ABSTRACT
Friedrich Nietzsche shows sympathy for the first sort of embarrassment when, in his Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen, he writes: 'Greek philosophy seems to begin with an absurd notion, with the proposition that water is the primal origin and the womb of all things. Coming to understand why Nietzsche grouped Socrates with the presocratic philosophers will be part of coming to understand Nietzsche's ideas about the beginning of Western philosophy. The one exception to Nietzsche's rather disengaged treatment of the preplatonic philosophers is his discussion of Parmenides. Even more remarkable than Nietzsche's comparatively full treatment of Parmenidean reasoning is his own philosophical attempt to refute Parmenides. His evaluation of the Parmenidean Way of Truth in the 1872 lecture is decidedly mixed, but much more negative than positive. He shows his respect for the problematic issues that challenged Parmenides, by offering reasoning to defeat the Parmenidean claims.
