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Parmenides and Plato's Parmenides

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. M. Rist
J. M. Rist
Affiliation:
University College, Toronto, Canada
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Extract

In two of his dialogues especially, the Sophist and the Parmenides, Plato concerns himself at length with problems presented by the Eleatics. Despite difficulties in the interpretation of individual passages, the Sophist has in general proved the less difficult to understand, and since some of the problems at issue in the two works indicate the same or similar preoccupations in Plato's mind, it is worth considering how far an interpretation of the ‘easier’ dialogue can be used to forward an interpretation of the more difficult. First, therefore, we must identify problems common to the two works; then we must see whether we can understand what Plato understood Parmenides to have done—this may help towards an understanding of what he did in fact do; finally we can apply our findings to the Parmenides itself, particularly to the problem of the unity of the dialogue, in the hope that Plato's intentions may become clearer.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , December 1970 , pp. 221 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1970

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References

page 221 note 1 For the list seePeck, A. L., ‘Plato's Sophist, the ’, Phronesis vii (1962), 56.Google Scholar

page 221 note 2 J. L. Ackrill was the first to suggest that Plato's combination ofis designed to establish pre-conditions for significant discourse (, Bull, of the Inst, of Class. Stud, of the Univ. of London ii [1955], 31–5Google Scholar). Fora convincing explanation of thepassage at 259 e 4 ff. see A. L. Peck, op. cit. 46–66.

page 221 note 3 Peck, A. L., ‘Theof the Sophist: a Reinterpretation’, CQ n.s. ii (1952), 32–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 222 note 1 Ross, W. D., Aristotle's Metaphysics (Oxford, 1924), p. lxxxiv.Google Scholar

page 222 note 2 Albinus, Didask. 10. 6.

page 223 note 1 Owen, G. E. L., ‘Eleatic Questions’, CQ N.S. x (1960), 93.Google Scholar

page 223 note 2 Raven, remarks ‘If it is necessary to translate the sentence …’ in The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1957), 269.Google Scholar

page 223 note 3 G. E. L. Owen, loc. cit. 91.

page 223 note 4 Cf. Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy ii. 20 (Cambridge, 1965)Google Scholar on the meaning of øράζειν However, despite this discussion and that on the meaning of λ⋯γειν, Guthrie (following Owen and others) is still unjust to Parmenides (p. 17). Owen claims (loc. cit. 94 n. 1) that where Parmenides is mistaken is his claim that we cannot think of the non-existent. Owen and Guthrie agree (rightly) that of course we can talk and think about mermaids or unicorns. But it should be emphasized that Par-menides did not deny we could talk about non-being—after all, he does so himself. In the Greek idiom what Parmenides denies is that we can think or speak non-being, not that we can think or speak about non-being. If knowing is envisaged as a kind of seeing and speaking as a kind of pointing, then it is not hard to see why Parmenides says we cannot ‘see’ or ‘point to’ what does not exist. It is possible to writein Greek as well as λ⋯γειν τι, but the two are not always identical in sense. What has puzzled the commentators is that ‘thinking a thing’ (accusative) is to be understood as ‘recognizing that it is there’.

page 224 note 1 τ⋯ ⋯ν means both ‘what is’ and ‘being’, just as so often in Platomeans both ‘what is just’ and ‘justice’.

page 224 note 2 Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘The New Theory of Forms’, Monist I (1966), 408.Google Scholar

page 224 note 3 This attitude, deriving presumably from Plato or Aristotle, is to be found (among other places) in Cornford, F. M.'s Plato and Parmenides (London, 1939).Google Scholar

page 224 note 4 Proclus, in Parm. 694. 23; Simplicius, in Phys. 139.8; 141. I.

page 226 note 1 As I argued in an earlier paper, ‘The Parmenides Again’, Phoenix xvi (1962), 1–14.Google Scholar It will be evident from my discussion below, however, that I would not now wish to stand by everything in this paper, especially parts of the material on pages 2–6 concerning Parm. 135–6.

page 227 note 1 There still seems no convincing reason to suppose that Plato regarded Parmenides' arguments as valid against a correctly formulated theory of Forms argued by a competent dialectician. For the methods of argument Parmenides is made to employ see especially Peck, A. L., ‘Plato versus Parmenides’, PR lxxi (1962), 159–84.Google Scholar

page 227 note 2 I withdraw the suggestion made in Phoenix xvi (1962)Google Scholar, 4 that εἴδους must be understood withwhile reaffirming (against Cornford) that γ⋯νος and οὐσία are not here synonymous.

page 227 note 3 It seems likely that the phraserefers to both philosophical and non-philosophical talk. That it refers partially to philosophical talk is suggested by its echo of Rep. 511 b 4.

page 228 note 1 J. M. Rist, loc. cit. 7–12.

page 229 note 1 It is worth observing that, although in the Phaedo and Symposium the adjective σονο-ειδής is regularly applied to Forms, which are the objects of knowledge, in the Theaete-tus (205 d) what is σονο-ειδής is held to be per se unknowable.