Chapter XXVII: Parmenides (2)

[Footnote 36: This preponderance of the Objective point of view, though without altogether eliminating the Subjective, includes all that is true in the assertion of Aristotle, that the _Perceptum_ is prior to the _Percipient_--the _Percipiendum_ prior to the _Perceptionis Capax_. He assimilates the former to a _Movens_, the latter to a _Motum_. But he declares that he means not a priority in time or real existence, but simply a _priority in nature_ or _logical priority_; and he also declares the two to be relatives or reciproca. The Prius is relative to the Posterius, as the Posterius is relative to the Prius.--Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 1010, b. 36 seq. [Greek: a)ll' e)/sti ti kai\ e(/teron para\ tê\n ai)/sthêsin, o(\ a)nagkê pro/teron ei)=nai tê=s ai)sthê/seô=s; to\ ga\r kinou=n tou= kinoume/nou _phu/sei pro/tero/n_ e)sti; ka)\n ei) le/getai pro\s a)/llêla tau=ta, ou)de\n ê(=tton.]

See respecting the [Greek: pro/teron phu/sei], Aristot. Categor. p. 12, b. 5-15, and Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1018, b. 12--[Greek: a(plô=s kai\ tê=| phu/sei pro/teron].]

[Side-note: Meaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from ancient times to the present day--Different views of Plato and Aristotle upon it.]

The question--What is the real and precise meaning attached to abstract and general words?--has been debated down to this day, and is still under debate. It seems to have first derived its importance, if not its origin, from Sokrates, who began the practice of inviting persons to define the familiar generalities of ethics and politics, and then tested by cross-examination the definitions given by men who thought that common sense would enable any one to define.[37] But I see no ground for believing that Sokrates ever put to himself the question--Whether that which an abstract term denotes is a mental conception, or a separate and self-existent reality. That question was raised by Plato, and first stands clearly brought to view here in the Parmenidês.

[Footnote 37: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 3. M. 1078, b. 18-32.]

If we follow up the opinion here delivered by the Platonic Sokrates, together with the first correction added to it by Parmenides, amounting to this--That the Form is a Conception of the mind with its corresponding Concept: if, besides, we dismiss the doctrine held by Plato, that the Form is a separate self-existent unchangeable Ens ([Greek: e(\n para\ ta\ polla\]): there will then be no greater difficulty in understanding how it can be partaken by, or be at once in, many distinct particulars, than in understanding (what is at bottom the same question) how one and the same attribute can belong at once to many different objects: how hardness or smoothness can be at once in an indefinite number of hard and smooth bodies dispersed everywhere.[38] The object and the attribute are both of them relative to the same percipient and concipient mind: we may perceive or conceive many objects as distinct individuals--we may also conceive them all as resembling in a particular manner, making abstraction of the individuality of each: both these are psychological facts, and the latter of the two is what we mean when we say, that all of them possess or participate in one and the same attribute. The concrete term, and its corresponding abstract, stand for the same facts of sense differently conceived. Now the word _one_, when applied to the attribute, has a different meaning from _one_ when applied to an individual object. Plato speaks sometimes elsewhere as if he felt this diversity of meaning: not however in the Parmenidês, though there is great demand for it. But Aristotle (in this respect far superior) takes much pains to point out that _Unum Ens_--and the preposition _In_ (to be _in_ any thing)--are among the [Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena], having several different meanings derived from one primary or radical by diverse and distant ramifications.[39] The important logical distinction between _Unum numero_ and _Unum specie_ (or _genere_, &c.) belongs first to Aristotle.[40]

[Footnote 38: That "the attribute is in its subject," is explained by Aristotle only by saying That it is _in_ its subject, not as a part in the whole, yet as that which cannot exist apart from its subject (Categor. 1, a. 30-3, a. 30). Compare Hobbes, Comput. or Logic. iii. 3, viii. 3. Respecting the number of different modes [Greek: tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai], see Aristot. Physic. iii. p. 210, a. 18 seq., with the Scholia, p. 373 Brandis, and p. 446, 10 Brand. The commentators made out, variously, nine, eleven, sixteen distinct [Greek: tro/pous tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai]. In the language of Aristotle, _genus_, _species_, [Greek: ei)=dos], and even _differentia_ are not [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], but are predicated [Greek: kath' u(pokeime/nou] (see Cat. p. 3, a. 20). The _proprium_ and _accidens_ alone are [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|]. Here is a difference between his language and that of Plato, according to whom [Greek: to\ ei)=dos] is [Greek: e)n e(ka/stô| tô=n pollô=n] (Parmenid. 131 A). But we remark in that same dialogue, that when Parmenides questions Sokrates whether he recognises [Greek: ei)/dê au)ta\ kath' au)ta/] he first asks whether Sokrates admits [Greek: dikai/ou ti ei)=dos au)to\ kath' au(to/, kai\ kalou=, kai\ a)gathou=, kai\ pa/ntôn tô=n toiou/tôn]. Sokrates answers without hesitation, _Yes_. Then Parmenides proceeds to ask, Do you recognise an [Greek: ei)=dos] of man, separate and apart from all of us individual men?--or an [Greek: ei)=dos] of fire, water, and such like? Here Sokrates hesitates: he will neither admit nor deny it (130 D). The first list, which Sokrates at once accepts, is of what Aristotle would call _accidents_: the second, which Sokrates doubts about, is of what Aristotle would call _second substances_. We thus see that the conception of a self-existent [Greek: ei)=dos] realised itself most easily and distinctly to the mind of Plato in the case of _accidents_. He would, therefore, naturally conceive [Greek: ta\ ei)/dê] as being [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], agreeing substantially, though not in terms, with Aristotle. It is in the case of accidents or attributes that abstract names are most usually invented; and it is the abstract name, or the neuter adjective used as its equivalent, which suggests the belief in an [Greek: ei)=dos].]

[Footnote 39: Aristotel. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1015-1016, I. 1052, a. 29 seq. [Greek: ta\ me\n dê\ ou(/tôs e(\n ê)\ suneche\s ê)\ o(/lon; ta\ de\ ô(=n a)\n o( lo/gos ei(=s ê)=|; toiau=ta de\ ô(=n ê( no/êsis mi/a], &c.

