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| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 135e) |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 159a) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |||
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |||
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 24299 | Equals added to unequals maintain the difference between them |
| Full Idea: Equals added to unequals, in time or anything else at all, always make them differ by an amount equal to that which they differed at first. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 154b) | |||
| A reaction: An early assumption that entities must remain identical to themselves during any logical procedure. |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |||
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |||
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 24302 | Without oneness we can't conceive of many |
| Full Idea: Without oneness it is impossible to conceive of many. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 166b) | |||
| A reaction: This is the culmination of a long discussion of the nature of the One (of Parmenides), so it ties that concept to the standard Greek idea that counting, and hence all of arithmetic, is grounded in the concept of a unit. Primitive processes? |
| 24301 | If we subtract a part from a multitude, will that part not itself be a multitude? |
| Full Idea: Now if we would be willing to subtract, in thought, the very least we can from these multitudes, must not that which is subtracted, too, be a multitude and not one, if it doesn't partake of the one? | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 158c) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to be remarkably close to Dedekind's famous and widely accepted definition of infinity in Idea 9826. |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 144a) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 24297 | Is existence just being combined with time? |
| Full Idea: Is to be simply partaking of being with time present? | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 151e) | |||
| A reaction: This would only make sense is there were a timeless mode of being, which presumably what Plato attributes to Forms and mathematics. Does that therefore imply that timeless beings 'are not'? |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 155d) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to be rhetorical, rather than a precise theory, given that the One is said to be eternal and unchanging. The One is not just what we call 'reality'. |
| 24298 | What is becoming can't avoid the now, and then it ceases to become, and is itself |
| Full Idea: If nothing that comes to be can sidestep the now, whenever a thing 'is' at this point, it always stops its coming-to-be and then is whatever it may have come to be. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 152c) | |||
| A reaction: Just common sense, but interesting that Plato works so hard to precisely identify the stages of becoming and being. |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |||
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |||
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 134c) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to thoroughly pre-empt Plato's Theory of Forms a century before he created it. Which shows (as Simone Weil says) that Plato was just part of a long tradition. We don't know the Form of knowledge, so have no knowledge. |
| 24292 | Are many people covered by a whole sail, or each person by a part of it? |
| Full Idea: Parmenides: If a sail covering many people is one thing as a whole over many …would the sail as a whole be over each person, or would a part of it be over one person and another part over another? | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 131c) | |||
| A reaction: The standard idea of a universal is a concept which is one-over-many, but does a single horse embrace all the generalities included in the concept 'horse'? A puzzle for Plato's forms, but also for modern concepts. |
| 24293 | Maybe thoughts are just thoughts in minds - but how then do they cover many instances? |
| Full Idea: Socrates: Maybe each of these forms is a thought and properly occurs only in minds. Then each of them might be one. …Parm: But won't this thing that is thought to be one, being the same over all the instances, be a form? | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132b-c) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to imply that a word or concept can only operate as a universal (a one-over-many) if it is an ideal form. They don't seem to consider options like resemblance nominalism. Or simply that 'horse' covers many horses because it is vague. |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 147d) | |||
| A reaction: Hm. Jack the Ripper? Smooth? Etc. Language needs to be fairly stable, but it is crazy to be rigid about that. |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 135c) | |||
| A reaction: Actually a concept can still be discussed even by people who declare slightly different understandings of the concept. God, Loch Ness monster, genius, atoms… I guess the surrounding language must be stable to achieve that. |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 130d) | |||
| A reaction: This is the problem of whether mud has a Form. Socrates says no, but Parmenides says he will have to face this possibity when he is older. Where could the line be drawn? |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 149e) | |||
| A reaction: So if any concept has an opposite it must have a Form? So smooth-rough, sharp-blunt, dark-light etc. |
| 24294 | The powers of forms and powers of our world are quite separate |
| Full Idea: The forms do not have their power in relation to things in our world, and things in our world do not have theirs in relation to the forms, but things in each group have their power in relation to themselves. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 134d) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to invite the unasked question of how the forms can apply their 'power' to anything other than to other forms. How can the Form of the Good influence human morality? |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 130d) | |||
| A reaction: At 130e old Parmenides tells young Socrates that he will come to see that cases like mud are important. See ideas of Henry Laycock. |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |||
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |||
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 133c) | |||
| A reaction: But presumably we must participate in the ideas when we think about them? Why is he so keen that the ideas be 'absolute'? Does that mean timeless, or unchanging, or inexplicable? |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 131a) | |||
| A reaction: This is the problem of something which is seen as a perfectly unified whole, and yet is understood to be distributed in different locations. A good reason for abandoning Forms, I would say! |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 131b) | |||
| A reaction: Quite a good response. At any moment we experience that day, but we don't experience a localised chunk of it. I experience the Tuesday that extends across Greece. |
| 24282 | A form is wholly present in many different things (just as a day is present in many places) |
| Full Idea: Do you think that the form as a whole is in each of the many? - What's to prevent it? - So it will be at the same time, as a whole, in things that are many, and would thus be separate from itself. - Not if it is like a day, in many places at one time. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 131a) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] Socrates is pressed hard by Parmenides on this issue, and has to rely on an implausible analogy (with a day; also a sail draped over several people) to wriggle out of it. The case against the Forms is strong in this dialogue. |
