Parmenides

The awe with which Plato regarded the character of 'the great' Parmenides has extended to the
dialogue which he calls by 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 some 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 the Megarian School (compare Cratylus, etc.). The
criticism on his own doctrine of Ideas 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