 It has seemed to many scholars that Speusippus’ denial that the One is a being gains plausibility from Plato’s Republic: VI 509b2–10 has often been read as placing the Form of the Good (which, according to the tradition stemming from Aristotle, Plato identifies with the One) ‘beyond being’ and so making the top of Plato’s ontological ladder not a being, either. But this is inconsistent with other passages in the Republic in which the Form of the Good is plainly said to be a being (e.g., VII 518cd, 526e), and the phrase often translated ‘beyond being’ in 509b can be read simply as meaning ‘on the far edge of being’. This does not mean that there is nothing pertinent in Plato; there is, in the later dialogues, especially the Parmenides (see below). But Republic VI 509b2–10 cannot be cited in support of Speusippus’ view.