Thoughts on Parmenides

 

There is a lot to say about the dialogue Parmenides, both due to its actual content and the various receptions it has received in the Platonic tradition over time. The main focus of the dialogue is the rigorous examination of the logic underlying the fundamental principles of Plato’s metaphysics – so it is very heavy. My first exposure to it, I would say was bewildering and I even found it tedious towards the end. Parmenides is typically divided into two parts. The first part is a devastating critique and takedown of a “theory of Forms” that underlies Plato’s metaphysics. The second part indirectly shows how to correctly view the first part so that the arguments against Forms don’t seem quite so convincing as they once did. Relating this dialogue to others, the unwritten doctrines of Plato, and Aristotle’s testimony as well as the successive Platonic tradition shows that we also see an indirect exposition of the “Neoplatonic” doctrine of 3 fundamental hypostases – the One, Intellect, and Soul—as the fundamental principles underlying all things. I’m not sure how historically accurate this dialogue is (or any of them really) but I would hope something like this conversation did actually happen. Either way, the way Plato presents it shows that not only did he have a radiant and penetrating intellect, but he also was a consummate artist.

The dialogue begins the way most of them do. We learn that what we are being told is a fourth or fifth-hand account from someone who memorized the story from someone else who was actually there (and even they weren’t there the whole time) and even he only half-remembers it because it was a long time ago. The main characters are not the ones telling us what actually happened, not even close. I really like that he throws this in there. He didn’t have to and so the only reason I could see why he’d do such a thing is to let us know that we have to do the best with what we’ve got; even though that sounds mediocre, it’s amazing how far we can get based on such little support. Anyways, we learn that Zeno and Parmenides make their way to Athens for the Great Panathenaea – a festival that occurs every 4 years and was a rival to the Olympics. Socrates, who at this time is young, around 20, came to hear Zeno (40 years old) and his mentor Parmenides (65 years old) speak about their philosophy. Zeno posits that a plurality is impossible since that would entail that things would be both like and unlike other things. Like and unlike are contraries and contradiction doesn’t make sense, so a thing can’t be both unlike and like other things (127e). Socrates, “quick as a Spartan hound to pick up the scent and follow the trail of an argument” (128c). immediately intuits that this is a negative version of the positive Parmenidean doctrine that “The All is One.” Zeno admits that it seems absurd to say that there is no plurality, and all is one, but he believes the opposite view is even more absurd. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, through his celebrated character Sherlock Holmes later put it so eloquently, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Socrates doesn’t see the problem. Why can’t it be that things can participate in both the Form of unlikeness and the Form of likeness at the same time? What precludes a thing from partaking in both unity and plurality simultaneously? After all, Socrates is both one and many – one person made up of many parts. He understands it would be incorrect to say Unity itself can become Plurality itself and vice-versa, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. What are these Forms and why would we need to posit them in the first place? Socrates is certain that immaterial things must have abstract, invisible Forms separate from the physical instantiation of that Form. The reason is because this is the best and probably only way to explain sameness in difference. Here’s an example: one thing a softball, a truck, and a mansion have in common is that they are all large. A softball is larger than a baseball, a truck larger than a car, and a mansion larger than a house. They may share other things in common, but we are focusing on their largeness here. They are also wildly different things, but hey share this one trait in common – being large. How is that? Plato reasons that there is some invisible form out there called Largeness that imparts largeness to things, thus making them large. It’s how wildly different things can be similar. In this particular theory of Forms, Socrates believes there are only Forms for immaterial things because he believes Forms must be self-predicative i.e., justice should be just, beauty should be beautiful, etc. But how could “natural kinds” be self-predicative and still be immaterial? In what way can humans, dogs, rocks, mud, etc. be thought of as immaterial? – it seems like these are totally different types of things from justice, beauty, love, etc.

The intro is now over, and the first metaphysical section begins. Parmenides butts in here and gives five arguments that seem to show that Forms don’t exist (or at least this particular understanding of them). All five of these are variations on two problems. The first is that if Forms are completely separate from the sensible world it is hard to see how they would be able to have a causal effect upon it – thus they would be irrelevant at best, and a monstrous violation of Ockham’s razor at worst. The second problem is that if they aren’t completely separate from the sensible world it seems like they would be in the same dilemma as the sensible things they were thought to explain. I will expand upon that in the five upcoming arguments. The first argument seeks to show that it seems impossible for sensible things to partake of Forms either in whole or in part. It seems it would be impossible for them to partake of them in whole because that would entail a Form being separate from itself which is absurd. The other option we have is that a Form would be shared in part among all the many things that participate in it. Socrates tries to argue against this but is refuted when Parmenides brings up his image of a sail. If a sail is placed over 30 people, you could say that the whole thing covers all 30, but each individual person is still only covered by one individual part of the sail that is not the entire sail and so it seems each particular could only partake of a Form in part. This doesn’t make sense though because it would then have to be many, but it can’t be since it must be one – that’s the whole reason we envisioned forms – to be the one behind the many expressions we see of immaterial entities.

