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Homonymy and Likeness in Plato’s Parmenides   It is generally agreed that in the Parmenides Plato tackled several theoretical difficulties entailed in the theory of transcendent Forms, proposed in the Phaedo, Symposium, and the Republic. Parmenides examines a series of difficulties concerning “participation” (methexis) in the first part, which have been extensively discussed by modern scholars, in particular with the Third Man Argument (TMA) in focus. But I suggest that the issue of “likeness” (homoion) is no less important. In this paper, I examine how Plato discussed “likeness” in this dialogue and sorted out the problem, so that the Form of Likeness (proposed by Socrates in this dialogue) no longer appeared in the later dialogues, e.g. the Sophist. I will discuss the issue in four stages. In the first stage, we shall look at the backgrounds of the problem. In the theory of transcendent Forms, the relation between Forms and [...]

Forms and Images in Plato’s Parmenides, Sophist and Politeia   In the Parmenides, the great philosopher from Elea, Parmenides, thoroughly examines the Theory of Forms that Plato has already presented in different ways in other dialogues. In this paper, I peer into the paradigm-based Theory of Forms in order to illuminate the problematics concerning forms and images in Plato’s philosophy. In this theory, the young Socrates proposes to understand the forms as follows: ‘the forms (εἴδη) stand fixed like models (παραδείγματα) in nature, and the others resemble them (τούτοις ἐοικέναι) and are their likenesses (ὁμοιώματα)’ (132c-d). I call this argument the ‘model-image-argument’ (MIA). According to the MIA, the relationship between the forms and the other things corresponds to that of a model and its ‘images’ (εἰκασθῆναι) (132d). Parmenides, however, turns down this argument on the grounds that, if one follows the MIA, the following difficulty emerges: ‘beside the form, another [...]

Sulla ὁμοιότης nel linguaggio e nell’essere a partire da Proclo, interprete del Parmenide di Platone   Il paper si concentrerà su un’idea ben precisa del Parmenide, quella attraverso la quale l’Eleate, fin dalla prima parte (130e4-131a1) e poi nella sua gymnasia (147d1-e3), stipula un legame, un nesso ermeneutico tra essere e linguaggio. La domanda iniziale è questa: perché proprio il linguaggio? Perché Platone, per bocca di Parmenide, per comprendere la relazione tra l’uno e i molti, deve utilizzare proprio il confronto con i nomi? A mio parere Proclo ci aiuta nel trovare una possibile risposta a tale questione. Negli Elementi di teologia (65, 1-2), il filosofo licio dichiara che le cose possono esistere in tre modi: nella loro stessa essenza (καθ᾽ὕπαρξιν), oppure in quanto contenute nella loro causa sotto forma di principio (κατ᾽ αἰτίαν), oppure ancora in quanto partecipate dalla loro causa sotto forma di immagine (κατὰ μέθεξιν εἰκονικῶς). L’essere [...]

Parmenides’ Angels in vith c. Syria At the beginning of the sixth century CE, in the province of Syria-Palestine of the Eastern Roman Empire, one can trace in the Greek sources an ongoing debate on the nature, number and function of Angels. The chief representatives of such considerations are John of Gaza, author of a 732 verses poem entitled The Description of the Cosmic Picture (ἔκφρασις τοῦ κοσμικοῦ πίνακος), and the pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. Among some fifty allegorical figures representing the cosmos, the first describes the depiction of seven Angels whose role is to contain Nature’s overwhelming power. Although such a number corresponds to the Biblical tradition, the status of John’s Angels appears to have more to do with the Neoplatonic tradition. As for Dionysius, the interaction with Proclus’ system is at the heart of the making of his angelic hierarchy. The fact that both authors refer in a [...]

