's Sophist the manifestation of a critical stance, which in opposition to the existential ontology of the medieval-modern times can be represented as a predicative (me)ontology. The dispute between the sophists and the Socratics is an important focus of the study. Occasionally the portrayal of the conflict aims to allude to the contemporary tensions between foundationalist and antifoundationalist positions, and touches upon related problems regarding truth, universalism and freedom. Key words: Negativity, dialectics, Hegel, C.H. Kahn, Parmenides, Gorgias, Plato, meontology