Parmenides and Plato's Parmenides 131a-132c

Abstract

Parmenides and Plato's Parmenides 131a-132c* HENRY TELOH RECENT DISCUSSIONS about the arguments of Parmenides 13 la-132c suffer, I believe, from a lack of historical perspective. While commentators have seen that Plato casts the middle period Forms in Eleatic language) they have not connected this legacy with the Parmenides arguments. There is, however, a connection, and the persistent failure to see it has led to an inadequate appreciation of the arguments. I will argue that Plato inherits from the Eleatics the predicate "one," and applies it to each of the Forms-- "Each Form is one." Then I will show that the thrust of "Parmenides' ''~ attacks at Parmenides 131a-132c is that "Socrates" is unable to state how Forms are related to phenomena while at the same time preserving the Eleatic legacy, the oneness of each Form. Finally I will suggest the importance of this interpretation to Plato's later philosophy. First let us turn to the historical Parmenides' use of "one." In the Way ot Truth he gives the indications of, or "signposts" to, Being (DK 28 B8.4-6); it is ungenerated, imperishable, whole, unique, 8 immovable, complete, one and continuous. We see that the predicate "one" (Ev) takes its place among the other signposts, and that it occurs in the phrase "since it [Being] is now altogether, one, and continuous" (8.5-6). There is an obvious connection between "one," "altogether," and "continuous" or "cohesive" in 8.6 and "whole" in 8.4, and these predicates appear to indicate that Being is indivisible . This suspicion is verified at 8.22-25, where the homogeneity, fullness, and continuity of Being are given as the reasons why it is indivisible (o~ ~mttQs~6~ ~axtv). Therefore Parmenides uses gv explicitly to indicate indivisibility. * This is a revised version of a paper read at The Southern Society/or Philosophy and Psychology (Knoxville, 1973), and the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association (St. Louis, 1974). I would like to thank James Duerlinger, W. H. Hay, Friedrich Solmsen, and an unnamed referee for The 1ournal of the History of Philosophy for their helpful comments. x See F. Solmsen, "Parmenides and the Description of Perfect Beauty in Plato's 'Symposium'," American Journal of Philology, XCII (1971), 62-70; R. Hackforth, Plato's Phaedo (Cambridge, 1955), p. 84; P. Friedliinder, Plato, An Introduction, trans. H. Meyerhoff (New York, 1958), pp. 23-26; and my "The Isolation and Connection of the Forms in Plato's Middle Dialogues," forthcoming in Apeiron. Also see F. M. Cornford, Plato and Parmenides (London, 1939), pp. 80-81, for interesting, but as I will show, inadequate comments on "Parmenides'" objections to the theory of Forms. At times I distinguish the dramatic characters "Parmenides," "Zeno," and "Socrates" from their historical counterparts by the use of quotation marks. We cannot assume that Plato is an accurate source of information about the Eleatics; in particular, Plato's "Parmenides" maintains the thesis that "all is one," whereas Parmenides argued for a theory of Being. There is, however, as I will show, a close connection between "Parmenides" and Parmenides. 3 There are a number of alternative texts for o~kov Imtrvo'tEv6g,but "whole, unique" is a commonly accepted reading. [125] 126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY There is, however, another meaning for "one" in Parmenides' poem. Being is unique (~tovvo),ev~;, 8.4), not because it is the only member of a class, but because "there neither is nor will be anything else besides (outside of) Being" (8.36--37). Being is not unique in that it is different from anything else, rather it is all there is. The uniqueness of Being is contrasted with the two forms (Ixooq~t; 9 . . ~-6o), light and dark, which mortals mistakenly name, failing to realize that there is only Being (8.38-39, 53). So the predicate ~towo,/ev~; means unique, and it functions as another use of "one" in Parmenides ' poem. ~ In Melissus, "one" becomes the principal predicate of Being, and there is even a tendency on his part to assimilate it to Being when he talks about "the one" (~6 g,~, DK 30 B8.2, 6). ~ Simplicius has preserved two fragments which unambiguously state Melissus' uses...