4. Hallazgos y análisis de la información
4.1. Triangulación y análisis de la información
Aristotle implies, when he characterises Parmenides’ ἐόν as αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν [‘Being itself’] (tt. 21 ad fi n., 27), that, in spite of being no universal, it is in effect a Platonic Form. It is conspicuous however that there is no explicit allusion to Par menides’ ontology in Plato’s dialogues until he himself is made the central fi gure in that which bears his name and which forms the fi rst part of what, in the absence of the unwritten Philosopher, may be called an Eleatic tetralogy. The Sophist and Statesman constitute a dramatic sequel to the Theaetetus, which (like the Sophist) alludes to the meeting between So crates and Parmenides in the Parmenides (tt. 7, 8). Such cross-references suggest that the varying mis-en-scène of the four dialogues is intended as signifi cant. Two questions present themselves: (i) why does Plato place the formulation of the theory of Forms, as he had outlined it in earlier dialo gues beginning with the Phaedo, in the mouth of the young Socrates in conver- sation with Parmenides and Zeno? (ii) why do the Sophist and Statesman depose Socrates from the central place given him in all earlier dialogues except the Parmenides (unless the Timaeus is also earlier) in favour of a professed but unorthodox Eleatic? In considering these ques tions it must
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PARMENIDES’ INFLUENCEONTHETHEORYOFFORMS
be borne in mind that Plato is always concerned more with philosophical than with historical affi liations.
(i) It seems clear that the least that can be intended by the dramatic setting of the Parmenides with its quotation (130e5–6) from the text of the Phaedo (102b),
where also the origination of the theory of Forms is placed in a mid-fi fth cen- tury context, is that the theory was a pluralist develop ment of Parmenides’ monism, differing from the physical systems outlined in Section 5 above in being suffi ciently Eleatic in kind to be proposed to Parmenides and Zeno themselves. This is confi rmed by Socrates’ formulation of the theory. He criticises Zeno’s thesis that τὰ ὄντα [‘things that are’] cannot be many, on the ground that, though sensible individuals are susceptible, as Zeno had argued, of opposite predicates, these predicates themselves, if they are treated as subjects, can be seen to be the names of individual ‘Forms’, each of which can be defi ned (135a-c), since each is unambiguously and invar iably itself, as
no sensible is, and cannot be said to be its opposite (129b-c). The range which
Socrates postulates of such ‘intelligibles’ (λογισμῷ λαμ βανομένοις, 130a2, cf.
135e3) comprises the general terms predicated of sensibles in Zeno’s book
and other pairs of opposites, each of which is regarded as the ‘cause’ of its variable instances’ being so characterized. It is indicated that it may be pos- sible to treat all general terms in the same way and, though it is not expressly stated, it is clear that the ‘being’ which Socrates attributes to the Forms is Eleatic in the sense that each is regarded as having all the characters which Parmenides had argued to belong to τὸ ἐόν [‘Being’]. It is consequently not surprising that, although there is no allusion to Parmenides either in the for- mulation of the theory in the Phaedo or in its elaboration in the middle books of the Republic, the latter is sometimes expressed in language which derives unmistakably from him (cf. n. on fr. 5, 7–9). It should be observed that in the
Parmenides, although Plato repre sents the theory as having been formulated
independently of Zeno’s criti cism of phenomena, Socrates is assumed to be
already familiar with Par menides’ poem (128a), and that the account in the
Phaedo of the genesis of the theory in Socrates’ abandonment of his attempt
to discover ‘causes’ (τὰς αἰτίας) or reality (τῶν ὄντων τὴν ἀλήθειαν [‘the real- ity of things that are’]) among sensibles in favour of looking for them ἐν λόγοις [‘in discussions’] (99el-100a2, cf. Parm. 130bl) is in effect a retreat from
Anaxagoras to Parmenides, even though the latter is nowhere named. The method of using λόγοι [‘discussions’] which Socrates here associates with the theory (99e-100b, 101d-e) is equally clearly a development of that used by
Zeno, who argued in each section of his book: ‘if what is is many, then each thing must be both x and not-x; but x cannot be not-x; therefore what is is not
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THECRITICISMOFPARMENIDES’ MONISMINTHEFOURTHCENTURYB.C.
many’ (Parm. 127e). This method derives from Parmenides (cf. fr. 8, 19–20)
and is identical with an essential part of that ascribed to Socrates in Phaedo
100a and 101d, which consists in making a hypothesis and positing as true
what follows from it and as false that of which the contradictory follows from it, but in rejecting the hypothesis if it leads to two contradic tory results (cf. Robinson, Plato’s Earlier Dialectic,2nd edition, 133–134).
