Up to this point in pre-Socratic philosophy the development of Greek thought has been Monist in nature. The Milesian Three came up with the idea that the primal stuff became all the things in the world and then went back again to that primal stuff it was. Heraclitus rejected the idea that anything was ever really one thing, but constantly changing. The monist thing for Heraclitus was a process of change. Parmenides (and Zeno and Melissus) rejected the idea of a process being a stuff. They returned to a single thing and because that single thing was a stuff, the idea that it could change made no sense. They built logical theorems that were sound and showed why if everything was one stuff it always had to be that way. Thus, everything is one; it is uncreated; it is indestructible; it is unchanging; and, it will always be that way.
Parmenides (and his followers) were absolute rationalists. They rejected empirical evidence because empirical evidence was gathered by the senses and the senses were deceptive. Not only were they deceptive but what they were perceiving was illusionary anyway. Double fault. Empiricists however rely on sensory perception. Much of the history of philosophy is studying people who took sides with one of these doctrines. But, for the most part accepting an absolute position on either leads to bad results. Pure rationalism ends up leading to some of Parmenides airtight logical arguments that make no sense. It's hard to argue against the logic of Parmenides, but things obviously change. Pure empiricism tends to lead to unsatisfactory results too.
What Parmenides and his followers never considered though was rejecting the monist basis of the Milesian three. Pluralism however was about to replace the monism of the Milesians.
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