Complete Works (86 page)

“Yes, you’re quite right.”

“And surely the kinds themselves, what each of them is, are known by the form of knowledge itself?”

“Yes.”

“The very thing that we don’t have.”

“No, we don’t.”

“So none of the forms is known by us, because we don’t partake of knowledge itself.”

“It seems not.”

“Then the beautiful itself, what it is, cannot be known by us, nor can the [c] good, nor, indeed, can any of the things we take to be characters themselves.”

“It looks that way.”

“Here’s something even more shocking than that.”

“What’s that?”

“Surely you would say that if in fact there is knowledge – a kind itself – it is much more precise than is knowledge that belongs to us. And the same goes for beauty and all the others.”

“Yes.”

“Well, whatever else partakes of knowledge itself, wouldn’t you say that god more than anyone else has this most precise knowledge?”

“Necessarily.”

“Tell me, will god, having knowledge itself, then be able to know things [d] that belong to our world?”

“Yes, why not?”

“Because we have agreed, Socrates,” Parmenides said, “that those 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 forms, but that things in each group have their power in relation to themselves.”

“Yes, we did agree on that.”

“Well then, if this most precise mastery and this most precise knowledge belong to the divine, the gods’ mastery could never master us, nor could their knowledge know us or anything that belongs to us. No, just as we [e] do not govern them by our governance and know nothing of the divine by our knowledge, so they in their turn are, for the same reason, neither our masters nor, being gods, do they know human affairs.”

“If god is to be stripped of knowing,” he said, “our argument may be getting too bizarre.”

“And yet, Socrates,” said Parmenides, “the forms inevitably involve these objections and a host of others besides – if there are those characters
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for things, and a person is to mark off each form as ‘something itself.’ As a result, whoever hears about them is doubtful and objects that they do not exist, and that, even if they
do
, they must by strict necessity be unknowable to human nature; and in saying this he seems to have a point; and, as we said, he is extraordinarily hard to win over. Only a very gifted man can come to know that for each thing there is some kind, a being itself by [b] itself; but only a prodigy more remarkable still will discover that and be able to teach someone else who has sifted all these difficulties thoroughly and critically for himself.”

“I agree with you, Parmenides,” Socrates said. “That’s very much what I think too.”

“Yet on the other hand, Socrates,” said Parmenides, “if someone, having an eye on all the difficulties we have just brought up and others of the same sort, won’t allow that there are forms for things and won’t mark off a form for each one, he won’t have anywhere to turn his thought, since he doesn’t allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the [c] same. In this way he will destroy the power of dialectic
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entirely. But I think you are only too well aware of that.”

“What you say is true,” Socrates said.

“What then will you do about philosophy? Where will you turn, while these difficulties remain unresolved?”

“I don’t think I have anything clearly in view, at least not at present.”

“Socrates, that’s because you are trying to mark off something beautiful, and just, and good, and each one of the forms, too soon,” he said, “before [d] you have been properly trained. I noticed that the other day too, as I listened to you conversing with Aristotle here. The impulse you bring to argument is noble and divine, make no mistake about it. But while you are still young, put your back into it and get more training through something people think useless – what the crowd call idle talk. Otherwise, the truth will escape you.”

“What manner of training is that, Parmenides?” he asked.

“The manner is just what you heard from Zeno,” he said. “Except I was [e] also impressed by something you had to say to him: you didn’t allow him to remain among visible things and observe their wandering between opposites. You asked him to observe it instead among those things that one might above all grasp by means of reason and might think to be forms.”

“I did that,” he said, “because I think that here, among visible things, it’s not at all hard to show that things are both like and unlike and anything else you please.”