Plato’s enunciation of the theory of Forms thus represents it, even though not explicitly, as thoroughly Eleatic in character. The departure which Socrates is shown as making from Eleaticism lies in his objection to Zeno’s assumption that terms asserted truly of a subject are identical with it, e.g. that things that are said to be like are what like is, and therefore cannot be
said to be unlike (Parm. 127e). Parmenides himself had regarded the terms
asserted either of Being or of the two sensible Forms light and night as alternative names of their subjects (cf. Sections 5 and 8 and fr. 8, 55–56 n.). Socrates points out (128e-130a) that the proposition ‘the unlikes cannot be
like’ is ambiguous, since ‘the unlikes’ may refer either to ὅ ἐστιν ἀνόμοιον
[‘that which is unlike’] (129a2), which he also names ἀνομοιότης [‘unlike-
ness’] (a6) and αὐτὰ τὰ ἀνόμοια [‘the unlikes themselves’] (bl-2), or to things
with unlikeness as an attribute; and similarly with the subjects ‘the likes’, ‘the many’, ‘the one’, etc. This is to distinguish—and for the fi rst time in the history of philosophy—the attributive from the Eleatic identifying sense of the verb ‘to be’. At the same time Socrates maintains Parmenides’ and Zeno’s use of the principle of contradiction as a test of being: where Zeno had followed Parmenides in insisting that nothing can be both x and not-x, Socrates replies that, if ‘to be’ may express simply the subject’s participa- tion in x itself, the subject may in this sense be both x and not-x without contradiction, while the being, in the strict sense, of x is guaranteed by the impossibility of its being not-x. Socrates thus agrees with both Zeno and Parmenides in denying to particulars the status of genuine ὄντα. He accepts Parmenides’ analysis of the nature of being, only trans ferring its applicability from the one substance deduced by him from the verb ‘is’ (cf. n. on fr. 5, 1), so as to treat as names of separate substances the general terms which complement the verb. At the same time by maintai ning that sensibles ‘partake of’ Forms he endows the former with an ontological status which Parmenides and Zeno had denied them.
(ii) The Sophist contains a systematic review (242c-250e) of earlier onto-
logies, which includes, besides Plato’s criticism of Parmenides’ monism, which is discussed in Section 8 below, a critique of a pluralist theory ascribed to ‘the friends of the Forms’ (248a sq.). This theory appears to be
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THECRITICISMOFPARMENIDES’ MONISMINTHEFOURTHCENTURYB.C.
indistinguishable from that ascribed to Socrates in the Phaedo and Repub lic. Its discussion leads to a new development in the theory, and this in turn to the modifi cation of the view of ‘not-being’ which Plato indicates (243b)
he had earlier accepted, and which is evidently that of Parmenides. It is noteworthy that Plato in this argument expressly classifi es the theory of Forms with Parmenides’ ontology and fi nds fault with both as λεγόντων τὸ πᾶν ἑστηκός [‘saying that everything is at rest’] (249c). This is the most
explicit admission in the dialogues of the close relation between the theory of Forms and Eleaticism. Plato’s formal critique of Parmenides (244b-245e) is
directed against his monism, his joint criticism of the friends of the Forms and Parmenides against the assumption that τὸ παντελῶς ὄν [‘that which wholly is’] or τὸ ὄν τε καὶ τὸ πᾶν is ἀκίνητον ἑστός [‘fi xedly established as unmoving’]. It is this critique of being and not being which justifi es the central place given in the Sophist to a dissident Eleatic. The visitor from Elea is represented as the embodiment of the genuine philosopher and so as one who is ‘dedicated always through arguments to the Form of Being’
(τῇ τοῦ ὄντος ἀεὶ διὰ λογισμῶν προσκείμενος ἰδέᾳ, 254a). In making this
the ultimate concern of dialectic Plato shows himself still, as earlier in the
Phaedo and Republic, a direct if unorthodox successor to Parmenides, but as
now concerned to criticise the concept of which he had originally accepted the essential features of Parmenides’ analysis.