Bertrand Russell of the Russell Paradox fame brought up a literary device comparable to the concept of three faces while discussing some aspects of the philosophy of Parmenides. This article further investigates this resemblance.
Parmenides of Elea lived in the south of Italy during the fifth century BCE. His philosophy had been written as a poem about a fictitious journey he made to the abode of the goddess of night. The poem describes the revelations he received from the goddess. Only some fragments of his poem remain. Plato wrote his earliest dialogue on a fictitious meeting between Socrates, Parmenides, and his student, Zeno of Elea in Athens.
Before looking further at Parmenides’s philosophy, let us discuss what we mean by “three faces”. In a previous article published on Medium, I described three existences that a person maintains in this world. We all live three lives: Autobiographical, Biographical, and Historical. These can be figuratively described as follows:
Once born, each one of us, at some point in time, occupies three different lives; the person who lives, the person who lives in others’ memories, and the person who will live in mementos and stories left behind.
