The translation is accompanied by a series of interpretive essays by the
translator. Stein maintains that the Parmenides text is an important
poem as well as a philosophical treatise and translates it as such. His
"Parmenides Project" comprises some thirty years of journal writings
documenting an extended "thought experiment" in which he takes seriously
Parmenides' assertion that Being and only Being truly "is" and that all
else --all thoughts, intuitions, imaginings, sensations, perceptions,
myths, philosophical opinions, by the very structure of "seeming" must
"seem to Be." The author contends that this view suggests a practice of
mind that corresponds to the culminating focus of many contemplative
paths both East and West and is of contemporary interest because it
assumes the relativism of much in present day philosophy without falling
into abject nihilism.