The second argument comes on the heels of the reason for positing the existence of Forms mentioned earlier – to explain sameness in difference. I will reuse the aforementioned largeness example. Parmenides would ask wouldn’t the Form of Largeness itself have to be large? Otherwise, how could it impart largeness if it wasn’t large – you can’t give what you don’t have. This would seem to subject us to a vicious infinite regress because we would have to then explain how both large things and the form of largeness seem to both be large – by participating in a 2^nd order Form of Largeness that encompasses both. But then how would 2^nd order Largeness impart largeness unless it, too, were large and so we’d have to posit 3^rd order largeness, 4^th order largeness, so on and so forth forever so that can’t be right. Socrates then tries to say that Forms are just thoughts that reside in minds. Parmenides argues that the object of a thought is a Form and so if thoughts are Forms then every Form would have to be the thought of a Form. These leads to another infinite regress. It would also seem that if Forms are thoughts and all things in the universe partake of some Form then everything thinks – which seems like an absurd type of panpsychism. The fourth argument is the Likeness regress and is similar to the 2^nd and 3^rd arguments. In this account, Socrates goes a completely different direction. Instead of sensible things partaking of Forms in whole or in part or by thought what if the Forms are just patterns in nature, models that particular things are like. If the many sensible things are like Forms, then Forms have to be like them as well and therefore even the Forms would have to participate in the Form of Likeness. This generates another vicious infinite regress because we’d have the Form of likeness being like concrete likeness and thus needing a 2^nd order likeness to join the two and so on and so forth.

The final argument that Parmenides calls the “greatest difficulty [aporia]” (133b) is the most devastating. The argument states that a master is not the master of Slavery itself, but of a concrete, particular slave. Therefore, Mastery itself (the Form of Mastery) and Slavery itself (Form of Slavery) are more akin to each other than they are to the concrete particulars master and slave. This shows that it seems that the separateness of the Forms seems to entail the impossibility of knowing them. It goes both ways – since all of our knowledge is of the concrete, contingent world we can have no knowledge of the ideal realm of the Forms and it would appear that neither can the gods have any knowledge or mastery over our realm since the two are completely and totally separate. Socrates is shocked and rejects this argument; because the conclusion is so absurd, he thinks there must be a problem in it somewhere though he can’t identify where. Interestingly though, Parmenides doesn’t just abandon the theory.  On the contrary he says that rejecting the Forms comes at an extremely high price – “you will have nothing on which to fix your thought…and in doing so you will completely destroy the power of all discourse” (135c). The reason this is so may seem difficult, but it isn’t really. All things are in flux and are changing but there is also a sameness there as well. For instance, I am the same person I was when I was 1 year old, 5 years old, 15, up till now 32 years old. I have changed a great deal but there is still something that has stayed the same over all that variation. Think of your high school or college. I bet it has changed since you went there, but it is also the same in many ways. If you give up Forms, then you give up that sameness which truly would mean you would be unable to speak about anything – that would be sheer, unadulterated nominalism.

This leads to the second part of the dialogue which is meant to teach us how to deal with these 5 arguments. The key to figuring out how to answer these arguments is determining the proper, technical meaning of the words: one, whole, many, part, limited, unlimited, same, and identical. Parmenides tells Socrates that the way to obtain truth is to look at a topic from all sides and not just from your partial, prejudiced view. “Most people are unaware that you cannot hit upon truth and gain understanding without ranging in this way over the whole field” (132e). He says this is a heavy burden and as an old man is reluctant. He only agrees to do it since they are all friends, are advanced students, and a small group. Indeed, he was right, it was also a heavy burden for the reader—it was exhaustingly tedious. Hopefully, reading it again a few years from now when I am older and wiser will help. He proceeds to examine three different views of “the One” which are identified by later Platonists with the 3 fundamental principles underlying all things: The One, the One-Many (Intellect), and the One that is Many (Soul).