“And you are quite right,” he said. “But you must do the following in addition to that: if you want to be trained more thoroughly, you must not
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only hypothesize, if each thing is, and examine the consequences of that hypothesis; you must also hypothesize, if that same thing is not.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“If you like,” said Parmenides, “take as an example this hypothesis that Zeno entertained: if many are,
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what must the consequences be both for the many themselves in relation to themselves and in relation to the one, and for the one in relation to itself and in relation to the many? And, in turn, on the hypothesis, if many are not, you must again examine what the consequences will be both for the one and for the many in relation [b] to themselves and in relation to each other. And again, in turn, if you hypothesize, if likeness is or if it is not, you must examine what the consequences will be on each hypothesis, both for the things hypothesized themselves and for the others, both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other. And the same method applies to unlike, to motion, to rest, to generation and destruction, and to being itself and not-being. And, in a word, concerning whatever you might ever hypothesize as being or as not being or as having any other property, you must examine the [c] consequences for the thing you hypothesize in relation to itself and in relation to each one of the others, whichever you select, and in relation to several of them and to all of them in the same way; and, in turn, you must examine the others, both in relation to themselves and in relation to whatever other thing you select on each occasion, whether what you hypothesize you hypothesize as being or as not being. All this you must do if, after completing your training, you are to achieve a full view of the truth.”

“Scarcely manageable, Parmenides, this task you describe! And besides, I don’t quite understand,” he said. “To help me understand more fully, why don’t you hypothesize something and go through the exercise for me yourself?”

“For a man my age that’s a big assignment, Socrates,” he said. [d]

“Well then,” said Socrates, “you, Zeno – why don’t you go through it for us?”

And Antiphon said that Zeno laughed and said, “Let’s beg Parmenides to do it himself, Socrates. What he’s proposing won’t be easy, I’m afraid. Or don’t you recognize what a big assignment it is? Indeed, if there were more of us here, it wouldn’t be right to ask him – it’s not fitting, especially for a man his age, to engage in such a discussion in front of a crowd. Ordinary people don’t know that without this comprehensive and circuitous [e] treatment we cannot hit upon the truth and gain insight. And so, Parmenides, I join with Socrates in begging you, so that I too may become your pupil again after all this time.”

When Zeno had finished speaking, Antiphon said that Pythodorus said that he too, along with Aristotle and the others, begged Parmenides not to refuse, but to give a demonstration of what he was recommending. In the end Parmenides said: “I am obliged to go along with you. And yet I feel like the horse in the poem of Ibycus.
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Ibycus compares himself to a horse – a champion but no longer young, on the point of drawing a chariot
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in a race and trembling at what experience tells him is about to happen – and says that he himself, old man that he is, is being forced against his will to compete in Love’s game. I too, when I think back, feel a good deal of anxiety as to how at my age I am to make my way across such a vast and formidable sea of words. Even so, I’ll do it, since it is right for me to oblige you; and besides, we are, as Zeno says, by ourselves.

“Well then, at what point shall we start? What shall we hypothesize [b] first? I know: since we have in fact decided to play this strenuous game, is it all right with you if I begin with myself and my own hypothesis? Shall I hypothesize about the one itself and consider what the consequences must be, if it is one or if it is not one?”

“By all means,” said Zeno.

“Then who will answer my questions?” he asked. “The youngest, surely? For he would give the least trouble and would be the most likely to say what he thinks. At the same time his answer would allow me a breathing space.”

“I’m ready to play this role for you, Parmenides,” Aristotle said. “Because [c] you mean me when you say the youngest. Ask away – you can count on me to answer.”

“Very good,” he said. “If it is one,
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the one would not be many, would it?“—”No, how could it?“—”Then there cannot be a part of it nor can it be a whole.”—“Why?”—“A part is surely part of a whole.”—“Yes.”—“But what is the whole? Wouldn’t that from which no part is missing be a whole?”—“Certainly.”—“In both cases, then, the one would be composed of parts, both if it is a whole and if it has parts.”—“Necessarily.”—“So in [d] both cases the one would thus be many rather than one.”—“True.”—“Yet it must be not many but one.”—“It must.”—“Therefore, if the one is to be one, it will neither be a whole nor have parts.”—“No, it won’t.”

