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Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides' Way of Truth and Plato's Parmenides
Parmenides was likely written within the last two decades preceding Plato's death in 347 BCE. Despite two millennia of documented commentary, scholars struggle to make sense of it. Almost every major discussion of the Parmenides in this century has begun with some remark about its extraordinary difficulty & no interpretation has yet been offered that a majority of commentators find persuasive. The main interpretative problem of is what to make of the treatment of the several hypotheses that constitutes the 2nd portion (Stephanus 137C-166C, referred to as P2). One source of perplexity is that this latter portion fails to exhibit continuity of subject matter with the 1st part (P1), making it difficult to determine what the whole is about. To make matters worse, the argumentation of the 2nd part is so extremely condensed that it sometimes appears incoherent. As a result, not only are individual arguments hard to decipher, but moreover it's unclear what Plato was trying to accomplish with these arguments in the 1st place.
Two major lines of interpretation were established by the time of Proclus' Parmenides Commentary in the 5th century, both with prominent followers. As Proclus notes in his 1st book, some readers view the dialog as a logic exercise. Some read P2 as a polemical tour-de-force in which methods of argument derived from Zeno are turned against their originator to show that Zeno's own monistic views lead to absurdities of the very sort he purports to demonstrate against pluralism's champions. Others read the 2nd part at face value, as a demonstration of a logical method that will enable Socrates to avoid the pitfalls in his Form theory exposed by Parmenides in the 1st part of the dialog. In either case, readers of this persuasion view the dialog primarily as a dialectical exercise without positive metaphysical content.
The 2nd major interpretative line identified by Proclus assigns P2 a metaphysical purpose. An early version of this approach, associated with Origen, identifies the topic as the Being of the historical Parmenides, with the consequence that the exclusively negative results of the 1st hypothesis come to be viewed as adding to the pluralistic list of features denied of the singular Being in Parmenides' poem. The tradition of interpretation with which Proclus himself agrees, on the other hand, is that beginning with Plotinus & moving thru Porphyry to lamblichus & Syrianus. As Proclus puts it, commentators of this group take the subject to be "all things that get their reality from the One," which he identifies with the Republic's Good. Keying upon the conclusion at Parmenides 142A that the One can be neither expressed nor conceived, Proclus reads the 1st hypothesis' results as a demonstration of the ineffable transcendence of this Supreme Principle.--Plato's Parmenides & the Dilemma of Participation (edited)
Two major lines of interpretation were established by the time of Proclus' Parmenides Commentary in the 5th century, both with prominent followers. As Proclus notes in his 1st book, some readers view the dialog as a logic exercise. Some read P2 as a polemical tour-de-force in which methods of argument derived from Zeno are turned against their originator to show that Zeno's own monistic views lead to absurdities of the very sort he purports to demonstrate against pluralism's champions. Others read the 2nd part at face value, as a demonstration of a logical method that will enable Socrates to avoid the pitfalls in his Form theory exposed by Parmenides in the 1st part of the dialog. In either case, readers of this persuasion view the dialog primarily as a dialectical exercise without positive metaphysical content.
The 2nd major interpretative line identified by Proclus assigns P2 a metaphysical purpose. An early version of this approach, associated with Origen, identifies the topic as the Being of the historical Parmenides, with the consequence that the exclusively negative results of the 1st hypothesis come to be viewed as adding to the pluralistic list of features denied of the singular Being in Parmenides' poem. The tradition of interpretation with which Proclus himself agrees, on the other hand, is that beginning with Plotinus & moving thru Porphyry to lamblichus & Syrianus. As Proclus puts it, commentators of this group take the subject to be "all things that get their reality from the One," which he identifies with the Republic's Good. Keying upon the conclusion at Parmenides 142A that the One can be neither expressed nor conceived, Proclus reads the 1st hypothesis' results as a demonstration of the ineffable transcendence of this Supreme Principle.--Plato's Parmenides & the Dilemma of Participation (edited)
- GenresPhilosophy
270 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1939
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About the author
Francis Macdonald Cornford
107 books45 followers1874-1943. Classicist
Cornford was educated at St Paul's School and was admitted to Trinity in 1893, being elected a Scholar the following year. Cornford obtained firsts in both parts of the classical tripos in 1905 and 1907; he was awarded the Chancellor's Classical Medal in the latter year. In 1897 he applied for the Chair of Greek at Cardiff, but was unsuccessful. However, in 1899 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity. He was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Classics in 1902 and Lecturer in 1904. In 1909 he married Frances Darwin, daughter of Ellen Crofts of Newnham College and the botanist Francis Darwin.
