Plato's Parmenides

Plato's Parmenides
Author: Samuel Scolnicov
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2003-07-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0520925114

Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the whole of Platonic metaphysics to seeing it as a collection of sophisticated tricks, or even as an elaborate joke. This work presents an illuminating new translation of the dialogue together with an extensive introduction and running commentary, giving a unified explanation of the Parmenides and integrating it firmly within the context of Plato's metaphysics and methodology. Scolnicov shows that in the Parmenides Plato addresses the most serious challenge to his own philosophy: the monism of Parmenides and the Eleatics. In addition to providing a serious rebuttal to Parmenides, Plato here re-formulates his own theory of forms and participation, arguments that are central to the whole of Platonic thought, and provides these concepts with a rigorous logical and philosophical foundation. In Scolnicov's analysis, the Parmenides emerges as an extension of ideas from Plato's middle dialogues and as an opening to the later dialogues. Scolnicov’s analysis is crisp and lucid, offering a persuasive approach to a complicated dialogue. This translation follows the Greek closely, and the commentary affords the Greekless reader a clear understanding of how Scolnicov’s interpretation emerges from the text. This volume will provide a valuable introduction and framework for understanding a dialogue that continues to generate lively discussion today.

Parmenides

Parmenides
Author: Martin Heidegger
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 1998-07-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780253212146

Parmenides, a lecture course delivered by Martin Heidegger at the University of Freiburg in 1942-1943, presents a highly original interpretation of ancient Greek philosophy. A major contribution to Heidegger's provocative dialogue with the pre-Socratics, the book attacks some of the most firmly established conceptions of Greek thinking and of the Greek world. The central theme is the question of truth and the primordial understanding of truth to be found in Parmenides' "didactic poem." Heidegger highlights the contrast between Greek and Roman thought and the reflection of that contrast in language. He analyzes the decline in the primordial understanding of truth—and, just as importantly, of untruth—that began in later Greek philosophy and that continues, by virtue of the Latinization of the West, down to the present day. Beyond an interpretation of Greek philosophy, Parmenides (volume 54 of Heidegger's Collected Works) offers a strident critique of the contemporary world, delivered during a time that Heidegger described as "out of joint."

Plato's Forms in Transition

Plato's Forms in Transition
Author: Samuel C. Rickless
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2006-11-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139462784

There is a mystery at the heart of Plato's Parmenides. In the first part, Parmenides criticizes what is widely regarded as Plato's mature theory of Forms, and in the second, he promises to explain how the Forms can be saved from these criticisms. Ever since the dialogue was written, scholars have struggled to determine how the two parts of the work fit together. Did Plato mean us to abandon, keep or modify the theory of Forms, on the strength of Parmenides' criticisms? Samuel Rickless offers something that has never been done before: a careful reconstruction of every argument in the dialogue. He concludes that Plato's main aim was to argue that the theory of Forms should be modified by allowing that forms can have contrary properties. To grasp this is to solve the mystery of the Parmenides and understand its crucial role in Plato's philosophical development.

The Parmenides and Plato's Late Philosophy

The Parmenides and Plato's Late Philosophy
Author: Robert G. Turnbull
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 1998-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780802042361

Turnbull offers a close and detailed reading of the Parmenides, using his interpretation to illuminate Plato's major late dialogues. The picture presented of Plato's later philosophy is plausible, highly interesting, and original.

Plato's Reception of Parmenides

Plato's Reception of Parmenides
Author: John A. Palmer
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 1999-04-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191584657

John Palmer presents a new and original account of Plato's uses and understanding of his most important Presocratic predecessor, Parmenides. Adopting an innovative approach to the appraisal of intellectual influence, Palmer first explores the Eleatic underpinnings of central elements in Plato's middle-period epistemology and metaphysics. He then shows how in the later dialogues Plato confronts various sophistic appropriations of Parmenides while simultaneously developing his own deepened understanding. Along the way Palmer gives fresh readings of Parmenides' poem in the light of the Platonic reception, and discusses Plato's view of Parmenides' relation to such key figures as Xenophanes, Zeno, and Gorgias. By tracing connections among the uses of Parmenides over the course of several dialogues, Palmer both demonstrates his fundamental importance to the development of Plato's thought and furthers understanding of central problems in Plato's own philosophy.

Parmenides and the Way of Truth

Parmenides and the Way of Truth
Author:
Publisher: Richard Geldard
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2007
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0976684349

Parmenides was a philosopher, healer, and spiritual guide in fifth-century BC Elea, a Greek outpost on the western coast of Italy. Around 450 BC he and a young Socrates engaged in a debate on the nature of reality, later immortalized by Plato in The Parmenides, the dialogue that re-created that meeting. Richard Geldard's inspiring account brings new life and contemporary understanding to Parmenides, allowing us to understand his thought and benefit from his wisdom. Richard Geldard earned his PhD in dramatic literature and classics at Stanford University. He is the author of Remembering Heraclitus and The Traveler's Key to Ancient Greece.

Plato's PARMENIDES

Plato's PARMENIDES
Author: Mitchell H. Miller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2017-03-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1400885892

Miller's study demonstrates the value of integrating hermeneutic reading and conceptual analysis. His interpretation works out in detail the purpose and argument of the Parmenides as a whole and provides a new point of departure for discussion of its place in the Platonic corpus. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Parmenidean Ascent

The Parmenidean Ascent
Author: Michael Della Rocca
Publisher:
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2020
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0197510949

The Parmenidean Ascent is a full-throated and wide-ranging defense of an extreme form of monism or the denial of all distinctions, a form of monism rarely seen since the time of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Parmenides. At once historically sensitive and deeply engaged with trends in recent and contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of action, epistemology, and philosophy of language, The Parmenidean Ascent aims, on rationalist grounds and in a skeptical spirit, to challenge the content of-and to overturn the methods of much of contemporary philosophy.

A Study of Dialectic in Plato's Parmenides

A Study of Dialectic in Plato's Parmenides
Author: Eric Sanday
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Form (Philosophy)
ISBN: 9780810130074

In this book, Eric Sanday boldly demonstrates that Plato's "theory of forms" is true, easy to understand, and relatively intuitive. Sanday argues that our chief obstacle to understanding the theory of forms is the distorting effect of the tacit metaphysical privileging of individual things in our everyday understanding. For Plato, this privileging of things that we can own, produce, exchange, and through which we gain mastery of our surroundings is a significant obstacle to philosophical education. The dialogue's chief philosophical work, then, is to destabilize this false privileging and, in Parmenides, to provide the initial framework for a newly oriented account of participation. Once we do this, Sanday argues, we more easily can grasp and see the truth of the theory of forms.

Parmenides’ Vision

Parmenides’ Vision
Author: Stuart B. Martin
Publisher: UPA
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2016-03-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0761867430

This book intends to establish, against his numerous modern critics, that the ancient philosopher Parmenides was a mystic. Instead of arriving at his conclusions by cold reason, Parmenides found the unity of Being, which he called “the Truth,” by turning to a life of meditation. His use of reason throughout his poem was not intended to discover the Truth, but to undermine those who would disallow the Truth which had been revealed to him: the Truth as living and intelligent that is, some One, not something. In making the case that Parmenides was basically a religious seer, this book makes clear that the rationalist opponents of this interpretation have inevitably misread and emended the text to suit their views. Far from rejecting a mythic presentation of ultimate Reality, Parmenides’ narrative upholds the doctrine that all Truth is one, as the mystics proclaim. This book also attempts to explain how, if Reality is ultimately one, multiplicity and flux can be part of the human experience.