La peculiare solennità dell’isagoge procliana al Parmenide di Platone   Prima di ogni inizio i Neoplatonici sono soliti discutere, attraverso notazioni di metodo, la natura dei dialoghi platonici: ciò accade in scritti propriamente isagogici, ma ciò accade talvolta anche prima dell’inizio del commento di un dialogo (Procl. in Parm. I 618,21 Luna-Segonds=I 618,15 Steel), come mostra la struttura di quei commenti procliani pervenutici assieme alla loro sezione isagogica. Questo metodo, ereditato dalla tradizione medioplatonica, sembra infatti essere stato perfezionato all’interno della scuola di Atene proprio da Proclo, il quale discute preliminarmente l’utilità e l’imprescindibilità delle indicazioni esegetiche. Tali indicazioni nella premessa del Commento al Parmenide sono racchiuse in una eccezionale e solenne cornice. Ciò è oltremodo significativo, perché è come se, nella premessa e prima ancora di essere esplicitato, il contenuto del dialogo fosse presentato da Proclo in una immagine che è la massima espressione della poesia dei teologi e [...]

Reading with the Mind’s I: The Role of Selfhood in Proclus’ Reading of the First Deduction of the Parmenides. Plato famously starts the dialectical exercise of the second half of the Parmenides with an apparently aporetic argument starting from the premise “the One is” and coming to the conclusion that “the One neither is nor is one” and that there is “neither name, nor account, nor scientific understanding, nor perception, nor opinion” of it (Parm. 137c–142a).  Proclus in his Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides famously reads this argument as the fulfillment of Plato’s proposed dialectical move from a hypothesis (namely, “the One is”) to “the unhypothetical starting point” (vis, the One), from which all sciences should then receive their grounding (Resp. VI 510b). In this he is following his predecessor Plotinus, who already took the first deduction as an account of the One, among other things precisely because it denies being [...]

Plato’s Parmenides in seventh century Constantinople. The Hexaemeron of George of Pisidia The poem by George of Pisidia dedicated to Sergius patriarch of Constantinople (610-638) on the nature of reality, entitled Hexaemeron, is important evidence for direct reading of Plato’s Parmenides, especially the second half of the dialogue. The poem describes the relation between God and creation and the tone is both Christian and philosophical. The context is important since the controversy in George of Pisidia’s time concerned the idea that Christ had two energies and two wills, that means that an individual contained both infinite and finite principles within his person. This debate, in which patriarch Sergius was at the forefront, was central in the reading of Neoplatonism in Byzantium. It is known that at this time Maximus the Confessor (580-662) employed arguments present Proclus in order to argued his point of view within orthodox theology. Using Proclus’ ideas [...]

The reception of Plato’s Parmenides in Origen of Alexandria I shall explore the problem of the reception of Plato’s Parmenides—a dialogue that was  to  became central in Neoplatonism—in one of the main exponents of patristic philosophy,  Origen    of Alexandria († 255/6ca), who very probably was the disciple of the so-called Socrates of Neoplatonism, Ammonius Saccas, along with Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism and Origen's younger contemporary. Plotinus even attributes his own characterisation of the Nous–‘Demiurge’–‘secondary One’ as One-Many, as opposed to the ‘primary One’ as ‘absolutely One’, to Plato's Parmenides, which likely played an important role in Origen's protology too. As I shall argue, Origen’s God-Father as ‘absolutely One’ and the Son-Wisdom-Demiurge as ‘One- Many’ is very similar to Plotinus’ conception, based on the Parmenides. Origen knew both Plato’s Parmenides and, possibly, Plotinus’ protology, as well as, surely, Clement’s notion of the  Son- Logos as One-Many (‘One as All’) and [...]

Simplicius on the origin of the onto-epistemological parallelism between Parmenides and Plato’s Parmenides   The passage I will investigate is Simpl., in Cael. 556,3-560,10, in which the neoplatonist Commentator interprets Arist., Cael. III 1, 298b14-24. Before talking about the four elements of the sublunary sphere, he discusses the question if these elements of the sublunary world are subject to generation or not and firstly he criticizes the theories of the philosophers who preceded him, in particular Parmenides and Melissus, who deny coming-to-be and consider it only an apparent phenomenon (ἀλλὰ μόνον δοκεῖν ἡμῖν, Arist., Cael. III 1, 298b16). On the one hand Aristotle asserts that Parmenides and Melisso realized that the condition for a science of being can be that this latter refers to not generated and immobile objects and so ontologically stable (τοιαύτας δέ τινας νοῆσαι πρῶτοι φύσεις, εἴπερ ἔσται τις γνῶσις ἢ φρόνησις, Cael. III 1, 298b22-23); on [...]