



Produced by Sue Asscher





PARMENIDES

By Plato


Translated by Benjamin Jowett




INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

The awe with which Plato regarded the character of 'the great'
Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls by his name. None
of the writings of Plato have been more copiously illustrated, both in
ancient and modern times, and in none of them have the interpreters
been more at variance with one another. Nor is this surprising. For the
Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and
the design of the writer is not expressly stated. The date is uncertain;
the relation to the other writings of Plato is also uncertain; the
connexion between the two parts is at first sight extremely obscure;
and in the latter of the two we are left in doubt as to whether Plato is
speaking his own sentiments by the lips of Parmenides, and overthrowing
him out of his own mouth, or whether he is propounding consequences
which would have been admitted by Zeno and Parmenides themselves. The
contradictions which follow from the hypotheses of the one and many have
been regarded by some as transcendental mysteries; by others as a mere
illustration, taken at random, of a new method. They seem to have been
inspired by a sort of dialectical frenzy, such as may be supposed to
have prevailed in the Megarian School (compare Cratylus, etc.). The
criticism on his own doctrine of Ideas has also been considered, not as
a real criticism, but as an exuberance of the metaphysical imagination
which enabled Plato to go beyond himself. To the latter part of the
dialogue we may certainly apply the words in which he himself describes
the earlier philosophers in the Sophist: 'They went on their way rather
regardless of whether we understood them or not.'

The Parmenides in point of style is one of the best of the Platonic
writings; the first portion of the dialogue is in no way defective in
ease and grace and dramatic interest; nor in the second part, where
there was no room for such qualities, is there any want of clearness or
precision. The latter half is an exquisite mosaic, of which the small
pieces are with the utmost fineness and regularity adapted to one
another. Like the Protagoras, Phaedo, and others, the whole is a
narrated dialogue, combining with the mere recital of the words spoken,
the observations of the reciter on the effect produced by them. Thus we
are informed by him that Zeno and Parmenides were not altogether pleased
at the request of Socrates that they would examine into the nature of
the one and many in the sphere of Ideas, although they received his
suggestion with approving smiles. And we are glad to be told that
Parmenides was 'aged but well-favoured,' and that Zeno was'very
good-looking'; also that Parmenides affected to decline the great
argument, on which, as Zeno knew from experience, he was not unwilling
to enter. The character of Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato, who
had once been inclined to philosophy, but has now shown the hereditary
disposition for horses, is very naturally described. He is the sole
depositary of the famous dialogue; but, although he receives the
strangers like a courteous gentleman, he is impatient of the trouble of
reciting it. As they enter, he has been giving orders to a bridle-maker;
by this slight touch Plato verifies the previous description of him.
After a little persuasion he is induced to favour the Clazomenians, who
come from a distance, with a rehearsal. Respecting the visit of Zeno
and Parmenides to Athens, we may observe--first, that such a visit is
consistent with dates, and may possibly have occurred; secondly, that
Plato is very likely to have invented the meeting ('You, Socrates, can
easily invent Egyptian tales or anything else,' Phaedrus); thirdly, that
no reliance can be placed on the circumstance as determining the date
of Parmenides and Zeno; fourthly, that the same occasion appears to be
referred to by Plato in two other places (Theaet., Soph.).

Many interpreters have regarded the Parmenides as a'reductio ad
absurdum' of the Eleatic philosophy. But would Plato have been likely to
place this in the mouth of the great Parmenides himself, who appeared
to him, in Homeric language, to be'venerable and awful,' and to have
a 'glorious depth of mind'? (Theaet.). It may be admitted that he has
ascribed to an Eleatic stranger in the Sophist opinions which went
beyond the doctrines of the Eleatics. But the Eleatic stranger expressly
criticises the doctrines in which he had been brought up; he admits that
he is going to 'lay hands on his father Parmenides.' Nothing of this
kind is said of Zeno and Parmenides. How then, without a word of
explanation, could Plato assign to them the refutation of their own
tenets?

The conclusion at which we must arrive is that the Parmenides is not
a refutation of the Eleatic philosophy. Nor would such an explanation
afford any satisfactory connexion of the first and second parts of the
dialogue. And it is quite inconsistent with Plato's own relation to the
Eleatics. For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them
with the greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a
more unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the
reverse of those which he actually held.

Two preliminary remarks may be made. First, that whatever latitude we
may allow to Plato in bringing together by a 'tour de force,' as in the
Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet he always in some way seeks to find
a connexion for them. Many threads join together in one the love and
dialectic of the Phaedrus. We cannot conceive that the great artist
would place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent
subjects. And hence we are led to make a second remark: viz. that
no explanation of the Parmenides can be satisfactory which does not
indicate the connexion of the first and second parts. To suppose that
Plato would first go out of his way to make Parmenides attack the
Platonic Ideas, and then proceed to a similar but more fatal assault on
his own doctrine of Being, appears to be the height of absurdity.

