Source edition
Platonis Opera, Tomus II: Tetralogia III-IV. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.
Source data
Perseus Digital Library · CC BY-SA (per Perseus's terms)
Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.
Summary
This dialogue explores critical challenges to the theory of Forms (eide) and presents a profound logical investigation into the nature of the "One" and the "Many." The narrative is framed as a recollection of a meeting in Athens where a young Socrates encounters the eminent Eleatic philosophers Parmenides and Zeno. In the first half, Parmenides subjects Socrates’ youthful theory of Forms to severe criticism, raising formidable difficulties such as infinite regress and the unknowability of the Forms. In response to these challenges, the second half transitions into a rigorous dialectical exercise demonstrated by Parmenides himself with the young Aristotle. Through eight distinct hypotheses exploring both the existence and non-existence of the One, the argument systematically examines how the One and the "Others" relate to existence, motion, time, and number. The work culminates in a dizzying array of paradoxes, concluding that whether the One exists or not, both the One and the others are and are not, appearing to be all things and nothing at all.