About abstract names, or the names of attributes, see Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' i. 2, 4, p. 30, edit. 5th. "When only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in kind, is designated by the name--as visibleness, tangibleness, equality, &c.--though it denotes an attribute of many different objects, the attribute itself is always considered as _one_, not as _many_." Compare, also, on this point, p. 153, and a note added by Mr. Mill to the fifth edition, p. 203, in reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer. The _oneness_ of the attribute, in different subjects, is not conceded by every one. Mr. Spencer thinks that the same abstract word denotes one attribute in Subject A, and another attribute, though exactly like it, in Subject B (Principles of Psychology, p. 126 seq.) Mr. Mill's view appears the correct one; but the distinction (pointed out by Archbishop Whately) between _undistinguishable likeness_ and _positive identity_, becomes in these cases imperceptible or forgotten.

Aristotle, however, in the beginning of the Categories ranks [Greek: ê( ti/s grammatikê\] as [Greek: a)/tomon kai\ _e(\n a)rithmô=|_] (pp. 1, 6, 8), which I do not understand; and it seems opposed to another passage, pp. 3, 6, 15.

The argument between two such able thinkers as Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer, illustrates forcibly the extreme nicety of this question respecting the One and the Many, under certain supposable circumstances. We cannot be surprised that it puzzled the dialecticians of the Platonic Aristotelian age, who fastened by preference on points of metaphysical difficulty.]

[Footnote 40: See interesting remarks on the application of this logical distinction in Galen, De Methodo Medendi, Book iii. vol. x. p. 130 seq. Aristotle and Theophrastus both dwelt upon it.]

[Side-note: Plato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the facts of sense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded.]

Plato has not followed out the hint which he has here put into the mouth of Sokrates in the Parmenidês--That the Ideas or Forms are conceptions existing only in the mind. Though the opinion thus stated is not strictly correct (and is so pointed out by himself), as falling back too exclusively on the subjective--yet if followed out, it might have served to modify the too objective and absolute character which in most dialogues (though not in the Sophistês) he ascribes to his Forms or Ideas: laying stress upon them as objects--and as objects not of sensible perception--but overlooking or disallowing the fact of their being relative to the concipient mind. The bent of Plato's philosophy was to dwell upon these Forms, and to bring them into harmonious conjunction with each other: he neither took pains, nor expected, to make them fit on to the world of sense. With Aristotle, on the contrary, this last-mentioned purpose is kept very generally in view. Amidst all the extreme abstractions which he handles, he reverts often to the comparison of them with sensible particulars: indeed Substantia Prima was by him, for the first time in the history of philosophy, brought down to designate the concrete particular object of sense: in Plato's Phædon, Republic, &c, the only Substances are the Forms or Ideas.

[Side-note: Continuation of the Dialogue--Parmenides admonishes Sokrates that be has been premature in delivering a doctrine, without sufficient preliminary exercise.]

Parmenides now continues the debate. He has already fastened upon Sokrates several difficult problems: he now proposes a new one, different and worse. Which way are we to turn then, if these Forms be beyond our knowledge? I do not see my way (says Sokrates) out of the perplexity. The fact is, Sokrates (replies Parmenides), you have been too forward in producing your doctrine of Ideas, without a sufficient preliminary exercise and enquiry. Your love of philosophical research is highly praiseworthy: but you must employ your youth in exercising and improving yourself, through that continued philosophical discourse which the vulgar call _useless prosing_: otherwise you will never attain truth.[41] You are however right in bestowing your attention, not on the objects of sense, but on those objects which we can best grasp in discussion, and which we presume to exist as Forms.[42]

[Footnote 41: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 C. [Greek: Prô\| ga/r, pri\n gumnasthê=nai, ô)= Sô/krates, o(ri/zesthai e)picheirei=s kalo/n te/ ti kai\ di/kaion kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ e(\n e(/kaston tô=n ei)dô=n . . . kalê\ me\n ou)=n kai\ thei/a, ei)= i)/sthi, ê( o(rmê\ ê(\n o(rma=|s e)pi\ tou\s lo/gous; e(/lkuson de\ sauto\n kai\ gumna/sai, ma=llon dia\ tê=s dokou/sês a)chrê/stou ei)=nai kai\ kaloume/nês u(po\ tô=n pollô=n a)doleschi/as, e(/ôs e)/ti ne/os ei)=; ei) de\ mê\, se\ diapheu/xetai ê( a)lê/theia.]]

[Footnote 42: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 E.]

[Side-note: What sort of exercise? Parmenides describes: To assume provisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many hypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the consequences of each.]

What sort of exercise must I go through? asks Sokrates. Zeno (replies Parmenides) has already given you a good specimen of it in his treatise, when he followed out the consequences flowing from the assumption--"That the self-existent and absolute Ens is plural". When you are trying to find out the truth on any question, you must assume provisionally, first the affirmative and then the negative, and you must then follow out patiently the consequences deducible from one hypothesis as well as from the other. If you are enquiring about the Form of Likeness, whether it exists or does not exist, you must assume successively both one and the other;[43] marking the deductions which follow, both with reference to the thing directly assumed, and with reference to other things also. You must do the like if you are investigating other Forms--Unlikeness, Motion, and Rest, or even Existence and Non-Existence. But you must not be content with following out only one side of the hypothesis: you must examine both sides with equal care and impartiality. This is the only sort of preparatory exercise which will qualify you for completely seeing through the truth.[44]

[Footnote 43: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 A. [Greek: kai\ au)=this au)= e)a\n u(pothê=|, ei) e)/stin o(moio/tês ê)\ ei) mê/ e)sti, ti/ e)ph' e(kate/ras tê=s u(pothe/seôs sumbê/setai, kai\ au)toi=s toi=s u(potethei=si kai\ toi=s a)/llois kai\ pro\s au(ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla.]]

[Footnote 44: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B.]

[Side-note: Impossible to do this before a numerous audience--Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen--After much solicitation he agrees.]