Perhaps there is no passage in Plato showing greater metaphysical power
than that in which he assails his own theory of Ideas. The arguments are
nearly, if not quite, those of Aristotle; they are the objections which
naturally occur to a modern student of philosophy. Many persons will be
surprised to find Plato criticizing the very conceptions which have been
supposed in after ages to be peculiarly characteristic of him. How can
he have placed himself so completely without them? How can he have ever
persisted in them after seeing the fatal objections which might be urged
against them? The consideration of this difficulty has led a recent
critic (Ueberweg), who in general accepts the authorised canon of the
Platonic writings, to condemn the Parmenides as spurious. The accidental
want of external evidence, at first sight, seems to favour this opinion.

In answer, it might be sufficient to say, that no ancient writing of
equal length and excellence is known to be spurious. Nor is the silence
of Aristotle to be hastily assumed; there is at least a doubt whether
his use of the same arguments does not involve the inference that he
knew the work. And, if the Parmenides is spurious, like Ueberweg, we
are led on further than we originally intended, to pass a similar
condemnation on the Theaetetus and Sophist, and therefore on the
Politicus (compare Theaet., Soph.). But the objection is in reality
fanciful, and rests on the assumption that the doctrine of the Ideas was
held by Plato throughout his life in the same form. For the truth
is, that the Platonic Ideas were in constant process of growth and
transmutation; sometimes veiled in poetry and mythology, then again
emerging as fixed Ideas, in some passages regarded as absolute and
eternal, and in others as relative to the human mind, existing in
and derived from external objects as well as transcending them. The
anamnesis of the Ideas is chiefly insisted upon in the mythical portions
of the dialogues, and really occupies a very small space in the entire
works of Plato. Their transcendental existence is not asserted, and
is therefore implicitly denied in the Philebus; different forms
are ascribed to them in the Republic, and they are mentioned in the
Theaetetus, the Sophist, the Politicus, and the Laws, much as Universals
would be spoken of in modern books. Indeed, there are very faint traces
of the transcendental doctrine of Ideas, that is, of their existence
apart from the mind, in any of Plato's writings, with the exception of
the Meno, the Phaedrus, the Phaedo, and in portions of the Republic. The
stereotyped form which Aristotle has given to them is not found in Plato
(compare Essay on the Platonic Ideas in the Introduction to the Meno.)

The full discussion of this subject involves a comprehensive survey of
the philosophy of Plato, which would be out of place here. But, without
digressing further from the immediate subject of the Parmenides, we
may remark that Plato is quite serious in his objections to his own
doctrines: nor does Socrates attempt to offer any answer to them. The
perplexities which surround the one and many in the sphere of the Ideas
are also alluded to in the Philebus, and no answer is given to them. Nor
have they ever been answered, nor can they be answered by any one else
who separates the phenomenal from the real. To suppose that Plato, at a
later period of his life, reached a point of view from which he was able
to answer them, is a groundless assumption. The real progress of Plato's
own mind has been partly concealed from us by the dogmatic statements of
Aristotle, and also by the degeneracy of his own followers, with whom a
doctrine of numbers quickly superseded Ideas.

As a preparation for answering some of the difficulties which have
been suggested, we may begin by sketching the first portion of the
dialogue:--

Cephalus, of Clazomenae in Ionia, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, a
citizen of no mean city in the history of philosophy, who is the
narrator of the dialogue, describes himself as meeting Adeimantus and
Glaucon in the Agora at Athens. 'Welcome, Cephalus: can we do anything
for you in Athens?' 'Why, yes: I came to ask a favour of you. First,
tell me your half-brother's name, which I have forgotten--he was a mere
child when I was last here;--I know his father's, which is Pyrilampes.'
'Yes, and the name of our brother is Antiphon. But why do you ask?'
'Let me introduce to you some countrymen of mine, who are lovers of
philosophy; they have heard that Antiphon remembers a conversation of
Socrates with Parmenides and Zeno, of which the report came to him from
Pythodorus, Zeno's friend.' 'That is quite true.' 'And can they hear the
dialogue?' 'Nothing easier; in the days of his youth he made a careful
study of the piece; at present, his thoughts have another direction: he
takes after his grandfather, and has given up philosophy for horses.'

