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    Parmenides
    Parmenides
    Parmenides
    Ebook85 pages52 minutes

    Parmenides

    By Plato

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    Parmenides is one of the dialogues of Plato. It is widely considered to be one of the more, if not the most, challenging and enigmatic of Plato's dialogues. The Parmenides purports to be an account of a meeting between the two great philosophers of the Eleatic school, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, and a young Socrates. The occasion of the meeting was the reading by Zeno of his treatise defending Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality who asserted that Parmenides' supposition that there is a one gives rise to intolerable absurdities and contradictions.

    Translated by Benjamin Jowett

    Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPasserino
    Release dateApr 19, 2019
    ISBN9788832582468
    Author

    Plato

    Plato, one of the most renowned ancient Greek philosophers, was born in 427 B.C. to an aristocratic and wealthy family, which played a prominent part in Athenian politics. Plato in conjunction his teacher, Socrates, and his pupil, Aristotle helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and culture. While primarily influenced by Socrates, Plato’s work was also affected by the philosophies of Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans. Under the guidance of Socrates, Plato devoted himself to the pursuit of wisdom and upon Socrates’ death, joined a group of the Socratic disciples gathered at Megara. Later he travelled in Egypt, Magna Graecia, and Sicily. He returned to Athens and founded a school, known as the Academy, which seems to have been his home base for the remainder of his life. While thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters have traditionally been ascribed to Plato, modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of some of them. His early dialogues are also known as the Socratic dialogues and include Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and Protagoras. He followed these with his transitional dialogues: Gorgias, Meno , and Euthydemus . The Symposium and the Republic are considered the centerpieces of Plato's middle period and are considered some of his most revered work, and other middle dialogues include Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Theaetetus. Plato’s Laws is the best known dialogues of his late period. Plato died in 347 B.C.

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      Book preview

      Parmenides - Plato

      PARMENIDES

      PARMENIDES

      PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Cephalus, Adeimantus, Glaucon, Antiphon, Pythodorus, Socrates, Zeno, Parmenides, Aristoteles.

      Cephalus rehearses a dialogue which is supposed to have been narrated in his presence by Antiphon, the half-brother of Adeimantus and Glaucon, to certain Clazomenians.

      We had come from our home at Clazomenae to Athens, and met Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora. Welcome, Cephalus, said Adeimantus, taking me by the hand; is there anything which we can do for you in Athens?

      Yes; that is why I am here; I wish to ask a favour of you.

      What may that be? he said.

      I want you to tell me the name of your half brother, which I have forgotten; he was a mere child when I last came hither from Clazomenae, but that was a long time ago; his father's name, if I remember rightly, was Pyrilampes?

      Yes, he said, and the name of our brother, Antiphon; but why do you ask?

      Let me introduce some countrymen of mine, I said; they are lovers of philosophy, and have heard that Antiphon was intimate with a certain Pythodorus, a friend of Zeno, and remembers a conversation which took place between Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides many years ago, Pythodorus having often recited it to him.

      Quite true.

      And could we hear it? I asked.

      Nothing easier, he replied; when he was a youth he made a careful study of the piece; at present his thoughts run in another direction; like his grandfather Antiphon he is devoted to horses. But, if that is what you want, let us go and look for him; he dwells at Melita, which is quite near, and he has only just left us to go home.

      Accordingly we went to look for him; he was at home, and in the act of giving a bridle to a smith to be fitted. When he had done with the smith, his brothers told him the purpose of our visit; and he saluted me as an acquaintance whom he remembered from my former visit, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue. At first he was not very willing, and complained of the trouble, but at length he consented. He told us that Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they came to Athens, as he said, at the great Panathenaea; the former was, at the time of his visit, about 65 years old, very white with age, but well favoured. Zeno was nearly 40 years of age, tall and fair to look upon; in the days of his youth he was reported to have been beloved by Parmenides. He said that they lodged with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus, outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very young man, came to see them, and many others with him; they wanted to hear the writings of Zeno, which had been brought to Athens for the first time on the occasion of their visit. These Zeno himself read to them in the absence of Parmenides, and had very nearly finished when Pythodorus entered, and with him Parmenides and Aristoteles who was afterwards one of the Thirty, and heard the little that remained of the dialogue. Pythodorus had heard Zeno repeat them before.

      When the recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the first argument might be read over again, and this having been done, he said: What is your meaning, Zeno? Do you maintain that if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and that this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like—is that your position?

      Just so, said Zeno.

      And if the unlike cannot be like, or the like unlike, then according to you, being could not be many; for this would involve an impossibility. In all that you say have you any other purpose except to disprove the being of the many? and is not each division of your treatise intended to furnish a separate proof of this, there being in all as many proofs of the not-being of the many as you have composed arguments? Is that your meaning, or have I misunderstood you?

      No, said Zeno; you have correctly understood my general purpose.

      I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno would like to be not only one with you in friendship but your second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way, and would fain make believe that he is telling us something which is new. For you, in your poems, say The All is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs; and he on the other hand says There is no many; and on behalf of this he offers overwhelming evidence. You affirm unity, he denies plurality. And so you deceive the world into believing that you are saying different things when really you are saying much the same. This is a strain of art beyond the reach of most of us.

      Yes, Socrates, said Zeno. But although you are as keen as a Spartan hound in pursuing the track, you do not fully apprehend the true motive of the composition, which is not really such an artificial work as you imagine; for what you speak of was an accident; there was no pretence of a great purpose; nor any serious intention of deceiving the world. The truth is, that these writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who make fun of him and seek to show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they suppose to follow from the affirmation of the one. My answer is addressed to

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