During the First World War Cornford was a musketry instructor at Grantham and rose to the rank of Captain before transferring to the Ministry of Munitions.
In 1921 and 1928 Cornford was unsuccessfully a candidate for the Regius Chair of Greek. In 1927 he was appointed Brereton Reader in Classics and four years later became the first to hold the Laurence Chair in Ancient Philosophy, a post which he held until retirement in 1939. He was elected FBA in 1937.
Early in his academic career, Cornford became disenchanted with "Cambridge classics" with its emphasis on philology, and published The Cambridge Classical Course: an essay in anticipation of further reform in 1903. He soon allied with like-minded persons such as Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray and A.B. Cook in a group that became known as the "Cambridge Ritualists" who looked for the underlying thoughts and myths that underpinned classical Greece. A string of publications ensued: Thucydides Mythistoricus (1907), From Religion to Philosophy: a study in the origins of Western speculation (1912), The Origins of Attic Comedy (1914), Greek Religious thought from Homer to Alexander (1923), The Laws of Motion in Ancient Thought (1931), Before and After Socrates (1931), Plato's Theory of Knowledge: the Theaetetus and Sophist of Plato (1935), Plato's Cosmology: the Timaeus of Plato (1937), Plato and Parmenides (1939). Unwritten Philosophy and Other essays was published posthumously.
Cornford was also active politically on the Cambridge scene. In 1897 he organised a student petition in favour of degrees for women and in 1904 published an anonymous flysheet on the subject of compulsory chapel. To support rationalist moves in the University he joined with C.K. Ogden in founding the Heretics. His most famous excursion into University politics was Microcosmographia Academica, first published anonymously in 1908 and reissued many times since. In it he satirises the Cambridge system and the types of administrator that it produced. During WWI, when Bertrand Russell was deprived of his College lectureship, Cornford was one of the body of Fellows that attempted to get him reinstated.
Cornford died at his home, Conduit Head on 3 January 1943.
Cornford was educated at St Paul's School and was admitted to Trinity in 1893, being elected a Scholar the following year. Cornford obtained firsts in both parts of the classical tripos in 1905 and 1907; he was awarded the Chancellor's Classical Medal in the latter year. In 1897 he applied for the Chair of Greek at Cardiff, but was unsuccessful. However, in 1899 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity. He was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Classics in 1902 and Lecturer in 1904. In 1909 he married Frances Darwin, daughter of Ellen Crofts of Newnham College and the botanist Francis Darwin.
During the First World War Cornford was a musketry instructor at Grantham and rose to the rank of Captain before transferring to the Ministry of Munitions.
In 1921 and 1928 Cornford was unsuccessfully a candidate for the Regius Chair of Greek. In 1927 he was appointed Brereton Reader in Classics and four years later became the first to hold the Laurence Chair in Ancient Philosophy, a post which he held until retirement in 1939. He was elected FBA in 1937.
