ΠΑΡΜΕΝΙΔΗΣ
Greek text
Plato · Greek text
The Parmenides is the most demanding and enigmatic of Plato's dialogues. It depicts a dramatic meeting in which the aged Parmenides and his pupil Zeno visit Athens and engage a very young Socrates, who eagerly puts forward the theory of Forms — only to have the venerable Eleatic gently take it apart.
In the first part Parmenides presses a series of famous objections. How can many things participate in one Form without it being split among them? Does explaining the many large things by Largeness not require a further Form to cover them all, and so on without end — the 'third man' regress? Are there Forms of trivial or base things? And if the Forms are utterly separate, how can we, in this world, ever know them, and how can the divine know us? Socrates is left unable to answer, yet Parmenides insists the theory cannot simply be abandoned, for without stable Forms thought and discourse themselves collapse.
The second, longer part is a relentless dialectical exercise in which Parmenides examines the consequences of supposing that 'the one is' and that 'the one is not', running through a sequence of intricate, often contradictory hypotheses about the One and its relation to being. Whether this is a logical puzzle, a parody, or a serious metaphysics has been argued ever since.
The Neoplatonists had no doubt: they read the hypotheses as a map of all reality, taking the first — a One so transcendent that it cannot even be said to be — as the supreme revelation of the One beyond being. Proclus and Damascius wrote great commentaries on it, and for them this baffling text was the summit of Plato's theology.
In the library: the complete Parmenides, with the critique of the Forms and the dialectical hypotheses.
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Κέφαλος: ἐπειδὴ Ἀθήναζε οἴκοθεν ἐκ Κλαζομενῶν ἀφικόμεθα, κατ᾽ ἀγορὰν ἐνετύχομεν Ἀδειμάντῳ τε καὶ Γλαύκωνι: καί μου λαβόμενος τῆς χειρὸς ὁ Ἀδείμαντος, Χαῖρ᾽, ἔφη, ὦ Κέφαλε, καὶ εἴ του δέῃ τῶν τῇδε ὧν ἡμεῖς δυνατοί, φράζε.
ἀλλὰ μὲν δή, εἶπον ἐγώ, πάρειμί γε ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, δεησόμενος ὑμῶν.
λέγοις ἄν, ἔφη, τὴν δέησιν.
καὶ ἐγὼ εἶπον: τῷ ἀδελφῷ ὑμῶν τῷ ὁμομητρίῳ τί ἦν ὄνομα; οὐ γὰρ μέμνημαι. παῖς δέ που ἦν, ὅτε τὸ πρότερον ἐπεδήμησα δεῦρο ἐκ Κλαζομενῶν: πολὺς δὲ ἤδη χρόνος ἐξ ἐκείνου. τῷ μὲν γὰρ πατρί, δοκῶ, Πυριλάμπης ὄνομα.
πάνυ γε, ἔφη.
αὐτῷ δέ γε;
Ἀντιφῶν. ἀλλὰ τί μάλιστα πυνθάνῃ;
οἵδε, εἶπον ἐγώ, πολῖταί τ᾽ ἐμοί εἰσι, μάλα φιλόσοφοι, ἀκηκόασί τε ὅτι οὗτος ὁ Ἀντιφῶν Πυθοδώρῳ τινὶ Ζήνωνος
ἑταίρῳ πολλὰ ἐντετύχηκε, καὶ τοὺς λόγους, οὕς ποτε Σωκράτης καὶ Ζήνων καὶ Παρμενίδης διελέχθησαν, πολλάκις ἀκούσας τοῦ Πυθοδώρου ἀπομνημονεύει.
ἀληθῆ, ἔφη, λέγεις.
τούτων τοίνυν, εἶπον, δεόμεθα διακοῦσαι.
ἀλλ᾽ οὐ χαλεπόν, ἔφη: μειράκιον γὰρ ὢν αὐτοὺς εὖ μάλα διεμελέτησεν, ἐπεὶ νῦν γε κατὰ τὸν πάππον τε καὶ ὁμώνυμον πρὸς ἱππικῇ τὰ πολλὰ διατρίβει. ἀλλ᾽ εἰ δεῖ, ἴωμεν παρ᾽ αὐτόν: ἄρτι γὰρ ἐνθένδε οἴκαδε οἴχεται, οἰκεῖ δὲ ἐγγὺς ἐν Μελίτῃ.
