Parmenides is frankly baffling. I'm apparently not the only one who feels this way either. The dialog is such a complete departure from everything else we've read so far that it makes you suspect the editors pulled a fast one at some point in the past 2,500 years. It's shockingly different not only in terms of its philosophical content, but in terms of its style of presentation and its literary language. For an author who is normally extraordinarily clear, it was just plain weird to find the final three quarters of the dialog filled with word salad. At points I found myself thinking it all just sounded like gobbledygook. While I'm somewhat tempted to seriously take up the challenge of sorting it all out, I doubt I'll have the stomach to go into the level of detail of that SEP article (itself inconclusive). So we may leave this discussion at a fairly high level. The only thing that is immediately clear is that this is the 'latest' dialog we've read, and certainly signals some sort of transition beyond from the classical theory of Forms we saw in Phaedo, Phaedrus, and the Symposium. The break is so stark that I've changed my mind about saving the Republic for last. Since it is clearly a middle period dialog, I plan to read it next, followed by the final remaining dialog that folks classify as 'middle' -- Theaetetus -- to see whether there isn't perhaps some lead up to this fracture.
Broadly speaking, Parmenides consists of three parts:
1)The frame story here is quite short but ridiculously multilevel. We, the reader, are listening to Cephalus tell the story of the time he asked Antiphon to repeat the conversation his buddy Pythodorus once heard between Zeno, Parmenides, and a very young Socrates. Why it goes from God to Jerry to you to the cleaners is anybody's guess, right Kent? The conversation Cephalus tells us that Antiphon said Pythodorus told him about then breaks down into two parts, with the second much longer than the first.
2) Initially, the discussion between Socrates, Parmenides, and Parmenides' star student Zeno is a little abstract and technical, but relatively straightforward. Socrates makes some comments on Zeno's philosophy based on his (then nascent) theory of the Forms. In response, Parmenides raises several objections to the theory of Forms that Socrates seems unable to adequately answer. However, instead of writing off the theory as refuted, Parmenides outlines the steps Socrates needs to take to shore it up. Basically, he needs to ask not only what conclusions we come to if we think the Forms exist, but also examine what conclusions we would come to if we thought they didn't exist.
... if you want to be trained more thoroughly, you must not 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,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 to themselves and in relation to each other. (136a)
3) In the final part of the dialog, its bulk, Parmenides gives an example of how this method would apply to a concept like 'the one' -- precisely the concept he was famous for expounding. This longest section is the one I called baffling gobbledygook and word salad. It reads a bit like the sophism we saw in Euthydemus, though I don't think Parmenides is meant to be a satirical character. Still, he appears to systematically deduce everything as well as its opposite about the one, and leaves us with this thoroughly useless little gem.
"Let us then say this – and also that, as it seems, whether one is or is not, it and the others both are and are not, and both appear and do not appear all things in all ways, both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other." (166c)
I don't know that I'm going to figure out the final part, but I'd like to go through the second in detail, because it contains Plato's own sustained critique of the doctrine of Forms.
I think the first thing to pay attention to is the philosophical context of the dialog between Zeno and Socrates. Zeno, as we know, argued that motion and change were impossible. Socrates begins by observing that this is really just a restatement of his master Parmenides' thesis that only a timeless, eternal, and unchanging One truly is. Zeno claims that the many are not, while Paremendies contends that the one is -- these are two sides of the same coin (128b). So from the beginning, the dialog concerns the eternal question of monism versus pluralism. While this may be sorta obvious, I think it's worth noting for two reasons. First, Parmenides' deductions in the strange third part of the dialog explicitly have to do with whether the one is or is not and whether the many are or are not. So, while this is portrayed as just one example of the deductive method Parmenides suggests, it seems unlikely that it is a mere pedagogic exercise. The example is central to Eleatic philosophy. Second, the theory of the Forms sits rather uneasily between these two poles. On the one hand, the unity and singularity and unchangeable timelessness of a Form of like Beauty clearly aligns it with the side of the One. On the other hand, there's more than one Form, and many things participate in each Form. Setting aside (for now) the question of whether we interpret the theory of Forms as attributing a Form to every and any distinction we can make, we know for sure that there are at least forms of Beauty, Courage, Largeness, Smallness, Wisdom, Knowledge, etc ... The list of Forms actually seems pretty open-ended. And if this list is infinite or at least indefinite, then the collection of Forms might itself be a sort of Form -- the Many. In addition, the list of beautiful things that partake in Beauty also seems indefinitely long. So in both these ways then, the Forms, while Ones, seem to have some inherent relation to the many. In short, the battle between monism and pluralism seems to run throughout the dialog, hidden just barely under the surface.
