Impossible to do this before a numerous audience — Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen — After much solicitation he agrees.
You propose to me, Parmenides (remarks Sokrates), a work of awful magnitude. At any rate, show me an example of it yourself, that I may know better how to begin. — Parmenides at first declines, on the ground of his old age: but Zeno and the others urge him, so that he at length consents. — The process will be tedious (observes Zeno); and I would not ask it from Parmenides unless among an audience small and select as we are here. Before any numerous audience, it would be an unseemly performance for a veteran like him. For most people are not aware that, without such discursive survey and travelling over the whole field, we cannot possibly attain truth or acquire intelligence.[45]
[45] Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 D. εἰ μὲν οὖν πλείους ἦμεν, οὐκ ἂν ἄξιον ἦν δεῖσθαι· ἀπρεπῆ γὰρ τὰ τοιαῦτα πολλῶν ἐναντίον λέγειν, ἄλλως τε καὶ τηλικούτῳ· ἀγνοοῦσι γὰρ οἱ πολλοὶ ὅτι ἄνευ ταύτης τῆς διὰ πάντων διεξόδου καὶ πλάνης, ἀδύνατον ἐντυχόντα τῷ ἀληθεῖ νοῦν σχεῖν. Hobbes remarks (Computatio sive Logica, i. 3, 12): “Learners ought to go through logical exercises silently and by themselves: for it will be thought both ridiculous and absurd, for a man to use such language publicly”. Proklus tells us, that the difficulty of the γυμνασία, here set out by the Platonic Parmenides, is so prodigious, that no one after Plato employed it. (Prok. ad Parmen. p. 801, Stallb.)
Parmenides elects his own theory of the Unum, as the topic for exhibition — Aristoteles becomes respondent.
It is especially on this ground — the small number and select character of the auditors — that Parmenides suffers himself to be persuaded to undertake what he calls “amusing ourselves with a laborious pastime”.[46] He selects, as the subject of his dialectical exhibition, his own doctrine respecting the One. He proceeds to trace out the consequences which flow, first, from assuming the affirmative thesis, Unum Est: next, from assuming the negative thesis, or the Antithesis, Unum non Est. The consequences are to be deduced from each hypothesis, not only as regards Unum itself, but as regards Cætera, or other things besides Unum. The youngest man of the party, Aristoteles, undertakes the duty of respondent.
[46] Plato, Parmenid. p. 137 A. δεῖ γὰρ χαρίζεσθαι, ἐπειδὴ καὶ ὃ Ζήνων λέγει, αὐτοί ἐσμεν … ἢ βούλεσθε ἐπειδήπερ δοκεῖ πραγματειώδη παιδιὰν παίζειν, &c.
Exhibition of Parmenides — Nine distinct deductions or Demonstrations, first from Unum Est — next from Unum non Est.
The remaining portion of the dialogue, half of the whole, is occupied with nine distinct deductions or demonstrations given by Parmenides. The first five start from the assumption, Unum Est: the last four from the assumption, Unum non Est. The three first draw out the deductions from Unum Est, in reference to Unum: the fourth and fifth draw out the consequences from the same premiss, in reference to Cætera. Again, the sixth and seventh start from Unum non Est, to trace what follows in regard to Unum: the eighth and ninth adopt the same hypothesis, and reason it out in reference to Cætera.
The Demonstrations in antagonising pairs, or Antinomies. Perplexing entanglement of conclusions given without any explanation.
Of these demonstrations, one characteristic feature is, that they are presented in antagonising pairs or Antinomies: except the third, which professes to mediate between the first and second, though only by introducing new difficulties. We have four distinct Antinomies: the first and second, the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, the eighth and ninth, stand respectively in emphatic contradiction with each other. Moreover, to take the demonstrations separately — the first, fifth, seventh, ninth, end in conclusions purely negative: the other four end in double and contradictory conclusions. The purpose is formally proclaimed, of showing that the same premisses, ingeniously handled, can be made to yield these contradictory results.[47] No attempt is made to reconcile the contradictions, except partially by means of the third, in reference to the two preceding. In regard to the fourth and fifth, sixth and seventh, eighth and ninth, no hint is given that they can be, or afterwards will be, reconciled. The dialogue concludes abruptly at the end of the ninth demonstration, with these words: “We thus see that — whether Unum exists or does not exist — Unum and Cætera both are, and are not, all things in every way — both appear, and do not appear, all things in every way — each in relation to itself, and each in relation to the other”.[48] Here is an unqualified and even startling announcement of double and contradictory conclusions, obtained from the same premisses both affirmative and negative: an announcement delivered too as the fulfilment of the purpose of Parmenides. Nothing is said at the end to intimate how the demonstrations are received by Sokrates, nor what lesson they are expected to administer to him: not a word of assent, or dissent, or surprise, or acknowledgment in any way, from the assembled company, though all of them had joined in entreating Parmenides, and had expressed the greatest anxiety to hear his dialectic exhibition. Those who think that an abrupt close, or an abrupt exordium, is sufficient reason for declaring a dialogue not to be the work of Plato (as Platonic critics often argue), are of course consistent in disallowing the Parmenides. For my part, I do not agree in the opinion. I take Plato as I find him, and I perceive both here and in the Protagoras and elsewhere, that he did not always think it incumbent upon him to adapt the end of his dialogues to the beginning. This may be called a defect, but I do not feel called upon to make out that Plato’s writings are free from defects; and to acknowledge nothing as his work unless I can show it to be faultless.