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Plato's Parmenides: Some Suggestions for its Interpretation 1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. L. Peck
A. L. Peck
Affiliation:
Christ's College, Cambridge
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Extract

In modern work on the Parmenides it is commonly supposed that in the First Part of the dialogue Plato's main concern is criticism of his own (or Socrates') doctrine of Forms, or of some formulations of that doctrine, and that the criticisms have some sort of validity and are in some degree ‘damaging’ to the doctrine. It is thus often assumed that Plato's purpose is to make the reader ask himself, ‘Where is Plato (or Socrates) wrong? Where is his doctrine of Forms, or his statement of it, inadequate?’ This is no doubt due partly to the fact that no reply is offered to the criticisms, and partly to the fact that they are put into the mouth of Parmenides, for whom (it is alleged) Plato had a very great respect. Nevertheless, Plato can hardly have had a greater respect for Parmenides than he had for Socrates; and therefore on general grounds it is at least as likely that he intends us to ask ourselves the question, ‘Where is Parmenides wrong, or inadequate?’ It is, of course, obvious that Socrates is represented as a young man, who, in his enthusiasm for a new doctrine which he has invented himself, has not thought out all the difficulties involved in it or prepared replies to all the possible criticisms. Yet again, on general principles it is not likely that Plato would have written a dialogue primarily to represent Parmenides' position as substantially more satisfactory than that of Socrates (or himself). It is therefore of the first importance not merely to have clearly in our minds the nature and purpose of the doctrine of Forms, but also to examine carefully the basis of the criticisms which Parmenides is made to bring against Socrates, and the methods by which Parmenides conducts his arguments.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 3 , Issue 3-4 , December 1953 , pp. 126 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1953

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References

page 126 note 2 I regret that I have no space here to offer a criticism of Robinson's, R. defence of this view in Classical Philology, xxxvii, 1942, pp. 51 ff. I hope to do so in a paper to be read before the Cambridge Philological Society in the latter part of 1953.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 133 note 1 Examples of this (as we shall see below) are (i) In the Sophist Plato shows how the phrase is taken to indicate that no ‘thing’ whatever is referred to; and the E.V. demonstrates that this phrase is incomplete and therefore deceptive as a verbal term; (2) in the second part of the Farm. Parmenides analyses a complex such as ov (arising from the hypothesis ) into two components, which though separable in thought and word are not separable in fact; (3) at Parm. 164 b Parmenides says ‘If it were not true that the Others are others, we should not be talking about “the Others”’ (this passage will be dealt with more fully below, in Section IV(b)).

page 133 note 1 It is quite unjustifiable to replace Socrates' words by ‘in a mind’, with the possibility of inferring that only one mind (? that of the Demiurge of the Timaeus) is intended. This error is bound up with the assumption that Socrates means by what Parmenides takes it to mean.

page 135 note 1 It is quite unjustifiable to replace Soc-rates' words ⋯v ψvХaîs by ‘in a mind’, with the possibility of inferring that only one voijfta what Parmenides takes it to mean, mind (? that of the Demiurge of the Timaeus) is intended. This error is bound up with the assumption that Socrates means by vóiημa what Parmenides takes it to mean.

page 137 note 1 This statement needs modification, as will be seen later (in Section II); but it is sufficiently exact in the present context.

page 141 note 1 C.Q. vol. ii (N.S.), 1952, p. 41 n.

page 145 note 1 Although ‘the One’ does not appear among the in the Sophist, its treatment in the Parmenides (particularly with regard to ) is similar enough to justify its classification generally with the as will be seen. Its status in the Parmenides will be discussed below. The position in the Parmenides is more complicated in that all the discussions start from a statement in hypothetical form, and that Plato does not offer any direct conclusion (the Second Part is ).—In the Parmenides ‘the Others’ also can be the subject of the verb .

page 146 note 1 For a full examination of the evidence I must refer the reader to my paper ‘Plato and the of the Sophist’ (C.Q. vol. ii (N.S.), 1952, pp. 32–56).

page 147 note 1 Objection could perhaps be raised to Plato's frequent use of the short versions of the phrase, e.g. , as names for his Forms, on the ground that the notion of ‘being’ is not formally expressed in them. Nevertheless, it is always presupposed and assumed by Plato himself; and even if the were always explicitly expressed—if the full phrase were always used—there would be no guarantee that a controversialist like Parmenides would pay proper regard to it. The way in which Parmenides treats in the first Hypothesis is an illustration of this: he is quite capable of ignoring the altogether, and he does so in his first examination of the first Hypothesis.

page 148 note 1 And therefore we might suppose that the correct interpretation of is not that two things are being referred to, but one thing, viz. ‘One-which-is’, and this would imply that Plato believed in a Form ‘the One’. As I try to show later, however, it seems probable that he did not. Cf. also the paragraph next following in the text. In the Soph. Plato is not concerned to give any indication about the status of Rest and Motion; but in the Parmenides he is very much concerned to make us think about the status of the One.

page 148 note 2 See note above, p. 145. For an elaborate 'proof by Parmenides that is a , as he puts it, that the word always refers to one and the same —see 147 d ff., which I discuss in my Conclusion.

page 148 note 3 Thus, as Professor Cornford comments on 140 c (op. cit., p. 126), ‘“Having no sameness” () means that no statement beginning “The One is the same as …” or “The One has the same …” can be true.’ (We must of course remember that ‘true’ means ‘admitted as true by Parmenides during the Examination now proceeding’.) An example of a predicate without is ‘it will have the same number of measures as …’ (140 b).

page 150 note 1 Cf. Ross, , op. cit., p. 100.Google Scholar