Parmenides
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~35,200 words · 167 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Parmenides. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/parmenides
- MLAPlato. Parmenides. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/parmenides.
- ChicagoPlato. Parmenides. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/parmenides.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
A young Socrates takes a dialectical beating from the aged Parmenides, who dismantles the theory of forms with objections Plato never answers.
Context and history
The text where Plato criticises Plato more harshly than any opponent did, including the third man argument, still the standard objection to theories of universals. Its second half, eight deductions about the one, fed the whole of Neoplatonism.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
have divided the two spheres, and forbidden any passing from one to the other:--the gods have knowledge and authority in their world only, as we have in ours.' 'Yet, surely, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous.'--'These are some of the difficulties which are involved in the assumption of absolute ideas; the learner will find them nearly impossible to understand, and the teacher who has to impart them will require superhuman ability; there will always be a suspicion, either that they have no existence, or are beyond human knowledge.' 'There I agree with you,' said Socrates. 'Yet if these difficulties induce you to give up universal ideas, what becomes of the mind? and where are the reasoning and reflecting powers? philosophy is at an end.' 'I certainly do not see my way.' 'I think,' said Parmenides, 'that this arises out of your attempting to define abstractions, such as the good and the beautiful and the just, before you have had sufficient previous training; I noticed your deficiency when you were talking with Aristoteles, the day before yesterday. Your enthusiasm is a wonderful gift; but I fear that unless you discipline yourself by dialectic while you are young, truth will elude your grasp.' 'And what kind of discipline would you recommend?' 'The training which you heard Zeno practising; at the same time, I admire your saying to him that you did not care to consider the difficulty in reference to visible objects, but only in relation to ideas.' 'Yes; because I think that in visible objects you may easily show any number of inconsistent consequences.' 'Yes; and you should consider, not only the consequences which follow from a given hypothesis, but the consequences also which follow from the denial of the hypothesis.…
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