I ended ‘Plato’s Parmenides
and Parmenides’ poem’ (posted three days ago, on March 21) with the words:
‘Parmenides’ discussion of all the antinomies that he derives from the
hypothesis ‘if the one is and if the one is not’ should be viewed in the light
of what Aristotle says in the Metaphysics
concerning the Pythagoreans who ‘extend their vision to all things that exist,
and of the existing things suppose some to be perceptible and others not
perceptible’ (989b24-26); they got their principles from non-sensible things’
(989b31, tr. Ross). The ancients viewed Parmenides as an associate of the
Pythagoreans (Fr. A4, A12, A40a, A44). If Parmenides were to uphold his thesis
that All is one, he had to do so face to face with the Pythagorean doctrines;
Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise in Plato’s Parmenides shows us the way he (and Zeno) did it in the Eleatic
school.’
After posting it, I resumed my reading of Parmenides’
propaedeutic exercise in the Parmenides. At 157b6 Parmenides begins to examine
‘what qualifications would beseem the others if the one is’ (ti de tois allois prosȇkoi an paschein, hen
ei estin). Within the framework of that investigation, he says at 158d3-6:
‘To the others than the one (Tois allois
dȇ tou henos) it then happens (sumbainei)
that from their communion with the one (ek
men tou henos kai ex heautȏn koinȏnȇsantȏn), as it seems (hȏs eoiken), something different comes
to be in them (heteron ti gignesthai en heautois),
which provides them with a limit relative to each other (ho dȇ peras paresche pros allȇla); their own nature in themselves
provides unlimitedness (hȇ d’ heautȏn
phusis kath’ heauta apeirian).
Concerning this sentence, I jotted on the margin of my
Burnet’s Oxford edition of Plato (more than thirty years ago, reading Cornford
in Bodleian Library at Oxford) Aristotle’s Physics
203a10-12, which in Cornford’s view ‘seems to echo’ it: ‘The Pythagoreans (kai hoi men [hoi Puthagoreioi]) identify the infinite with the even (to apeiron einai to artion). For this (touto gar), when it is cut off and enclosed
(enapolambanomenon) and limited by
the odd (kai hupo tou perittou
perainomenon), provides things with infinity (parechein tois ousi tȇn apeirian).’
***
In the essay
I have been writing on ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides’ I wrote:
“Socrates attempts
to escape the infinite multiplication of Forms by viewing the Forms simply as
thoughts. The ensuing passage in which this attempt is discussed appears to
have been long misunderstood; I therefore put the whole passage, 132b3-c12, in
R. E. Allen’s translation:
‘But
Parmenides, said Socrates, may it not be that each of the characters is a
thought of these things, and it pertains to it to come to be nowhere else
except in souls or minds? For in that way, each would be one, and no longer still
undergo what was just now said? – Parmenides: ‘Well, is each thought one, but a
thought of nothing?’ – Socrates: ‘No, that’s impossible.’ – Parmenides: ‘A
thought of something, then?’ – Socrates: ‘Yes.’ – Parmenides: ‘Of something
that is, or is not?’ – ‘Of something that is.’ – Parmenides: ‘Is it not of some
one thing which that thought thinks as being over all, as some one
characteristic?’ – Socrates: ‘Yes.’ – Parmenides: ‘Then that which is thought
to be one will be a character, ever the same over all?’ – Socrates: ‘Again, it
appears it must.’ – Parmenides: ‘Really? Then what about this: 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? – Socrates: ‘But that is hardly
reasonable.’
At this
point an attentive reader must wonder on what basis could Parmenides view
Socrates as saying ‘that in virtue of the necessity by which the others have a
share of characters, each is composed of thoughts and all think, or that being
thoughts they are un-thought’. In fact, Parmenides says something very
different; Allen, Cornford, Jowett, Novotný, the Czech translator, and presumably
all other translators back to Schleiermacher misplaced the necessity of which
Socrates speaks and to which Parmenides refers. (See three entries on my blog:
on September 26 I became aware that Allen and Cornford share the same
misrepresentation of Plato’s text (I copied Cornford’s translation on the
margin of my copy of Burnet’s Oxford edition of Plato and marked it as wrong).
In the evening of the same day it occurred to me to go back to Jowett; I found
the same misrepresentation (see my second entry of September 26). Two days
later it occurred to me that Jowett must have consulted the passage with
Schleiermacher. And indeed, I found the same mistake in Schleiermacher; see my
blog of September 28.)