You propose to me, Parmenides (remarks Sokrates), a work of awful magnitude. At any rate, show me an example of it yourself, that I may know better how to begin.--Parmenides at first declines, on the ground of his old age: but Zeno and the others urge him, so that he at length consents.--The process will be tedious (observes Zeno); and I would not ask it from Parmenides unless among an audience small and select as we are here. Before any numerous audience, it would be an unseemly performance for a veteran like him. For most people are not aware that, without such discursive survey and travelling over the whole field, we cannot possibly attain truth or acquire intelligence.[45]

[Footnote 45: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 D. [Greek: ei) me\n ou)=n plei/ous ê)=men, ou)k a)\n a)/xion ê)=n dei=sthai; _a)prepê= ga\r ta\ toiau=ta pollô=n e)nanti/on le/gein_, a)/llôs te kai\ têlikou/tô|; a)gnoou=si ga\r oi( polloi\ o(/ti a)/neu tau/tês tê=s dia\ pa/ntôn diexo/dou kai\ pla/nês, a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta tô=| a)lêthei= nou=n schei=n.] Hobbes remarks (Computatio sive Logica, i. 3, 12): "Learners ought to go through logical exercises silently and by themselves: for it will be thought both ridiculous and absurd, for a man to use such language publicly". Proklus tells us, that the difficulty of the [Greek: gumnasi/a], here set out by the Platonic Parmenides, is so prodigious, that no one after Plato employed it. (Prok. ad Parmen. p. 801, Stallb.)]

[Side-note: Parmenides elects his own theory of the _Unum_, as the topic for exhibition--Aristoteles becomes respondent.]

It is especially on this ground--the small number and select character of the auditors--that Parmenides suffers himself to be persuaded to undertake what he calls "amusing ourselves with a laborious pastime".[46] He selects, as the subject of his dialectical exhibition, his own doctrine respecting the One. He proceeds to trace out the consequences which flow, first, from assuming the affirmative thesis, _Unum Est_: next, from assuming the negative thesis, or the Antithesis, _Unum non Est_. The consequences are to be deduced from each hypothesis, not only as regards _Unum_ itself, but as regards _Cætera_, or other things besides _Unum_. The youngest man of the party, Aristoteles, undertakes the duty of respondent.

[Footnote 46: Plato, Parmenid. p. 137 A. [Greek: dei= ga\r chari/zesthai, _e)peidê\_ kai\ o(\ Zê/nôn le/gei, _au)toi/ e)smen_ . . . ê)\ bou/lesthe _e)peidê/per dokei= pragmateiô/dê paidia\n pai/zein_,] &c.]

[Side-note: Exhibition of Parmenides--Nine distinct deductions or Demonstrations, first from _Unum Est_--next from _Unum non Est_.]

The remaining portion of the dialogue, half of the whole, is occupied with nine distinct deductions or demonstrations given by Parmenides. The first five start from the assumption, _Unum Est_: the last four from the assumption, _Unum non Est_. The three first draw out the deductions from _Unum Est_, in reference to _Unum_: the fourth and fifth draw out the consequences from the same premiss, in reference to _Cætera_. Again, the sixth and seventh start from _Unum non Est_, to trace what follows in regard to _Unum_: the eighth and ninth adopt the same hypothesis, and reason it out in reference to _Cætera_.

[Side-note: The Demonstrations in antagonising pairs, or Antinomies. Perplexing entanglement of conclusions given without any explanation.]

Of these demonstrations, one characteristic feature is, that they are presented in antagonising pairs or Antinomies: except the third, which professes to mediate between the first and second, though only by introducing new difficulties. We have four distinct Antinomies: the first and second, the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, the eighth and ninth, stand respectively in emphatic contradiction with each other. Moreover, to take the demonstrations separately--the first, fifth, seventh, ninth, end in conclusions purely negative: the other four end in double and contradictory conclusions. The purpose is formally proclaimed, of showing that the same premisses, ingeniously handled, can be made to yield these contradictory results.[47] No attempt is made to reconcile the contradictions, except partially by means of the third, in reference to the two preceding. In regard to the fourth and fifth, sixth and seventh, eighth and ninth, no hint is given that they can be, or afterwards will be, reconciled. The dialogue concludes abruptly at the end of the ninth demonstration, with these words: "We thus see that--whether Unum exists or does not exist--Unum and Cætera both are, and are not, all things in every way--both appear, and do not appear, all things in every way--each in relation to itself, and each in relation to the other".[48] Here is an unqualified and even startling announcement of double and contradictory conclusions, obtained from the same premisses both affirmative and negative: an announcement delivered too as the fulfilment of the purpose of Parmenides. Nothing is said at the end to intimate how the demonstrations are received by Sokrates, nor what lesson they are expected to administer to him: not a word of assent, or dissent, or surprise, or acknowledgment in any way, from the assembled company, though all of them had joined in entreating Parmenides, and had expressed the greatest anxiety to hear his dialectic exhibition. Those who think that an abrupt close, or an abrupt exordium, is sufficient reason for declaring a dialogue not to be the work of Plato (as Platonic critics often argue), are of course consistent in disallowing the Parmenides. For my part, I do not agree in the opinion. I take Plato as I find him, and I perceive both here and in the Protagoras and elsewhere, that he did not always think it incumbent upon him to adapt the end of his dialogues to the beginning. This may be called a defect, but I do not feel called upon to make out that Plato's writings are free from defects; and to acknowledge nothing as his work unless I can show it to be faultless.

[Footnote 47: See the connecting words between the first and second demonstration, pp. 142 A, 159. [Greek: Ou)kou=n tau=ta me\n ê)/dê e)ô=men ô(s phanera/, e)piskopô=men de\ pa/lin, e(\n ei) e)/stin, _a)=ra kai\ ou)ch ou(/tôs e)/chei ta)/lla tou= e(no\s ê)\ ou(/tô mo/non?_] Also p. 163 B.]

[Footnote 48: Plato, Parmenid. ad fin. [Greek: Ei)rê/sthô toi/nun tou=to/ te kai\ o(/ti, ô(s e)/oiken, e(\n ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te mê\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\ ta)/lla kai\ pro\s au(ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla pa/nta pa/ntôs e)sti/ te kai\ ou)k e)sti kai\ phai/netai/ te kai\ ou) phai/netai.]]

[Side-note: Different judgments of Platonic critics respecting the Antinomies and the dialogue generally.]

