The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 4 of 5 (Classic Reprint)

The awe with which Plato regarded the character of the ParmenU es. great Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls introducby his name. None of the writings of Plato have been more -copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern .times, and in none of them have the interpreters been more at variance with one another. Nor is this surprising. For the Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the design of the writer is not expressly stated. The date is uncertain; the relation to the other writings of Plato is also uncertain; the connexion between the two parts is at first sight extremely obscure; and in the latter of the two we are left in doubt as to whether Plato is speaking his own sentiments by the lips of Parmenides, and overthrowing him out of his own mouth, or whether he is propounding consequences which would have been admitted by Zeno and Parmenides themselves. The contradictions which follow from the hypotheses of the one and many have been regarded by soine as transcendental mysteries; by others as a mere illustration, taken at random, of a new method. They seem to have been inspired by a sort of dialectical frenzy, such as may be supposed to have prevailed in theM egarian School (cp. Cratylus 346,407 E, etc.). The criticism on his own doctrine of I deas has also been considered, not as a real criticism, but as an exuberance of the metaphysical imagination which enabled Plato to go beyond himself. To the latter part of the dialogue we may certainly apply the words in which he himself describes the earlier philosophers in theS ophist (243 A): They went on their way rather regardless of whether we understood them or not.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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