Forms as thoughts
In Parm. 132a1-5
Socrates agreed that because he saw that many things shared one and the same
character, he thought they did so by virtue of participating in one Form.
Parmenides then showed him that on this way of thinking he would have to
acknowledge that the Form and all the individual things sharing in it would do
so by virtue of jointly sharing in the same character, which would necessitate
postulating another Form, and thus ad infinitum 132a5-b2. (See my previous
post)
Next, Socrates attempted to parry Parmenides’ argument by thinking
the Forms to be nothing but thoughts. Socrates: ‘But may not each of the Forms
(Alla mê
tȏn eidȏn
hekaston) be just a thought of these things (êi
toutȏn noêma),
to which it would appertain to be nowhere else (kai oudamou autȏi prosêkêi
engignestai allothi) than in souls (ê en
psuchais). For in this way each would be one (houtȏ gar an hen hekaston eiê) and would no more suffer (kai ouk an eti paschoi) what was said
just now (ha nundê
elegeto).’ Parmenides: ‘What then (Ti
oun)? Is each thought one (hen
hekaston esti tȏn
noêmatȏn),
but thought of nothing (noêma de oudenos, ‘but thought of not
even one [thing]’)? Socrates: ‘But that’s impossible (All adunaton).’ Parmenides: ‘But a thought of something (Alla tinos)?’ Socrates: ‘Yes (Nai).’ Parmenides: ‘Of something that is,
or of something that is not (Ontos ê ouk ontos)? Socrates: ‘Of something
that is (Ontos).’ Parmenides: ‘Is it
not of something that is one (Ouch henos
tinos), which that thought thinks to be on all (ho epi pasin ekeino to noêma
epon noei), to wit a Form which is one (mian
tina ousan idean)?’ Socrates: ‘Yes (Nai).’
Won’t this then be a Form (Eita ouk eidos
estai touto), to wit this which
is thought to be one (to nooumenon hen
einai), always being the same on all (aei
on to auto epi pasin)? Socrates: ‘Necessarily, again, it appears so (Anankê
au phainetai).’ Parmenides: ‘What then (Ti
de dê)? Is it not so by the necessity
that compelled you to say that things participate in the Forms (ouk anangkêi
hêi t’alla phêis tȏn
eidȏn metechein), or does it
seem to you that each thing is composed of thoughts (ê
dokei soi ek noêmatȏn hekaston einai) and that all
think (kai panta noein), or being
thoughts (ê noêmata
onta) they are unthinking (anoêta einai)?’ Socrates: ‘But this
does not make sense either (All’ oude
touto echei logon).’ (132b3-c11)
On my translation Parmenides suggests three possibilities of
taking Socrates’ suggestion that the Forms are just thoughts: 1) Socrates’
suggestion that the Forms are nothing but thoughts leads to his original conception
of Forms – ‘Is it not so by the necessity that compelled you to say that
things participate in the Forms?’ (132c9-10) – which implies the infinite
regress (dubbed by Aristotle as ‘the third man argument), as shown at 132a1-b2;
2) ‘or each thing is composed of thoughts and all things think’, 3) ‘or being
thoughts, things are unthinking’.
On Cornford’s and Allen’s translations Parmenides offers
only two possibilities of how to take Socrates’ suggestion, that is the last
two in my translation, and even more seriously, their translation suggests that
Socrates’ original conception of the Forms led to one of those two
possibilities. On the margin of my copy of the Parmenides I noted Cornford’s translation of 132c9-11: ‘And
besides, said Parmenides, according to the way in which you assert that the
other things have a share in the Forms, must you not hold either that each of
those things consists of thoughts so that all things think, or else that they
are thoughts which nevertheless do not think?’
Allen translates: ‘Really? Then what about this, said
Parmenides: in virtue of the necessity by which you say that the others have a
share of characters, doesn’t it seem to you that either each is composed of thoughts
and all think, or that being thoughts they are un-thought?’
***
Cornford and Allen in their translations misrepresent this
argument. To make this clear, I must take recourse to the un-transcribed
original. In the brief exchange at 132b7-c2 Parmenides compels
Socrates to admit that every single thought (e4n
e3kaston tw~n nohma/twn) is a thought of something (tinoj), of something that is (o!ntoj). Then he
asks whether it is not a thought of something that is one, which that thought
thinks as being on all those things, a single character: Ou0x e9no/j tinoj, o4 e0pi\ pa=sin e0kei=no to\ no/hma e0po\n
noei=, mi/an tina\ ou]san i0de/an; When Socrates agrees (Nai/), Parmenides presses the point, asking whether this single
character (mi/a tij i0de/a) won’t be a Form, always one and the
same on all: Ei]ta ou0k ei]doj e1stai tou=to to\ noou/menon
e4n ei]nai, a0ei\ o2n to\ au0to\ e0pi\ pa=sin; When Socrates answers that it must
necessarily be so ( 0Ana/gkh au] fai/netai),
Parmenides asks him whether it is not the same necessity that made him say that
things that bear the same character participate in the Forms (if so, the
infinite regress obviously applies), and then he puts in the other two
possibilities: Ti/ de\ dh/; ei0pei=n to\n
Parmeni/dhn, ou0k a0na/gkh| h|{ ta}lla fh\|j tw~n ei0dw~n mete/xein h2 dokei=
soi e0k nohma/twn e3kaston ei]nai kai\ pa/nta noei=n, h2 noh/mata o1nta
a0no/hta e]nai; Socrates admits that none of this makes any sense: 0All’ ou0de\
tou=to e1xei lo/gon.
***
It appears that Aristotle had the Parmenides in front of his eyes when he wrote in the 1st
book of Metaphysics: ‘According to
the assumption on which our belief in the Ideas rests (kata men tên
hupolêpsin kath’ hên einai phamen tas ideas), there
will be Forms not only of substances (ou
monon tȏn ousiȏn
estai eidê) but also of many other
things (alla pollȏn
kai heterȏn) for the thought is one
(kai gar to noêma
hen) not only in the case of substances (ou monon peri tas ousias) but also in the other cases (alla kai kata tȏn
allȏn esti).’ (990b22-27, tr.
W. D. Ross, with one exception; Ross translates Aristotle‘s to noêma
hen ‘the concept is single’, which obscures the relation between
Aristotle’s passage and Plato’s argument in the Parmenides).
In connection with Parmenides
132b3-c11, R. E. Allen in his ‘Comment’
refers to Aristotle’s De anima III
429a21-31 (R. E. Allen, Plato’s Parmenides,
Yale University Press, 1997, p. 176). The following passage in Aristotle’s De anima is relevant: ‘And those spoke
well who said that the soul is the place of Forms (kai eu dê hoi legontes psuchên einai topon eidȏn), except, neither the whole soul (plên hoti oute holê), only the intellective soul (all hê noêtikê), nor of the Forms in
actuality, only in potentiality (oute
entelecheiai alla dunamei ta eidê).’ (429a27-29)
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