So let me give my translation of the passage as it can
be found on my blog posted on September 26, 2015: ‘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).’ – Parmenides: ‘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 (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)
As can be
seen, Socrates explicitly qualified as necessary Parmenides’ suggestion implied
in his question ‘Won’t this then be a Form, to wit this which is thought to be
one, always being the same on all?’ His ‘again’ (au) makes it clear that with the ‘Yes’, with which he answered
Parmenides’ previous question, he expressed necessity as well. The first suggestion
thus qualified by Socrates as necessary is expressed in Parmenides’ words ‘Is
it not of something that is one, which that thought thinks to be on all, to wit
a Form which is one?’ It is this necessity twice expressed by Socrates to which
Parmenides refers when he asks: ‘Is it not so by the necessity that compelled
you to say that things participate in the Forms?’ If so, Socrates’ idea of the
Forms being thoughts leads him back to the Forms embroiled in the problems of
participation, which he tried to escape. But Parmenides is well aware that
Socrates might still maintain that the Forms are just thought, but in that case
he would have to choose between two possibilities: ‘or does it seem to you that
each thing is composed of thoughts and that all think, or being thoughts they
are unthinking?’ These two possibilities Parmenides does not qualify as
necessary, and Socrates discards them as making no sense.”
***
On the
margin of my Plato I jotted Cornford’s remark on this passage: ‘Plato’s
Parmenides repudiates the doctrine which some critics ascribe to the real
Parmenides that “to think is the same as to be”: to gar auto noein estin te kai einai.’ If the critics Cornford
repudiates mean ‘human’, ‘subjective’ thinking, then he is right. But I don’t
presume that on account of Plato’s Parmenides he wants to reject the fragment 3
of Parmenides’ poem. In the light of Plato’s Parmenides, fr. 3 must mean that being of ‘All, which is one’ is thinking. Let me give the fragment within the framework in which it
is found, in Plotinus: ‘Parmenides brought being and thinking into one (Parmenidȇs … eis t’auto sunȇgen on kai noun)
and he did not put being in the objects of senses (kai to on ouk en tois aisthȇtois etitheto) saying (legȏn) “to think
is the same as to be” (to gar auto noein
estin te kai einai). And he says that it is motionless (kai akinȇton de legei auto) – although
he attributes to it thinking (kaitoi
prostitheis to noein) – excluding from it all bodily movement (sȏmatikȇn pasan kinȇsin exairȏn ap’ autou),
so that it remains always the same (hina
menȇi hȏsautȏs). Plotin. Enn. V
1, 8.
Having
decided to read Parmenides’ poem as a background to my reading of Parmenides’
propaedeutic exercise in the Parmenides,
I enjoyed reading and understanding the latter as a representation of
Parmenides’ “to think is the same as to be”.
***
In the essay
on ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides’ which I am writing (and in all entries on my blog devoted to this theme) I have been
arguing that the historicity of Parmenides’ encounter with Socrates is
essential for Plato’s defence of the Forms in the dialogue. The question is,
whether and in what way Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise fits Plato’s
strategy. For it completely destroys Socrates’ Forms, in so far as Socrates
introduced them free from contradictory qualifications and thus as a challenge
to Parmenides’ “All is one”, and so it might be seen as counterproductive. But
as I have argued, Plato neatly differentiates between the historical Parmenides
and the prophetic Parmenides who steps out of his historical persona and turns
his eyes into the future, envisaging the coming of a man who will discover the
Forms immune to the difficulties that Socrates could not answer. It is the
historical Parmenides who gets engaged in the propaedeutic exercise, Parmenides
looking into the time when he was younger, drawing on his past philosophic
activities.
Since
Parmenides attributes true being to the one which is uncreated (agenȇton) and indestructible (anȏlethron), complete (oulomeles) and without end (ateleston), which never was (oude pot’ ȇn) nor will be (oud estai), for it is all now, in the
present (epei nun estin homou pan,
fr. 8, 5), immovable (akinȇton),
without beginning (anarchon) and
without end (apauston), since coming
into being (epei genesis) and passing
away (kai olethros) have been cast
away by true belief (apȏse de pistis
alȇthȇs, fr. 8, 26-28), his propaedeutic exercise challenges Plato’s Forms.
But with this challenge Plato cannot deal within the framework of the Parmenides; he cannot present Parmenides
refuting Parmenides. To deal with that challenge he dons the garment of the
Eleatic Stranger in the Sophist to commit
what the Stranger fears to be a parricide, so as ‘to establish by main force
that what is not, in some respect has being, and conversely that what is, in a
way is not’ (241d5-7), for only on that basis can Plato secure plurality both
on the level of appearances in which falsity thrives, the domain of the sophist,
characterized by darkness, and on the level of true being, which is full of
light, the level that only a true philosopher can reach (253b-254b).
And yet,
viewed in the context of Socrates’ life, Parmenides’ exercise represents a
powerful, though indirect affirmation of Plato’s Forms. For Parmenides with his
exercise left Socrates in a situation in which he could not return to his own Forms as
ontologically sound, yet could not reject them, for his eyes were fixed on them
in all his discussions on how to live the best life; Parmenides left him in a
situation of philosophic not-knowing in which we find him at his trial in the Apology.
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