July 2019
A Long Lost Relative in the Parmenides? Plato’s Family of Hypothetical Methods Plato’s Parmenides has not received the attention it deserves from a methodological perspective, especially as concerns its systematic use of the language of hypothesis. In this paper I argue that the Parmenides contains a unique but overlooked method for testing first principles, a method I call ‘exploring both sides’. Plato has Parmenides recommend exploring the consequences of both a hypothesis and its contradictory then has him employ the method throughout the second half of the dialogue. It is a genuine dialectical method, but distinct from the so-called ‘method of hypothesis’ of the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic in both structure and aim. In this way I challenge Richard Robinson’s influential dismissal of the Parmenides as being of little methodological importance. Interpreters interested in Plato’s use of ‘hypothesis’ (ὑπόθεσις) have focused on the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic and for [...]
Find out moreThe Argument of Zeno at Parmenides 127e1-8 to which Socrates Responds Introduction My goal in this essay is to understand Zeno’s argument, as reported by Socrates, against the thesis that beings are many (ei polla esti ta onta, Parmenides 127e1-2). Socrates’ summary, which Zeno approves (127e5; 128a1-2; 128b8-9), is this: If beings are many, then they must be both like and unlike, but that is impossible: for unlikes (ta anomoia) can’t be likes, nor likes (ta homoia) unlikes? . . . If they were many, they would suffer impossibilities (paschoi an ta adunata). (127e1-8) Three features of the argument create difficulties for interpreters. First, Socrates’ summary does not provide details to fill the gap in the inference from “beings are many” to “they are both like and unlike.” Second, Zeno wants to defend the thesis of Parmenides that everything is one by attacking its opposite. But Parmenides’ thesis [...]
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