'We went to look for him, and found him giving instructions to a worker
in brass about a bridle. When he had done with him, and had learned
from his brothers the purpose of our visit, he saluted me as an old
acquaintance, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue. At first, he
complained of the trouble, but he soon consented. He told us that
Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno;
they had come to Athens at the great Panathenaea, the former being at
the time about sixty-five years old, aged but well-favoured--Zeno, who
was said to have been beloved of Parmenides in the days of his youth,
about forty, and very good-looking:--that they lodged with Pythodorus at
the Ceramicus outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very young
man, came to see them: Zeno was reading one of his theses, which he
had nearly finished, when Pythodorus entered with Parmenides and
Aristoteles, who was afterwards one of the Thirty. When the recitation
was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the treatise
might be read again.'

'You mean, Zeno,' said Socrates, 'to argue that being, if it is many,
must be both like and unlike, which is a contradiction; and each
division of your argument is intended to elicit a similar absurdity,
which may be supposed to follow from the assumption that being is many.'
'Such is my meaning.' 'I see,' said Socrates, turning to Parmenides,
'that Zeno is your second self in his writings too; you prove admirably
that the all is one: he gives proofs no less convincing that the many
are nought. To deceive the world by saying the same thing in entirely
different forms, is a strain of art beyond most of us.' 'Yes, Socrates,'
said Zeno; 'but though you are as keen as a Spartan hound, you do not
quite catch the motive of the piece, which was only intended to protect
Parmenides against ridicule by showing that the hypothesis of the
existence of the many involved greater absurdities than the hypothesis
of the one. The book was a youthful composition of mine, which was
stolen from me, and therefore I had no choice about the publication.' 'I
quite believe you,' said Socrates; 'but will you answer me a question? I
should like to know, whether you would assume an idea of likeness in the
abstract, which is the contradictory of unlikeness in the abstract, by
participation in either or both of which things are like or unlike
or partly both. For the same things may very well partake of like and
unlike in the concrete, though like and unlike in the abstract are
irreconcilable. Nor does there appear to me to be any absurdity in
maintaining that the same things may partake of the one and many, though
I should be indeed surprised to hear that the absolute one is also
many. For example, I, being many, that is to say, having many parts or
members, am yet also one, and partake of the one, being one of seven
who are here present (compare Philebus). This is not an absurdity, but
a truism. But I should be amazed if there were a similar entanglement in
the nature of the ideas themselves, nor can I believe that one and many,
like and unlike, rest and motion, in the abstract, are capable either of
admixture or of separation.'

Pythodorus said that in his opinion Parmenides and Zeno were not very
well pleased at the questions which were raised; nevertheless, they
looked at one another and smiled in seeming delight and admiration of
Socrates. 'Tell me,' said Parmenides, 'do you think that the abstract
ideas of likeness, unity, and the rest, exist apart from individuals
which partake of them? and is this your own distinction?' 'I think that
there are such ideas.' 'And would you make abstract ideas of the just,
the beautiful, the good?' 'Yes,' he said. 'And of human beings like
ourselves, of water, fire, and the like?' 'I am not certain.' 'And would
you be undecided also about ideas of which the mention will, perhaps,
appear laughable: of hair, mud, filth, and other things which are base
and vile?' 'No, Parmenides; visible things like these are, as I believe,
only what they appear to be: though I am sometimes disposed to imagine
that there is nothing without an idea; but I repress any such notion,
from a fear of falling into an abyss of nonsense.' 'You are young,
Socrates, and therefore naturally regard the opinions of men; the time
will come when philosophy will have a firmer hold of you, and you will
not despise even the meanest things. But tell me, is your meaning that
things become like by partaking of likeness, great by partaking of
greatness, just and beautiful by partaking of justice and beauty, and
so of other ideas?' 'Yes, that is my meaning.' 'And do you suppose the
individual to partake of the whole, or of the part?' 'Why not of the
whole?' said Socrates. 'Because,' said Parmenides, 'in that case the
whole, which is one, will become many.' 'Nay,' said Socrates, 'the whole
may be like the day, which is one and in many places: in this way
the ideas may be one and also many.' 'In the same sort of way,' said
Parmenides, 'as a sail, which is one, may be a cover to many--that is
your meaning?' 'Yes.' 'And would you say that each man is covered by the
whole sail, or by a part only?' 'By a part.' 'Then the ideas have parts,
and the objects partake of a part of them only?' 'That seems to follow.'
'And would you like to say that the ideas are really divisible and yet
remain one?' 'Certainly not.' 'Would you venture to affirm that great
objects have a portion only of greatness transferred to them; or that
small or equal objects are small or equal because they are only portions
of smallness or equality?' 'Impossible.' 'But how can individuals
participate in ideas, except in the ways which I have mentioned?' 'That
is not an easy question to answer.' 'I should imagine the conception of
ideas to arise as follows: you see great objects pervaded by a common
form or idea of greatness, which you abstract.' 'That is quite true.'
'And supposing you embrace in one view the idea of greatness thus gained
and the individuals which it comprises, a further idea of greatness
ar