He starts off by saying that if the One is, then it cannot have parts or be a whole. The difference between being one and whole is that a “one” has no parts and a whole does – it just isn’t missing any parts. Since it can’t have any parts that means it can’t have any limits including beginning, middle, and end – it must be infinite and eternal. It can’t have any shape and can’t be in any place because that would mean it would have to have parts. It definitely can’t be in motion because that would mean it would have to be able to change – which it can’t as an eternal thing. It also can’t even be at rest since that would mean it would be in the same place as itself which is still some place and it can’t be anywhere. It can’t be the same as another because then it wouldn’t be one. It can’t be the same as itself because Unity ≠ Sameness. Just because something becomes the same as another thing, doesn’t mean it becomes one. For instance, if something because the same as something that is many it would obviously not become one. The One can’t be other than itself or another or even the same as itself or another since Likeness also ≠ Unity for the same reason sameness doesn’t. It can’t be equal to itself or another and neither can it be unequal to itself or another. It can’t be older, younger, or the same age as itself or another and as such can’t occupy time whatsoever. All this leads to the conclusion that the One in no sense “is”—it doesn’t have being, it is above being and so we can’t use any verb tense to speak of it, not even the present tense. In fact, it cannot be spoken of, perceived, or known at all.

He says that all this seems unlikely so he considers what the One would be like if it did exist – meaning if it did “have being.” This would mean that the One would really be the “One Being” = “The One that is” since one and being are two parts of “One Being.” Being always has unity and unity always has being and so the One Being must be unlimited in multitude since every part of everything that exists can be further broken down into 2 parts ad infinitum. The end result of his long chain of reasoning is that every conclusion reached in the first hypothesis is reversed 180°. In the final analysis, “the One that is” is in time and becomes and we can have knowledge and perception of it; it can be spoken of and does have a name (155e). He then tries to investigate whether the One must be separate from everything else or not and ultimately reasons that it must be – since the One and the Many comprise all things, there isn’t some third thing for them to both be in together. So, he holds that the One must be, in some sense, transcendent of everything else. He also examines what it would be like if the One didn’t exist. He ultimately comes to the conclusion that that makes no sense since everything that exists is in some sense one. If there is no One, there is nothing at all. If there is no One to bring unity to things there would just be formless masses of unlimited multitudes—in fact this isn’t even true because we couldn’t distinguish ONE formless mass from another. How could we if there is no such thing as unity? There would be no such thing as time, place, or numbers since any number, time, or place is identically ONE number and not another. We literally can’t even imagine what it would be like if there were no One behind all things.

We are left with the explicit aporetic conclusion: “It seems that, whether there is or is not a one, both that one and the others alike are and are not, and appear and do not appear to be, all manner of things in all manner of ways, with respect to themselves and to one another” (166b). What does this mean? This ending is very similar to the aporia we are left with at the end of Theaetetus where knowledge was examined, but no explicit answer found. How are we to take this? Some advance the idea that it is not only explicitly aporetic, but also implicitly aporetic – Plato didn’t know the answer, he was honestly confused and showed his honesty. The idea that I favor is that Plato did in fact have an answer and it is embedded in the text, but it requires an astute mind and much study to figure it out. I can’t say that I have just yet, but I hope to one day. To be honest, I probably won’t figure it out myself – I’ll probably find out by reading commentaries or Plotinus’ Enneads which I plan on reading soon. Speaking of Plotinus, I read a paper on this dialogue by Lloyd Gerson and it relates to Plotinus’ take on this text.

 There is a mistaken idea that there is a single Neoplatonic interpretation of Parmenides and that it originated with Plotinus – (hence the Neo in Neoplatonism). Many people think that one of the characteristics of Neoplatonism (shouldn’t even be called that, just Platonism) is that they place the Parmenides at the heart of Plato’s metaphysics – it is the key and secret to his philosophy. All other dialogues should be interpreted in light of this one – it should be the standard, the master key. This seems to have originated with Iamblichus and been passed onto Damascius, Syrianus, and reached its highest expression in Proclus and is the source of most of their errors. Plotinus never does this. In fact, he quotes Aristotle’s Metaphysics twice as much as this dialogue in his Enneads. He also relies on other dialogues, the unwritten doctrines of Plato, and the testimony of Aristotle about what Plato told him orally. Plotinus’ approach is the correct and best one since he realized that Plato didn’t confine discrete doctrines to discrete, self-contained dialogues. He had a unified metaphysical vision that was revealed from various angles by being applied to specific problems and it was only partially revealed in the dialogues as a whole – much of it was orally transmitted in the Academy. Think about it. If you know me personally—would you gauge my thought only by what I’ve written here on this blog, or would it also be important, probably more important, what I’d said to you orally, in-person over the entire course of my life? I’m still mystified by this dialogue and I probably will be for a while, but it gives something for my brain to chew on and I hope in years to come I will understand it more.