“Well, then, if it doesn’t have a part, it could have neither a beginning nor an end nor a middle; for those would in fact be parts of it.”—“That’s right.”—“Furthermore, end and beginning are limits of each thing.”—“Doubtless.”—“So the one is unlimited if it has neither beginning nor end.”—“Unlimited.”—“So it is also without shape; for it partakes of neither [e] round nor straight.”—“How so?”—“Round is surely that whose extremities are equidistant in every direction from the middle.”—“Yes.”—“Furthermore, straight is that whose middle stands in the way of the two extremities.”—“Just so.”—“So the one would have parts and be many if it partook of either a straight or a curved shape.”—“Of course.”—“Therefore
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it is neither straight nor curved, since in fact it doesn’t have parts.”—“That’s right.”

“Furthermore, being like that, it would be nowhere, because it could be neither in another nor in itself.”—“How is that?”—“If it were in another, it would surely be contained all around by the thing it was in and would touch it in many places with many parts; but since it is one and without parts and does not partake of circularity, it cannot possibly touch in many places all around.”—“It can’t.”—“Yet, on the other hand, if it were in itself, its container would be none other than itself, if in fact it were in itself; for [b] a thing can’t be in something that doesn’t contain it.”—“No, it can’t.”—“So the container itself would be one thing, and the thing contained something else, since the same thing will not, as a whole at any rate, undergo and do both at once. And in that case the one would be no longer one but two.”—“Yes, you’re quite right.”—“Therefore, the one is not anywhere, if it is neither in itself nor in another.”—“It isn’t.”

“Then consider whether, since it is as we have said, it can be at rest or in motion.”—“Yes, why not?”—“Because if it moves, it would either move [c] spatially or be altered, since these are the only motions.”—“Yes.”—“But the one surely can’t be altered from itself and still be one.”—“It can’t.”—“Then it doesn’t move by alteration at least.”—“Apparently not.”—“But by moving spatially?”—“Perhaps.”—“And if the one moved spatially, it surely would either spin in a circle in the same location or change from one place to another.”—“Necessarily.”—“Well then, if it spins in a circle, it must be poised on its middle and have other parts of itself that move round the middle. But how will a thing that has nothing to do with middle or parts manage to be moved in a circle round its middle?”—“Not at [d] all.”—“But by changing places does it come to be here at one time, there at another, and move in this way?”—“If in fact it moves at all.”—“Wasn’t it shown that it cannot be anywhere in anything?”—“Yes.”—“Then is it not even more impossible for it to
come
to be?”—“I don’t see why.”—“If something comes to be in something, isn’t it necessary that it not yet be in that thing – since it is still coming to be in it – and that it no longer be entirely outside it, if in fact it is already coming to be in it?”—“Necessarily.”—“So if anything is to undergo this, only that which has parts could [e] do so, because some of it would already be in that thing, while some, at the same time, would be outside. But a thing that doesn’t have parts will not by any means be able to be, at the same time, neither wholly inside nor wholly outside something.”—“True.”—“But isn’t it much more impossible still for a thing that has no parts and is not a whole to come to be in something somewhere, if it does so neither part by part nor as a whole?”—“Apparently.”—“Therefore it doesn’t change places by going somewhere and coming to be in something, nor does it move by spinning in the same
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location or by being altered.”—“It seems not.”—“The one, therefore, is unmoved by every sort of motion.”—“Unmoved.”

“Yet, on the other hand, we also say that it cannot be in anything.”—“Yes, we do.”—“Then it is also never in the
same
thing.”—“Why?”—“Because it would then be
in
that – in that same thing it is in.”—“Of course.”—“But it was impossible for it to be either in itself or in another.”—“Yes, you’re quite right.”—“So the one is never in the same thing.”—“It seems not.”—“But what is never in the same thing neither enjoys repose [b] nor is at rest.”—“No, it cannot.”—“Therefore the one, as it seems, is neither at rest nor in motion.”—“It certainly does appear not.”

“Furthermore, it won’t be the same as another thing or itself; nor, again, could it be different from itself or another thing.”—“Why is that?”—“If it were different from itself, it would surely be different from one, and would not be one.”—“True.”—“On the other hand, if it were the same as another, it would be that thing, and not itself. So in this way, too, it would not be [c] just what it is – one – but would be different from one.”—“Yes, you’re quite right.”—“Therefore, it won’t be the same as another or different from itself.”—“No, it won’t.”