Parmenides

P >> Plato >> Parmenides

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

This etext was prepared 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 arises, which
makes both great; and this may go on to infinity.' Socrates replies that
the ideas may be thoughts in the mind only; in this case, the consequence
would no longer follow. 'But must not the thought be of something which is
the same in all and is the idea? And if the world partakes in the ideas,
and the ideas are thoughts, must not all things think? Or can thought be
without thought?' 'I acknowledge the unmeaningness of this,' says
Socrates, 'and would rather have recourse to the explanation that the ideas
are types in nature, and that other things partake of them by becoming like
them.' 'But to become like them is to be comprehended in the same idea;
and the likeness of the idea and the individuals implies another idea of
likeness, and another without end.' 'Quite true.' 'The theory, then, of
participation by likeness has to be given up. You have hardly yet,
Socrates, found out the real difficulty of maintaining abstract ideas.'
'What difficulty?' 'The greatest of all perhaps is this: an opponent will
argue that the ideas are not within the range of human knowledge; and you
cannot disprove the assertion without a long and laborious demonstration,
which he may be unable or unwilling to follow. In the first place, neither
you nor any one who maintains the existence of absolute ideas will affirm
that they are subjective.' 'That would be a contradiction.' 'True; and
therefore any relation in these ideas is a relation which concerns
themselves only; and the objects which are named after them, are relative
to one another only, and have nothing to do with the ideas themselves.'
'How do you mean?' said Socrates. 'I may illustrate my meaning in this
way: one of us has a slave; and the idea of a slave in the abstract is
relative to the idea of a master in the abstract; this correspondence of
ideas, however, has nothing to do with the particular relation of our slave
to us.--Do you see my meaning?' 'Perfectly.' 'And absolute knowledge in
the same way corresponds to absolute truth and being, and particular
knowledge to particular truth and being.' Clearly.' 'And there is a
subjective knowledge which is of subjective truth, having many kinds,
general and particular. But the ideas themselves are not subjective, and
therefore are not within our ken.' 'They are not.' 'Then the beautiful
and the good in their own nature are unknown to us?' 'It would seem so.'
'There is a worse consequence yet.' 'What is that?' 'I think we must
admit that absolute knowledge is the most exact knowledge, which we must
therefore attribute to God. But then see what follows: God, having this
exact knowledge, can have no knowledge of human things, as we 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.
For example, what follows from the assumption of the existence of the many,
and the counter-argument of what follows from the denial of the existence
of the many: and similarly of likeness and unlikeness, motion, rest,
generation, corruption, being and not being. And the consequences must
include consequences to the things supposed and to other things, in
themselves and in relation to one another, to individuals whom you select,
to the many, and to the all; these must be drawn out both on the
affirmative and on the negative hypothesis,--that is, if you are to train
yourself perfectly to the intelligence of the truth.' 'What you are
suggesting seems to be a tremendous process, and one of which I do not
quite understand the nature,' said Socrates; 'will you give me an example?'
'You must not impose such a task on a man of my years,' said Parmenides.
'Then will you, Zeno?' 'Let us rather,' said Zeno, with a smile, 'ask
Parmenides, for the undertaking is a serious one, as he truly says; nor
could I urge him to make the attempt, except in a select audience of
persons who will understand him.' The whole party joined in the request.

Here we have, first of all, an unmistakable attack made by the youthful
Socrates on the paradoxes of Zeno. He perfectly understands their drift,
and Zeno himself is supposed to admit this. But they appear to him, as he
says in the Philebus also, to be rather truisms than paradoxes. For every
one must acknowledge the obvious fact, that the body being one has many
members, and that, in a thousand ways, the like partakes of the unlike, the
many of the one. The real difficulty begins with the relations of ideas in
themselves, whether of the one and many, or of any other ideas, to one
another and to the mind. But this was a problem which the Eleatic
philosophers had never considered; their thoughts had not gone beyond the
contradictions of matter, motion, space, and the like.

It was no wonder that Parmenides and Zeno should hear the novel
speculations of Socrates with mixed feelings of admiration and displeasure.
He was going out of the received circle of disputation into a region in
which they could hardly follow him. From the crude idea of Being in the
abstract, he was about to proceed to universals or general notions. There
is no contradiction in material things partaking of the ideas of one and
many; neither is there any contradiction in the ideas of one and many, like
and unlike, in themselves. But the contradiction arises when we attempt to
conceive ideas in their connexion, or to ascertain their relation to
phenomena. Still he affirms the existence of such ideas; and this is the
position which is now in turn submitted to the criticisms of Parmenides.

To appreciate truly the character of these criticisms, we must remember the
place held by Parmenides in the history of Greek philosophy. He is the
founder of idealism, and also of dialectic, or, in modern phraseology, of
metaphysics and logic (Theaet., Soph.). Like Plato, he is struggling after
something wider and deeper than satisfied the contemporary Pythagoreans.
And Plato with a true instinct recognizes him as his spiritual father, whom
he 'revered and honoured more than all other philosophers together.' He
may be supposed to have thought more than he said, or was able to express.
And, although he could not, as a matter of fact, have criticized the ideas
of Plato without an anachronism, the criticism is appropriately placed in
the mouth of the founder of the ideal philosophy.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8