Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Despite many centuries of careful scholarship, Parmenides’ poem remains mysterious to us because of what has come to be known as “the problem of the Doxa.” This is the problem of reconciling the main argument of his poem—which seems to imply that nothing is generated, divisible, or moving—with the cosmological part of his poem, which seems to presuppose the opposite. This Introduction sketches out the problem, along with the dominant solution, and then briefly explains why this solution has lost credibility in recent years. It also outlines a new solution—to be supported by the argument of the book—according to which Parmenides seeks to draw a previously unobserved distinction between stable reality (the object of metaphysical inquiry) and unstable bodies (the object of cosmological inquiry). If this solution is correct, then Parmenides’ aim is not to reject or abandon cosmology, but only to clarify and delimit its domain.</jats:p>