| 24288 | Probably partaking in the Forms is like being modeled on a pattern |
| Full Idea: What appears to me most likely is these forms are like patterns set in nature, and other things resemble them and are likenesses; and this partaking of the forms is simply being modeled on them. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132c) | |||
| A reaction: This invites the question of whether the things depend for their existence on the Forms, or whether things could survive the loss of their patterns (if Zeus destroyed all the Forms). Plato generally implies dependence. |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132c) | |||
| A reaction: So we must choose between either panpsychism or idealism! A pretty grim dilemma. |
| 24283 | It is most likely that forms are patterns, and a thing partakes by being modelled on the form |
| Full Idea: What appears to me most likely is that these forms are like patterns set in nature, and other things resemble them and are likenesses, and this partaking of the forms is, for the other things, simply being modelled on them. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132d) | |||
| A reaction: This is, surely, much the best interpretation of the forms, as blueprints for types of thing, and for ideals. But it entails that forms are not self-predicating. You can't ride the blueprint for a horse. |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132e) | |||
| A reaction: This might work for two precisely identical shades of red, but how do we explain the likeness of light red to dark red? Do we imagine the ideal red, or infer it? |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 133a) | |||
| A reaction: The problem was that if two things are 'alike', they need another Form for the relation that connects them. Participation needs to be direct. We all participate directly in sunlight? |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132a) | |||
| A reaction: This is the Third Man problem, which is made more explicit in Aristotle. I suspect that it was the young Aristotle's idea. Self-predication produces the problem. What makes the Form of squareness square? |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 133a) | |||
| A reaction: This is Bradley's Idea 7966, that if relations are real, they will need further relations to connect them to their relata (and so on). Russell disagreed. |
| 24287 | If a Form exists completely in may things, then it is separated from itself |
| Full Idea: Does a thing share the whole of its form, or a part of it? - What's to prevent the form as whole from being in each of the many? [Parmenides:] So it will be at the same time, as a whole, in things that are many; and thus it would be separate from itself. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 131a) | |||
| A reaction: This is one of Parmenides' major objections to the standard theory of Foms. A Form is a single unified thing, existing in many place simultanously, which contradicts common sense. The best reply is Forms are patterns, not objects. |
| 24289 | Forms are very difficult, if we must posit a new Form every time we make a distinction |
| Full Idea: You do not, Socrates, have an inkling of how great the difficulty is if you are going to posit one form in each case every time you make a distinction among things. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 133b) | |||
| A reaction: For example, is there a platonic form for each of the 39 isotopes of tin? Is there a new form each time humans create a new artifact, such as model 16 of the Apple iPhone? A rather good objection, from fictional Parmenides. |
| 24290 | The master-slave relationships are between people, not between mastery and slavery |
| Full Idea: Masters and slaves are not masters of slavery or slaves of mastery - they are master or slave of a human being. But mastery is of slavery itself, and slavery of mastery itself. Things don't get powers from forms, nor forms from us. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 133e) | |||
| A reaction: This may be the key objection to platonic forms - that they lack causal powers in the real world. They may therefore fail the only sensible criterion we have for something's existence. |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['idea'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 157d) | |||
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |||
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |||
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity than mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |||
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |||
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 157c) | |||
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |||
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 146b) | |||
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 24295 | To find the truth about the being of something, you must study all of its consequences |
| Full Idea: Concerning what you might hypothesise as being or as not being, or having any other property, you must examine the consequences in relation to itself and each one of the others. …All this you must do if you are to achieve a full view of the truth. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 136b-c) | |||
| A reaction: This shows that Plato was keenly interested in how to study the natural world, as well the world of ideas and pure reason. This is a good first step in an account of scientific reasoning. |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 135a) |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 159d) | |||
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 157c) | |||
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 24296 | The one is completely unmoving, because no types of motion are possible for it |
| Full Idea: The one doesn't change places by going somewhere and coming to be in something, not does it move by spinning in the same location or by being altered, …so the one is therefore unmoved by every sort of motion. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 139a) | |||
| A reaction: This is the culmination of a sequence of arguments. The argument is here proposed by a semi-fictional Parmenides long after his death. This is a sort of ontological argument, drawing inferences from the nature of the central concept. |
| 24231 | The One is timeless, has no being or identity, and cannot be known |
| Full Idea: The One has no share of time, nor is it in any time. …The One in no way partakes of being, so the One in no way is. …The One neither is one nor is. …It is not named or spoken of, nor is it the object of opinion, nor does anything that is perceive it. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 141d-142a) | |||
| A reaction: [Phrases lifted from a page-long detailed argument] Given all of this, it is surprising that the One is not dismissed entirely. That leaves it as an object of mystical belief. |
| 24300 | The instant has no time, but change moves to rest in an instant |
| Full Idea: The instant signifies something such that changing occurs from it to each of two states. …This queer creature the instant lurks between motion and rest - being in no time at all - and to it and from it the moving thing changes to resting, and vice versa. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 156d) | |||
| A reaction: An instant of time, and the now, strike me as the weirdest and most incomprehensible features in all of reality. I have nothing more to say on the subject. How could the place where past meets future have a duration of its own? |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |||
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 160d) |