Eleatic philosophy rejected the basis of empirical evidence and sense experience, instead demanding that clarity and logic be fundamental to truth. The Eleatic School of Philosophy was founded by Parmenides of Elea in the early 5th century BC. Parmenides was a pre-Socratic scholar in ancient Greece, and his philosophies attracted a number of followers - notably Zeno of Elea, and Melissus of Samos. Zeno enjoyed confounding his opponents through the application of something later called 'reductio ad absurdum', which attempts to reduce arguments to absurdity to prove their inefficacy. One famous argument was 'Achilles and the Tortoise', which stated that, if given a 100 metre head start in a race, the tortoise would always win. Zeno reasoned that, in order to catch up, Achilles must first reach the point at which the tortoise started. However, by the time he arrived it would have pulled further ahead, so he must then catch up again, and so on. Following this method, Achilles could never win. Although Zeno's arguments bordered on the absurd, the general sway of eleatics was to foster a discussion about what can be observed and what can be proved. This went on to inform the philosophies of later Greek scholars, despite eleatics itself being mostly dismissed in the process.