ταῦτα εἰπόντες ἐβαδίζομεν, καὶ κατελάβομεν τὸν Ἀντιφῶντα οἴκοι, χαλινόν τινα χαλκεῖ ἐκδιδόντα σκευάσαι: ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἐκείνου ἀπηλλάγη οἵ τε ἀδελφοὶ ἔλεγον αὐτῷ ὧν ἕνεκα παρεῖμεν, ἀνεγνώρισέν τέ με ἐκ τῆς προτέρας ἐπιδημίας καί με ἠσπάζετο, καὶ δεομένων ἡμῶν διελθεῖν τοὺς λόγους, τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ὤκνει πολὺ γὰρ ἔφη ἔργον εἶναι ἔπειτα μέντοι διηγεῖτο. ἔφη δὲ δὴ ὁ Ἀντιφῶν λέγειν τὸν Πυθόδωρον ὅτι ἀφίκοιντό ποτε εἰς Παναθήναια τὰ μεγάλα
Ζήνων τε καὶ Παρμενίδης. τὸν μὲν οὖν Παρμενίδην εὖ μάλα ἤδη πρεσβύτην εἶναι, σφόδρα πολιόν, καλὸν δὲ κἀγαθὸν τὴν ὄψιν, περὶ ἔτη μάλιστα πέντε καὶ ἑξήκοντα: Ζήνωνα δὲ ἐγγὺς τῶν τετταράκοντα τότε εἶναι, εὐμήκη δὲ καὶ χαρίεντα ἰδεῖν, καὶ λέγεσθαι αὐτὸν παιδικὰ τοῦ Παρμενίδου γεγονέναι. καταλύειν δὲ αὐτοὺς ἔφη παρὰ τῷ
Πυθοδώρῳ ἐκτὸς τείχους ἐν Κεραμεικῷ: οἷ δὴ καὶ ἀφικέσθαι τόν τε Σωκράτη καὶ ἄλλους τινὰς μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ πολλούς, ἐπιθυμοῦντας ἀκοῦσαι τῶν τοῦ Ζήνωνος γραμμάτων τότε γὰρ αὐτὰ πρῶτον ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων κομισθῆναι Σωκράτη δὲ εἶναι τότε σφόδρα νέον. ἀναγιγνώσκειν οὖν αὐτοῖς τὸν Ζήνωνα αὐτόν, τὸν δὲ Παρμενίδην τυχεῖν ἔξω ὄντα: καὶ εἶναι πάνυ βραχὺ ἔτι λοιπὸν τῶν λόγων ἀναγιγνωσκομένων, ἡνίκα
αὐτός τε ἐπεισελθεῖν ἔφη ὁ Πυθόδωρος ἔξωθεν καὶ τὸν Παρμενίδην μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλη τὸν τῶν τριάκοντα γενόμενον, καὶ σμίκρ᾽ ἄττα ἔτι ἐπακοῦσαι τῶν γραμμάτων: οὐ μὴν αὐτός γε, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρότερον ἀκηκοέναι τοῦ Ζήνωνος.
τὸν οὖν Σωκράτη ἀκούσαντα πάλιν τε κελεῦσαι τὴν πρώτην ὑπόθεσιν τοῦ πρώτου λόγου ἀναγνῶναι, καὶ ἀναγνωσθείσης,
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The Athenian who turned Socratic conversation into a written philosophy and founded the Academy.
Plato was born around 428 BCE into a wealthy and politically prominent Athenian family; through his mother Perictione the family traced kinship to the lawgiver Solon, and his relatives Critias and Charmides were among the oligarchs of the Thirty. A late tradition says his given name was Aristocles and that 'Plato' — from the word for 'broad' — was a nickname. He grew up during the long agony of the Peloponnesian War and came of age amid the violence and disillusion that followed Athens' defeat.
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