Parmenides | Page 4

been
inclined to philosophy, but has now shown the hereditary disposition
for horses, is very naturally described. He is the sole depositary of the
famous dialogue; but, although he receives the strangers like a
courteous gentleman, he is impatient of the trouble of reciting it. As
they enter, he has been giving orders to a bridle-maker; by this slight
touch Plato verifies the previous description of him. After a little
persuasion he is induced to favour the Clazomenians, who come from a
distance, with a rehearsal. Respecting the visit of Zeno and Parmenides
to Athens, we may observe--first, that such a visit is consistent with
dates, and may possibly have occurred; secondly, that Plato is very
likely to have invented the meeting ('You, Socrates, can easily invent
Egyptian tales or anything else,' Phaedrus); thirdly, that no reliance can
be placed on the circumstance as determining the date of Parmenides
and Zeno; fourthly, that the same occasion appears to be referred to by
Plato in two other places (Theaet., Soph.).
Many interpreters have regarded the Parmenides as a 'reductio ad
absurdum' of the Eleatic philosophy. But would Plato have been likely
to place this in the mouth of the great Parmenides himself, who

appeared to him, in Homeric language, to be 'venerable and awful,' and
to have a 'glorious depth of mind'? (Theaet.). It may be admitted that he
has ascribed to an Eleatic stranger in the Sophist opinions which went
beyond the doctrines of the Eleatics. But the Eleatic stranger expressly
criticises the doctrines in which he had been brought up; he admits that
he is going to 'lay hands on his father Parmenides.' Nothing of this kind
is said of Zeno and Parmenides. How then, without a word of
explanation, could Plato assign to them the refutation of their own
tenets?
The conclusion at which we must arrive is that the Parmenides is not a
refutation of the Eleatic philosophy. Nor would such an explanation
afford any satisfactory connexion of the first and second parts of the
dialogue. And it is quite inconsistent with Plato's own relation to the
Eleatics. For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them
with the greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a
more unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the
reverse of those which he actually held.
Two preliminary remarks may be made. First, that whatever latitude we
may allow to Plato in bringing together by a 'tour de force,' as in the
Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet he always in some way seeks to find a
connexion for them. Many threads join together in one the love and
dialectic of the Phaedrus. We cannot conceive that the great artist
would place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent
subjects. And hence we are led to make a second remark: viz. that no
explanation of the Parmenides can be satisfactory which does not
indicate the connexion of the first and second parts. To suppose that
Plato would first go out of his way to make Parmenides attack the
Platonic Ideas, and then proceed to a similar but more fatal assault on
his own doctrine of Being, appears to be the height of absurdity.
Perhaps there is no passage in Plato showing greater metaphysical
power than that in which he assails his own theory of Ideas. The
arguments are nearly, if not quite, those of Aristotle; they are the
objections which naturally occur to a modern student of philosophy.
Many persons will be surprised to find Plato criticizing the very
conceptions which have been supposed in after ages to be peculiarly
characteristic of him. How can he have placed himself so completely
without them? How can he have ever persisted in them after seeing the

fatal objections which might be urged against them? The consideration
of this difficulty has led a recent critic (Ueberweg), who in general
accepts the authorised canon of the Platonic writings, to condemn the
Parmenides as spurious. The accidental want of external evidence, at
first sight, seems to favour this opinion.
In answer, it might be sufficient to say, that no ancient writing of equal
length and excellence is known to be spurious. Nor is the silence of
Aristotle to be hastily assumed; there is at least a doubt whether his use
of the same arguments does not involve the inference that he knew the
work. And, if the Parmenides is spurious, like Ueberweg, we are led on
further than we originally intended, to pass a similar condemnation on
the Theaetetus and Sophist, and therefore on the Politicus (compare
Theaet., Soph.). But the objection is in reality fanciful, and rests on the
assumption that the doctrine of the Ideas was held by Plato throughout
his life in the same form. For the truth is,