The demonstrations or Antinomies in the last half of the Parmenides are characterised by K. F. Hermann and others as a masterpiece of speculative acuteness. Yet if these same demonstrations, constructed with care and labour for the purpose of proving that the same premisses will conduct to double and contradictory conclusions, had come down to us from antiquity under the name either of the Megaric Eukleides, or Protagoras, or Gorgias--many of the Platonic critics would probably have said of them (what is now said of the sceptical treatise remaining to us under the name of Gorgias) that they were poor productions worthy of such Sophists, who are declared to have made a trade of perverting truth. Certainly the conclusions of the demonstrations are specimens of that "Both and Neither," which Plato (in the Euthydemus[49]) puts into the mouth of the Sophist Dionysodorus as an answer of slashing defiance--and of that intentional evolution of contradictions which Plato occasionally discountenances, both in the Euthydemus and elsewhere.[50] And we know from Proklus[51] that there were critics in ancient times, who depreciated various parts of the Parmenides as sophistical. Proklus himself denies the charge with some warmth. He as well as the principal Neo-Platonists between 200-530 A.D. (especially his predecessors and instructors at Athens, Jamblichus, Syrianus, and Plutarchus) admired the Parmenides as a splendid effort of philosophical genius in its most exalted range, inspired so as to become cognizant of superhuman persons and agencies. They all agreed so far as to discover in the dialogue a sublime vein of mystic theology and symbolism: but along with this general agreement, there was much discrepancy in their interpretation of particular parts and passages. The commentary of Proklus attests the existence of such debates, reporting his own dissent from the interpretations sanctioned by his venerated masters, Plutarchus and Syrianus. That commentary, in spite of its prolixity, is curious to read as a specimen of the fifth century, A.D., in one of its most eminent representatives. Proklus discovers a string of theological symbols and a mystical meaning throughout the whole dialogue: not merely in the acute argumentation which characterises its middle part, but also in the perplexing antinomies of its close, and even in the dramatic details of places, persons, and incidents, with which it begins.[52]

[Footnote 49: Plato, Euthydem. p. 300 C. [Greek: A)ll' ou) tou=to e)rôtô=, a)lla\ ta\ pa/nta siga=| ê)\ le/gei? _Ou)de/tera kai\ a)mpho/tera_, e)/phê u(pharpa/sas o( Dionuso/dôros; eu)= ga\r oi)=da o(/ti tê=| a)pokri/sei ou)ch e(/xeis o(/, ti chrê=|.]]

[Footnote 50: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 B. [Greek: ei)/te ô(s ti chalepo\n katanenoêkô\s chai/rei, tote\ me\n e)pi\ tha/tera tote\ d' e)pi\ tha/tera tou\s lo/gous e(/lkôn, ou)k a)/xia pollê=s spoudê=s e)spou/daken, ô(s oi( nu=n lo/goi phasi/n.]--Also p. 259 D. [Greek: To\ de\ tau)to\n e(/teron a)pophai/nein a(mê=| ge/ pê|, kai\ to\ tha/teron tau)to/n, kai\ to\ me/ga smikro/n, kai\ to\ o(/moion a)no/moion, kai\ chai/rein ou(/tô ta)nanti/a a)ei\ prophe/ronta e)n toi=s lo/gois, ou)/ te/ tis e)/legchos ou(=tos a)lêthino/s, a)/rti te tô=n o)/ntôn tino\s e)phaptome/nou dê=los neogenê\s ô)/n.]]

[Footnote 51: Proklus, ad Platon. Parmen. p. 953, ed. Stallb.; compare p. 976 in the last book of the commentary, probably composed by Damaskius. K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platon. Philos. p. 507.]

[Footnote 52: This commentary is annexed to Stallbaum's edition of the Parmenides. Compare also the opinion of Marinus (disciple and biographer of Proklus) about the Parmenidês--Suidas v. [Greek: Mari=nos]. Jamblichus declared that Plato's entire theory of philosophy was embodied in the two dialogues, Parmenides and Timæus: in the Parmenides, all the intelligible or universal Entia were deduced from [Greek: to\ e(/n]: in the Timæus, all cosmical realities were deduced from the Demiurgus. Proklus ad Timæeum, p. 5 A, p. 10 Schneider.

Alkinous, in his Introduction to the Platonic Dialogues (c. 6, p. 159, in the Appendix Platonica attached to K. F. Hermann's edition of Plato) quotes several examples of syllogistic reasoning from the Parmenides, and affirms that the ten categories of Aristotle are exhibited therein.

Plotinus (Ennead. v. 1, 8) gives a brief summary of what he understood to be contained in the Antinomies of the Platonic Parmenides; but the interpretation departs widely from the original.

I transcribe a few sentences from the argument of Ficinus, to show what different meanings may be discovered in the same words by different critics. (Ficini Argum. in Plat. Parmen. p. 756.) "Cum Plato per omnes ejus dialogos totius sapientiæ semina sparserit, in libris De Republicâ cuncta moralis philosophiæ instituta collegit, omnem naturalium rerum scientiam in Timæo, universam in Parmenide complexus est Theologiam. Cumque in aliis longo intervallo cæteros philosophos antecesserit, in hoc tandem seipsum superasse videtur. Hic enim divus Plato de ipso Uno subtilissimé disputat: quemadmodum Ipsum Unum rerum omnium principium est, super omnia, omniaque ab illo: quo pacto ipsum extra omnia sit et in omnibus: omniaque ex illo, per illud, atque ad illud. Ad hujus, quod super essentiam est, Unius intelligentiam gradatim ascendit. In iis quæ fluunt et sensibus subjiciuntur et sensibilia nominantur: In iis etiam quas semper eadem sunt et sensibilia nuncupantur, non sensibus amplius sed solâ mente percipienda: Nec in iis tantum, verum etiam supra sensum et sensibilia, intellectumque et intelligibilia:--ipsum Unum existit.--Illud insuper advertendum est, quod in hoc dialogo cum dicitur _Unum_, Pythagoreorum more quæque substantia a materiâ penitus absoluta significari potest: ut Deus, Mens, Anima. Cum vero dicitur Aliud et Alia, tam materia, quam illa quæ in materiâ fiunt, intelligere licet."

The Prolegomena, prefixed by Thomson to his edition of the Parmenides, interpret the dialogue in the same general way as Proklus and Ficinus: they suppose that by Unum is understood Summus Deus, and they discover in the concluding Antinomies theological demonstrations of the unity, simplicity, and other attributes of God. Thomson observes, very justly, that the Parmenides is one of the most difficult dialogues in Plato (Prolegom. iv.-x.) But in my judgment, his mode of exposition, far from smoothing the difficulties, adds new ones greater than those in the text.]

The various explanations of it given by more recent commentators may be seen enumerated in the learned Prolegomena of Stallbaum,[53] who has also set forth his own views at considerable length. And the prodigious opposition between the views of Proklus (followed by Ficinus in the fifteenth century), who extols the Parmenides as including in mystic phraseology sublime religious truths--and those of the modern Tiedemann, who despises them as foolish subtleties and cannot read them with patience--is quite sufficient to inspire a reasonable Platonic critic with genuine diffidence.