Early in his academic career, Cornford became disenchanted with "Cambridge classics" with its emphasis on philology, and published The Cambridge Classical Course: an essay in anticipation of further reform in 1903. He soon allied with like-minded persons such as Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray and A.B. Cook in a group that became known as the "Cambridge Ritualists" who looked for the underlying thoughts and myths that underpinned classical Greece. A string of publications ensued: Thucydides Mythistoricus (1907), From Religion to Philosophy: a study in the origins of Western speculation (1912), The Origins of Attic Comedy (1914), Greek Religious thought from Homer to Alexander (1923), The Laws of Motion in Ancient Thought (1931), Before and After Socrates (1931), Plato's Theory of Knowledge: the Theaetetus and Sophist of Plato (1935), Plato's Cosmology: the Timaeus of Plato (1937), Plato and Parmenides (1939). Unwritten Philosophy and Other essays was published posthumously.
Cornford was also active politically on the Cambridge scene. In 1897 he organised a student petition in favour of degrees for women and in 1904 published an anonymous flysheet on the subject of compulsory chapel. To support rationalist moves in the University he joined with C.K. Ogden in founding the Heretics. His most famous excursion into University politics was Microcosmographia Academica, first published anonymously in 1908 and reissued many times since. In it he satirises the Cambridge system and the types of administrator that it produced. During WWI, when Bertrand Russell was deprived of his College lectureship, Cornford was one of the body of Fellows that attempted to get him reinstated.
Cornford died at his home, Conduit Head on 3 January 1943.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 12, 2013
I read this book towards the beginning of Reginald Allen's course on Plato's Parmenides at Loyola University Chicago. It was helpful as an introduction to a topic which remained unresolved by the end of the term, namely the interpretation of the dialog. Allen himself was thrashing it out, being in the midst of preparing a book on the subject.
The course could have been taught better if more attention had been paid to the matter of the textual basis of the dialog. Exactly how many holographic sources have we for The Parmenides?--for Parmenides' Proem and other writings attributed to him? What are their respective provenances? Since The Parmenides is so very obscure, the first question is how far we can go towards arriving at a true text. Perhaps the nonsensical, contradictory nature of the received text (received through Cornford in this case) indicates that this result requires reexamination, perhaps rejection. Is there any textual tradition which allows for a coherant reading? Are there any interpretative traditions which might offer clues.
In the description of this book I have placed a text which has bearing on the final question, covering as it does the interpretative strands identified by Proclus.
The course could have been taught better if more attention had been paid to the matter of the textual basis of the dialog. Exactly how many holographic sources have we for The Parmenides?--for Parmenides' Proem and other writings attributed to him? What are their respective provenances? Since The Parmenides is so very obscure, the first question is how far we can go towards arriving at a true text. Perhaps the nonsensical, contradictory nature of the received text (received through Cornford in this case) indicates that this result requires reexamination, perhaps rejection. Is there any textual tradition which allows for a coherant reading? Are there any interpretative traditions which might offer clues.
In the description of this book I have placed a text which has bearing on the final question, covering as it does the interpretative strands identified by Proclus.
December 28, 2019
The second part of Plato's dialogue Parmenides is universally regarded as almost-impossible-to-understand. Cornford's translation and running commentary took me a long way to making a start on understanding what Plato is saying. There are eight (or nine, depending on how you count them!) hypotheses which at a theological level might well encompass everything that can possibly be said on the nature of the relationship between God and reality. For those of you who know nothing about this dialogue, it purports to tell the (almost certainly fictional) meeting between a young Socrates and an aged Parmenides, who is accompanied by his sidekick Zeno (of the famous paradoxes). In the first part of the dialogue, Parmenides subjects Socrates' theory of Forms to an intense scrutiny that they barely survive. In the second part of the dialogue, Parmenides examines eight (or nine!) hypotheses concerning the nature of the One. This is not God, because even God is not as profound as the nature of the One! The Neoplatonists later took this dialogue, along with the Timaeus, as their foundational texts. This is as profound and as deep as philosophy can ever get, indeed to the point where theology and philosophy become one and the same thing. If you decide to read this book, give yourself time, peace and quiet to take it as seriously as it deserves.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews