Parmenides | Page 5

that the Platonic Ideas were in
constant process of growth and transmutation; sometimes veiled in
poetry and mythology, then again emerging as fixed Ideas, in some
passages regarded as absolute and eternal, and in others as relative to
the human mind, existing in and derived from external objects as well
as transcending them. The anamnesis of the Ideas is chiefly insisted
upon in the mythical portions of the dialogues, and really occupies a
very small space in the entire works of Plato. Their transcendental
existence is not asserted, and is therefore implicitly denied in the
Philebus; different forms are ascribed to them in the Republic, and they
are mentioned in the Theaetetus, the Sophist, the Politicus, and the
Laws, much as Universals would be spoken of in modern books.
Indeed, there are very faint traces of the transcendental doctrine of
Ideas, that is, of their existence apart from the mind, in any of Plato's
writings, with the exception of the Meno, the Phaedrus, the Phaedo,
and in portions of the Republic. The stereotyped form which Aristotle
has given to them is not found in Plato (compare Essay on the Platonic
Ideas in the Introduction to the Meno.)
The full discussion of this subject involves a comprehensive survey of
the philosophy of Plato, which would be out of place here. But, without
digressing further from the immediate subject of the Parmenides, we
may remark that Plato is quite serious in his objections to his own
doctrines: nor does Socrates attempt to offer any answer to them. The

perplexities which surround the one and many in the sphere of the Ideas
are also alluded to in the Philebus, and no answer is given to them. Nor
have they ever been answered, nor can they be answered by any one
else who separates the phenomenal from the real. To suppose that Plato,
at a later period of his life, reached a point of view from which he was
able to answer them, is a groundless assumption. The real progress of
Plato's own mind has been partly concealed from us by the dogmatic
statements of Aristotle, and also by the degeneracy of his own
followers, with whom a doctrine of numbers quickly superseded Ideas.
As a preparation for answering some of the difficulties which have
been suggested, we may begin by sketching the first portion of the
dialogue:--
Cephalus, of Clazomenae in Ionia, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, a
citizen of no mean city in the history of philosophy, who is the narrator
of the dialogue, describes himself as meeting Adeimantus and Glaucon
in the Agora at Athens. 'Welcome, Cephalus: can we do anything for
you in Athens?' 'Why, yes: I came to ask a favour of you. First, tell me
your half- brother's name, which I have forgotten--he was a mere child
when I was last here;--I know his father's, which is Pyrilampes.' 'Yes,
and the name of our brother is Antiphon. But why do you ask?' 'Let me
introduce to you some countrymen of mine, who are lovers of
philosophy; they have heard that Antiphon remembers a conversation
of Socrates with Parmenides and Zeno, of which the report came to him
from Pythodorus, Zeno's friend.' 'That is quite true.' 'And can they hear
the dialogue?' 'Nothing easier; in the days of his youth he made a
careful study of the piece; at present, his thoughts have another
direction: he takes after his grandfather, and has given up philosophy
for horses.'
'We went to look for him, and found him giving instructions to a
worker in brass about a bridle. When he had done with him, and had
learned from his brothers the purpose of our visit, he saluted me as an
old acquaintance, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue. At first, he
complained of the trouble, but he soon consented. He told us that
Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parmenides and
Zeno; they had come to Athens at the great Panathenaea, the former
being at the time about sixty-five years old, aged but
well-favoured--Zeno, who was said to have been beloved of

Parmenides in the days of his youth, about forty, and very
good-looking:-- that they lodged with Pythodorus at the Ceramicus
outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very young man, came to see
them: Zeno was reading one of his theses, which he had nearly finished,
when Pythodorus entered with Parmenides and Aristoteles, who was
afterwards one of the Thirty. When the recitation was completed,
Socrates requested that the first thesis of the treatise might be read
again.'
'You mean, Zeno,' said Socrates, 'to argue that being, if it is many, must
be both like and unlike, which is a contradiction; and each division of
your argument is intended to elicit a similar absurdity, which may be
supposed