[Footnote 53: Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Parmen. ii. 1, pp. 244-265. Compare K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Phil. pp. 507-668-670.

To the works which he has there enumerated, may be added the Dissertation by Dr. Kuno Fischer, Stuttgart, 1851, De Parmenide Platonico, and that of Zeller, Platonische Studien, p. 169 seqq.

Kuno Fischer (pp. 102-103) after Hegel (Gesch. der Griech. Phil. I. p. 202), and some of the followers of Hegel, extol the Parmenides as a masterpiece of dialectics, though they complain that "der philosophirende Pöbel" misunderstand it, and treat it as obscure. Werder, Logik, pp. 92-176, Berlin, 1841. Carl Beck, Platon's Philosophie im Abriss ihrer genetischen Entwickelung, p. 75, Reutlingen, 1852. Marbach, Gesch. der Griech. Phil. sect. 96, pp. 210-211.]

[Side-note: No dogmatical solution or purpose is wrapped up in the dialogue. The purpose is negative, to make a theorist keenly feel all the difficulties of theorising.]

In so far as these different expositions profess, each in its own way, to detect a positive dogmatical result or purpose in the Parmenides,[54] none of them carry conviction to my mind, any more than the mystical interpretations which we read in Proklus. If Plato had any such purpose, he makes no intimation of it, directly or indirectly. On the contrary, he announces another purpose not only different, but contrary. The veteran Parmenides, while praising the ardour of speculative research displayed by Sokrates, at the same time reproves gently, but distinctly, the confident forwardness of two such immature youths as Sokrates and Aristotle in laying down positive doctrines without the preliminary exercise indispensable for testing them.[55] Parmenides appears from the beginning to the end of the dialogue as a propounder of doubts and objections, not as a doctrinal teacher. He seeks to restrain the haste of Sokrates--to make him ashamed of premature affirmation and the false persuasion of knowledge--to force upon him a keen sense of real difficulties which have escaped his notice. To this end, a specimen is given of the exercise required. It is certainly well calculated to produce the effect intended--of hampering, perplexing, and putting to shame, the affirmative rashness of a novice in philosophy. It exhibits a tangled skein of ingenious contradiction which the novice must somehow bring into order, before he is in condition to proclaim any positive dogma. If it answers this purpose, it does all that Parmenides promises. Sokrates is warned against attaching himself exclusively to one side of an hypothesis, and neglecting the opposite: against surrendering himself to some pre-conception, traditional, or self-originated, and familiarising his mind with its consequences, while no pains are taken to study the consequences of the negative side, and bring them into comparison. It is this one-sided mental activity, and premature finality of assertion, which Parmenides seeks to correct. Whether the corrective exercises which he prescribes are the best for the purpose, may be contested: but assuredly the malady which he seeks to correct is deeply rooted in our human nature, and is combated by Sokrates himself, though by other means, in several of the Platonic dialogues. It is a rare mental endowment to study both sides of a question, and suspend decision until the consequences of each are fully known.

[Footnote 54: I agree with Schleiermacher, in considering that the purpose of the Parmenides is nothing beyond [Greek: gumnasi/a], or exercise in the method and perplexities of philosophising (Einl. p. 83): but I do not agree with him, when he says (pp. 90-105) that the objections urged by Parmenides (in the middle of the dialogue) against the separate substantiality of Forms or Ideas, though noway answered in the dialogue itself, are sufficiently answered in other dialogues (which he considers later in time), especially in the Sophistes (though, according to Brandis, Handb. Gr.-Röm. Phil. p. 241, the Sophistes is earlier than the Parmenides). Zeller, on the other hand, denies that these objections are at all answered in the Sophistes; but he maintains that the second part of the Parmenides itself clears up the difficulties propounded in the first part. After an elaborate analysis (in the Platon. Studien, pp. 168-178) of the Antinomies or contradictory Demonstrations in the concluding part of the dialogue, Zeller affirms the purpose of them to be "die richtige Ansicht von den Ideen als der Einheit in dem Mannichfaltigen der Erscheinung dialektisch zu begründen, die Ideenlehre möglichen Einwürfen und Missverständnissen gegenüber dialektisch zu begründen" (pp. 180-182). This solution has found favour with some subsequent commentators. See Susemihl, Die genetische Entwickelung der Platon. Philosophie, pp. 341-353; Heinrich Stein, Vorgeschichte und System des Platonismus, pp. 217-220.

To me it appears (what Zeller himself remarks in p. 188, upon the discovery of Schleiermacher that the objections started in the Parmenides are answered in the Sophistes) that it requires all the acuteness of so able a writer as Zeller to detect any such result as that which he here extracts from the Parmenidean Antinomies--from what Aristeides calls (Or. xlvii. p. 430) "the One and Many, the multiplied twists and doublings, of this divine dialogue". I confess that I am unable to perceive therein what Zeller has either found or elicited. Objections and misunderstandings (Einwürfe und Missverständnisse), far from being obviated or corrected, are accumulated from the beginning to the end of these Antinomies, and are summed up in a formidable total by the final sentence of the dialogue. Moreover, none of these objections which Parmenides had advanced in the earlier part of the dialogue are at all noticed, much less answered, in the concluding Antinomies.

The general view taken by Zeller of the Platonic Parmenides, is repeated by him in his Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. pp. 394-415-429, ed. 2nd. In the first place, I do not think that he sets forth exactly (see p. 415) the reasoning as we read it in Plato; but even if that were exactly set forth, still what we read in Plato is nothing but an assemblage of difficulties and contradictions. These are indeed suggestive, and such as a profound critic may meditate with care, until he finds himself put upon a train of thought conducting him to conclusions sound and tenable in his judgment. But the explanations, sufficient or not, belong after all not to Plato but to the critic himself. Other critics may attach, and have attached, totally different explanations to the same difficulties. I see no adequate evidence to bring home any one of them to Plato; or to prove (what is the main point to be determined) that any one of them was present to his mind when he composed the dialogue.

Schwegler also gives an account of what he affirms to be the purpose and meaning of the Parmenides--"The positive meaning of the antinomies contained in it can only be obtained by inferences which Plato does not himself expressly enunciate, but leaves to the reader to draw" (Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss, sect. 14, 4 c. pp. 52-53, ed. 5).

A learned man like Schwegler, who both knows the views of other philosophers, and has himself reflected on philosophy, may perhaps find affirmative meaning in the Parmenides; just as Sokrates, in the Platonic Protagoras, finds his own ethical doctrine in the song of the poet Simonides. But I venture to say that no contemporary reader of Plato could have found such a meaning in the Parmenides; and that if Plato intended to communicate such a meaning, the whole structure of the dialogue would be only an elaborate puzzle calculated to prevent nearly all readers from reaching it.

By assigning the leadership of the dialogue to Parmenides (Schwegler says) Plato intends to signify that the Platonic doctrine of Ideas is coincident with the doctrine of Parmenides, and is only a farther development thereof. How can this be signified, when the discourse assigned to Parmenides consists of a string of objections against the doctrine of Ideas, concluding with an intimation that there are other objections, yet stronger, remaining behind?

The fundamental thought of the Parmenides (says Schwegler) is, that the One is not conceivable in complete abstraction from the Many, nor the Many in complete abstraction from the One,--that each reciprocally supposes and serves as condition to the other. Not so: for if we follow the argumentation of Parmenides (p. 131 E), we shall see that what he principally insists upon, is the entire impossibility of any connection or participation between the One and the Many--there is an impassable gulf between them.

Is the discussion of [Greek: to\ e(\n] (in the closing Antinomies) intended as an example of dialectic investigation--or is it _per se_ the special object of the dialogue? This last is clearly the truth (says Schwegler). "otherwise the dialogue would end without result, and its two portions would be without any internal connection". Not so; for if we read the dialogue, we find Parmenides clearly proclaiming and singling out [Greek: to\ e(\n] as only one among a great many different notions, each of which must be made the subject of a bilateral hypothesis, to be followed out into its consequences on both sides (p. 136 A). Moreover, I think that the "internal connection" between the first and the last half of the dialogue, consists in the application of this dialectic method, and in nothing else. If the dialogue ends without result, this is true of many other Platonic dialogues. The student is brought face to face with logical difficulties, and has to find out the solution for himself; or perhaps to find out that no solution can be obtained.]

[Footnote 55: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 C.]

[Side-note: This negative purpose is expressly announced by Plato himself. All dogmatical purpose, extending farther, is purely hypothetical, and even inconsistent with what is declared.]

Such, in my judgment, is the drift of the contradictory demonstrations here put into the mouth of Parmenides respecting Unum and Cætera. Thus far at least, we are perfectly safe: for we are conforming strictly to the language of Plato himself in the dialogue: we have no proof that he meant anything more. Those who presume that he must have had some ulterior dogmatical purpose, place themselves upon hypothetical ground: but when they go farther and attempt to set forth what this purpose was, they show their ingenuity only by bringing out what they themselves have dropped in. The number of discordant hypotheses attests[56] the difficulty of the problem. I agree with those early Platonic commentators (mentioned and opposed by Proklus) who could see no other purpose in these demonstrations than that of dialectical exercise. In this view Schleiermacher, Ast, Strümpell, and others mainly concur: the two former however annexing to it a farther hypothesis--which I think improbable--that the dialogue has come to us incomplete; having once contained at the end (or having been originally destined to contain, though the intention may never have been realised) an appendix elucidating the perplexities of the demonstrations.[57] This would have been inconsistent with the purpose declared by Parmenides: who, far from desiring to facilitate the onward march of Sokrates by clearing up difficulties, admonishes him that he is advancing too rapidly, and seeks to keep him back by giving him a heap of manifest contradictions to disentangle. Plato conceives the training for philosophy or for the highest exercise of intellectual force, to be not less laborious than that which was required for the bodily perfections of an Olympic athlete. The student must not be helped out of difficulties at once: he must work his own way slowly out of them.

[Footnote 56: Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. I. pp. 482-485, ed. Stallb.; compare pp. 497-498-788-791, where Proklus is himself copious upon the subject of exercise in dialectic method.

Stallbaum, after reciting many different hypothetical interpretations from those interpreters who had preceded him, says (Prolegg. p. 265), "En lustravimus tandem varias interpretum de hoc libro opiniones. Quid igitur? verusne fui, quum suprà dicerem, tantam fuisse hominum eruditorum in eo explicando fluctuationem atque dissensionem, ut quamvis plurimi de eo disputaverint, tamen ferè alius aliter judicaverit? Nimirum his omnibus cognitis, facilè alicui in mentem veniat Terentianum illud--_Fecisti propé, multo sim quam dudum incertior_."

Brandis (Handbuch Gr.-Röm. Phil. s. 105, pp. 257-258) cannot bring himself to believe that dialectical exercise was the only purpose with which Plato composed the Parmenides. He then proceeds to state what Plato's ulterior purpose was, but in such very vague language, that I hardly understand what he means, much less can I find it in the Antinomies themselves. He has some clearer language, p. 241, where he treats these Antinomies as preparatory [Greek: a)pori/ai].]

[Footnote 57: Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp. 239-244; Schleiermacher, Einleit. zum Parmen. pp. 94-99; Strümpell, Geschichte der Theoretischen Philosophie der Griechen, sect. 96, pp. 128-129.

I do not agree with Socher's conclusion, that the Parmenides is not a Platonic composition. But I think he is quite right in saying that the dialogue as it now stands performs all that Parmenides promises, and leaves no ground for contending that it is an unfinished fragment (Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, p. 286), so far as philosophical speculation is concerned. The dialogue as a dramatic or literary composition undoubtedly lacks a proper close; it is [Greek: a)/pous] or [Greek: kolobo\s] (Aristot. Rhetor. iii. 8), sinning against the strict exigence which Plato in the Phædrus applies to the discourse of Lysias.]

[Side-note: The Demonstrations or Antinomies considered. They include much unwarranted assumption and subtlety. Collection of unexplained perplexities or [Greek: a)pori/ai].]

That the demonstrations include assumption both unwarranted and contradictory, mingled with sophistical subtlety (in the modern sense of the words), is admitted by most of the commentators: and I think that the real amount of it is greater than they admit. How far Plato was himself aware of this, I will not undertake to say. Perhaps he was not. The reasonings which have passed for sublime and profound in the estimation of so many readers, may well have appeared the same to their author. I have already remarked that Plato's ratiocinative force is much greater on the negative side than on the positive: more ingenious in suggesting logical difficulties than sagacious in solving them. Impressed, as Sokrates had been before him, with the duty of combating the false persuasion of knowledge, or premature and untested belief,--he undertook to set forth the pleadings of negation in the most forcible manner. Many of his dialogues manifest this tendency, but the Parmenides more than any other. That dialogue is a collection of unexplained [Greek: a)pori/ai] (such as those enumerated in the second book of Aristotle's Metaphysica) brought against a doctrine which yet Plato declares to be the indispensable condition of all reasoning. It concludes with a string of demonstrations by which contradictory conclusions (Both and Neither) are successively proved, and which appear like a _reductio ad absurdum_ of all demonstration. But at the time when Plato composed the dialogue, I think it not improbable that these difficulties and contradictions appeared even to himself unanswerable: in other words, that he did not himself see any answers and explanations of them. He had tied a knot so complicated, that he could not himself untie it. I speak of the state of Plato's mind when he wrote the Parmenides. At the dates of other dialogues (whether earlier or later), he wrote under different points of view; but no key to the Parmenides does he ever furnish.

[Side-note: Even if Plato himself saw through these subtleties, he might still choose to impose and to heap up difficulties in the way of a forward affirmative aspirant.]

If however we suppose that Plato must have had the key present to his own mind, he might still think it right to employ, in such a dialogue, reasonings recognised by himself as defective. It is the task imposed upon Sokrates to find out and expose these defective links. There is no better way of illustrating how universal is the malady of human intelligence--unexamined belief and over-confident affirmation--as it stands proclaimed to be in the Platonic Apology. Sokrates is exhibited in the Parmenides as placed under the screw of the Elenchus, and no more able than others to extricate himself from it, when it is applied by Parmenides: though he bears up successfully against Zeno, and attracts to himself respectful compliments, even from the aged dialectician who tests him. After the Elenchus applied to himself, Sokrates receives a farther lesson from the "Neither and Both" demonstrations addressed by Parmenides to the still younger Aristotle. Sokrates will thus be driven, with his indefatigable ardour for speculative research, to work at the problem--to devote to it those seasons of concentrated meditation, which sometimes exhibited him fixed for hours in the same place and almost in the same attitude[58]--until he can extricate himself from such difficulties and contradictions. But that he shall not extricate himself without arduous mental effort, is the express intention of Parmenides: just as the Xenophontic Sokrates proceeds with the youthful Euthydemus and the Platonic Sokrates with Lysis, Theætetus, and others. Plausible subtlety was not unsuitable for such a lesson.[59] Moreover, in the Parmenides, Plato proclaims explicitly that the essential condition of the lesson is to be strictly private: that a process so roundabout and tortuous cannot be appreciated by ordinary persons, and would be unseemly before an audience.[60] He selects as respondent the youngest person in the company, one still younger than Sokrates: because (he says) such a person will reply with artless simplicity, to each question as the question may strike him--not carrying his mind forward to the ulterior questions for which his reply may furnish the handle--not afraid of being entangled in puzzling inconsistencies--not solicitous to baffle the purpose of the interrogator.[61] All this betokens the plan of the dialogue--to bring to light all those difficulties which do not present themselves except to a keen-sighted enquirer.

[Footnote 58: Plato, Symposion, p. 220 C-D: compare pp. 174-175.

In the dialogue Parmenides (p. 130 E), Parmenides himself is introduced as predicting that the youthful Sokrates will become more and more absorbed in philosophy as he advances in years.

Proklus observes in his commentary on the dialogue--[Greek: o( ga\r Sôkra/tês a)/gatai ta\s a)pori/as], &c. (L. v. p. 252).]

[Footnote 59: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, ad fin.]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 136 C, 137 A. Hobbes remarks (Computatio sive Logica, Part I, ch. iii. s. 12), "Learners ought to go through logical exercises silently and by themselves: for it will be thought both ridiculous and absurd, for a man to use such language publicly".

Proklus tells us, that the difficulty of the [Greek: gumnasi/a] here enjoined by the Platonic Parmenides is so prodigious, that no one after Plato employed it (Prokl. ad Parmenid. p. 306, p. 801, Stallb.).

[Greek: ei) me\n ou)=n plei/ous ê)=men, ou)k a)\n a)/xion ê)=n dei=sthai. a)prepê= ga\r ta\ toiau=ta pollô=n e)nanti/on le/gein, a)/llôs te kai\ têlikou/tô|; a)gnoou=si ga\r oi( polloi\ o(/ti a)neu tau/tês tê=s dia\ pa/ntôn diexo/dou kai\ pla/nês a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta tô=| a)lêthei= nou=n schei=n.]]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Parmenides, p. 137 B; compare Sophistes, p. 217 D.

To understand the force of this remark of Parmenides, we should contrast it with the precepts given by Aristotle in the Topica for dialectic debate: precepts teaching the questioner how to puzzle, and the respondent how to avoid being puzzled. Such precautions are advised to the respondent by Aristotle, not merely in the Topica but also in the Analytica--[Greek: chrê\ d' o(/per phula/ttesthai paragge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\s e)picheirou=ntas peira=sthai lantha/nein] (Anal. Priora, ii. p. 66, a. 33).]

[Side-note: The exercises exhibited by Parmenides are exhibited only as illustrative specimens of a method enjoined to be applied to many other Antinomies.]

We must remark farther, that the two hypotheses here handled at length by Parmenides are presented by him only as examples of a dialectical process which he enjoins the lover of truth to apply equally to many other hypotheses.[62] As he shows that in the case of Unum, each of the two assumptions (Unum est--Unum non est) can be traced through different threads of deductive reasoning so as to bring out double and contradictory results--Both and Neither: so also in the case of those other assumptions which remain to be tested afterwards in like manner, antinomies of the same character may be expected: antinomies apparent at least, if not real--which must be formally propounded and dealt with, before we can trust ourselves as having attained reasoned truth. Hence we see that, negative and puzzling as the dialogue called Parmenides is, even now--it would be far more puzzling if all that it prescribes in general terms had been executed in detail. While it holds out, in the face of an aspirant in philosophy, the necessity of giving equal presumptive value to the affirmative and negative sides of each hypothesis, and deducing with equal care, the consequences of both--it warns him at the same time of the contradictions in which he will thereby become involved. These contradictions are presented in the most glaring manner: but we must recollect a striking passage in the Republic, where Plato declares that to confront the aspirant with manifest contradictions, is the best way of provoking him to intellectual effort in the higher regions of speculation.[63]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B.]

[Footnote 63: Plato, Repub. vii. p. 524 E, and indeed the whole passage, pp. 523-524.]

[Side-note: These Platonic Antinomies are more formidable than any of the sophisms or subtleties broached by the Megaric philosophers.]

I have already had occasion, when I touched upon the other _viri Socratici_, contemporaneous with or subsequent to Plato, to give some account of the Zenonian and Megaric dialecticians, and of their sophisms or logical puzzles, which attracted so much attention from speculative men, in the fourth and third centuries B.C. These Megarics, like the Sophists, generally receive very harsh epithets from the historian of philosophy. They took the negative side, impugned affirmative dogmas, insisted on doubts and difficulties, and started problems troublesome to solve. I have tried to show, that such disputants, far from deserving all the censure which has been poured upon them, presented one indispensable condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory.[64] Their sophisms were challenges to the logician, indicating various forms of error and confusion, against which a theory of reasoning, in order to be sufficient, was required to guard. And the demonstrations given by Plato in the latter half of the Parmenides are challenges of the same kind: only more ingenious, elaborate, and effective, than any of those (so far as we know them) proposed by the Megarics--by Zeno, or Eukleides, or Diodorus Kronus. The Platonic Parmenides here shows, that in regard to a particular question, those who believe the affirmative, those who believe the negative, and those who believe neither--can all furnish good reasons for their respective conclusions. In each case he gives the proof confidently as being good: and whether unimpeachable or not, it is certainly very ingenious and subtle. Such demonstrations are in the spirit of Sextus Empiricus, who rests his theory of scepticism upon the general fact, that there are opposite and contradictory conclusions, both of them supported by evidence equally good: the affirmative no more worthy of belief than the negative.[65] Zeno (or, as Plato calls him, the Eleatic Palamêdes[66]) did not profess any systematic theory of scepticism; but he could prove by ingenious and varied dialectic, both the thesis and the antithesis on several points of philosophy, by reasons which few, if any, among his hearers could answer. In like manner the Platonic Parmenides enunciates his contradictory demonstrations as real logical problems, which must exercise the sagacity and hold back the forward impulse of an eager philosophical aspirant. Even if this dilemma respecting Unum Est and Unum non Est, be solved, Parmenides intimates that he has others in reserve: so that either no tenable positive result will ever be attained--or at least it will not be attained until after such an amount of sagacity and patient exercise as Sokrates himself declares to be hardly practicable.[67] Herein we may see the germ and premisses of that theory which was afterwards formally proclaimed by Ænesidemus and the professed Sceptics: the same holding back ([Greek: e)pochê\]), and protest against precipitation in dogmatising,[68] which these latter converted into a formula and vindicated as a system.

[Footnote 64: Among the commentators on the Categories of Aristotle, there were several whose principal object it was to propound all the most grave and troublesome difficulties which they could think of. Simplikius does not commend the style of these men, but he expresses his gratitude to them for the pains which they had taken in the exposition of the negative case, and for the stimulus and opportunity which they had thus administered to the work of affirmative exposition (Simplikius, Schol. ad Categ. Aristot. p. 40, a. 22-30; Schol. Brandis). David the Armenian, in his Scholia on the Categories (p. 27, b. 41, Brandis), defends the Topica of Aristotle as having been composed [Greek: gumnasi/as cha/rin, i(/na thlibome/nê ê( psuchê\ e)k tô=n e)ph' e(ka/tera e)picheirêma/tôn a)pogennê/sê| to\ tê=s a)lêthei/as phô=s.]]

[Footnote 65: Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 8-12. [Greek: E)/sti de\ ê( skeptikê\ du/namis a)ntithetikê\ phainome/nôn te kai\ nooume/nôn kath' oi(ondê/pote tro/pon, a)ph' ê(=s e)rcho/metha, dia\ tê\n e)n toi=s a)ntikeime/nois pra/gmasi kai\ lo/gois i)sosthe/neian, to\ me\n prô=ton ei)s e)pochê\n to\ de\ meta\ tou=to ei)s a)taraxi/an . . . _i)sosthe/neian_ de\ le/gomen tê\n kata\ pi/stin kai\ a)pisti/an i)so/têta, ô(s mêde/na mêdeno\s prokei=sthai tô=n machome/nôn lo/gôn ô(s pisto/teron . . . susta/seôs de\ tê=s skeptikê=s e)stin a)rchê\ ma/lista _to\ panti\ lo/gô| lo/gon i)/son a)ntikei=sthai_.]]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Phædrus, p. 261 D.]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 C-D.]

[Footnote 68: Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 20-212. [Greek: tê\n tô=n dogmatikô=n prope/teian--tê\n dogmatikê\n prope/teian.]]

[Side-note: In order to understand fully the Platonic Antinomies, we ought to have before us the problems of the Megarics and others. Uselessness of searching for a positive result.]

Schleiermacher has justly observed,[69] that in order to understand properly the dialectic manoeuvres of the Parmenides, we ought to have had before us the works of that philosopher himself, of Zeno, Melissus, Gorgias, and other sceptical reasoners of the age immediately preceding--which have unfortunately perished. Some reference to these must probably have been present to Plato in the composition of this dialogue.[70] At the same time, if we accept the dialogue as being (what it declares itself to be) a string of objections and dialectical problems, we shall take care not to look for any other sort of merit than what such a composition requires and admits. If the objections are forcible, the problems ingenious and perplexing, the purpose of the author is satisfied. To search in the dialogue for some positive result, not indeed directly enunciated but discoverable by groping and diving--would be to expect a species of fruit inconsistent with the nature of the tree. [Greek: Zêtô=n eu(rê/seis ou) r(o/don a)lla\ ba/ton.]

[Footnote 69: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Parmen. pp. 97-99.]

[Footnote 70: Indeed, the second demonstration, among the nine given by Parmenides (pp. 143 A, 155 C), coincides to a great degree with the conclusion which Zeno is represented as having maintained in his published dissertation (p. 127 E); and shows that the difficulties and contradictions belong to the world of invisible Ideas, as well as to that of sensible particulars, which Sokrates had called in question (p. 129 C-E).

The Aristotelian treatise (whether by Aristotle, Theophrastus, or any other author) De Zenone, Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgiâ--affords some curious comparisons with the Parmenides of Plato. Aristotel. p. 974 seq. Bekk.; also Fragmenta Philosophorum Græcorum, ed. Didot, pp. 278-309.]

[Side-note: Assumptions of Parmenides in his Demonstrations convey the minimum of determinate meaning. Views of Aristotle upon these indeterminate predicates, Ens, Unum, &c.]