The conversation between Zeno and Socrates begins with a separate question that seems related to pluralism and monism -- purity versus mixture. In his book, Zeno proved that the many are not by arguing that if there were many things they would have to be both like and unlike at the same time (127e). The argument is not well explained here, but seems to revolve around the fact that many different things would naturally be unlike one another, but would all still be like another in being things that are. Zeno considers this proof that the many must not be, because like things cannot be unlike, nor unlike things like one another. Socrates, however, begins by arguing that this isn't surprising at all and proves nothing, because things are mixtures. They are like in some respects and unlike in others because they partake of various Forms, in this case the Form of Likeness and Unlikeness. The same argument would apply no matter what Forms we are talking about though. Since things have a mixture of properties inherited from Forms, they can be perfectly contradictory amongst themselves. Only the Forms themselves need to be pure entities in themselves. Zeno would only be making headway if he proved that the Many was both like and unlike the One.
"If someone showed that the likes themselves come to be unlike or the b unlikes like – that, I think, would be a marvel; but if he shows that things that partake of both of these have both properties, there seems to me nothing strange about that, Zeno – not even if someone shows that all things are one by partaking of oneness, and that these same things are many by partaking also of multitude. But if he should demonstrate this thing itself, what one is, to be many, or, conversely, the many to be one – at this I'll be astonished. (129b)
Interestingly, it's Parmenides, not Zeno, who responds to Socrates' criticism. He will provide a sustained critique of the theory of Forms Socrates' professes. But first, there's a kind of curious preface (130b-e) in which Socrates is forced to clarify what things have Forms. That the Just, the Beautiful, and the Good have Forms goes without saying. Human Beings, Fire, and Water, however, seem to Socrates questionable cases. Mundane things like Hair, Mud, and Dirt probably don't have Forms, though Socrates equivocates a little even here.
Surely it's too outlandish to think there is a form for them. Not that the thought that the same thing might hold in all cases hasn't troubled me from time to time. Then, when I get bogged down in that, I hurry away, afraid that I may fall into some pit of nonsense and come to harm; but when I arrive back in the vicinity of the things we agreed a moment ago have forms, I linger there and occupy myself with them. (130d)
It seems that while all things are mixtures that partake of multiple different Forms which are pure in themselves, some things themselves are too mixed, too impure, ever to have a pure Form associated with them. It's clearly an incoherent and arbitrary line for Socrates to draw, and Parmenides wastes no time in pointing out that he's making a rookie mistake in following common sense opinions about what should and what shouldn't get a Form.
"That's because you are still young, Socrates," said Parmenides, "and philosophy has not yet gripped you as, in my opinion, it will in the future, once you begin to consider none of the cases beneath your notice. Now, though, you still care about what people think, because of your youth. (130e)
So right off the bat we face the problem of how many Forms there are. We might imagine a "finite theory of Forms", where some defined set of Forms is able to mix together in various proportions to account for the appearance of all things. But this doesn't seem to be what Socrates has in mind (indeed, it sounds a lot more like Aristotle). Some things that are "totally undignified and worthless" (130c6) would fall completely outside of this network as mere appearances. I think this is another case where we're seeing the underlying moral ground of the theory of Forms poke through a bit. As we've seen before, the Forms are not simply metaphysical speculations, but are ultimately meant to have an ethical basis. If every mundane thing has a Form, how are they going to help us figure out how to live the good life? The Forms need to be somehow selective, things to aspire to. Without an obvious finite number of Forms though the problem of just how many there are becomes particularly pressing. So pressing, in fact, that I'm now wondering whether what we're seeing in this dialog is actually the application of the pluralism-monism context we discussed to the Forms themselves. Are there many Forms, or really just One? Would this be the Good, or the Form of Forms? But wouldn't the Form of Forms, the collection of Forms, individually one, be the Many? It's not clear, but I think perhaps we're skipping up a level just as Socrates did in his response to Zeno. The one and the many here may not refer to things, but to Forms.
After this elusive preamble, Parmenides goes on to pose a series of problems for the theory of Forms. I don't think it's coincidental that many of these problems involve an infinite proliferation of Forms. In a sense, these are the same paradoxes Zeno is famous for, though applied to the concept of unity rather than continuity.
The first problem regards the divisibility of Forms. Is it the whole form of Beauty -- a single unity -- that appears in all of the many beautiful things, or is Beauty itself divided and partitioned into many things? Socrates argues that the Form itself appears as one and makes an analogy between a Form and the unity of a day, which contains all the things that happen in it without really being divided. Parmenides doesn't really refute this but quickly changes the analogy and asks whether a Form isn't more like a sail draped over a bunch of people. Sure, one sail covers everyone, but different people are covered by different parts. Obviously, if we conceive the unity of a Form in this spatial way, it will be manifold and divisible, a many, not a one.
The second problem Parmenides poses explicitly sets up an infinite regress of Forms. Socrates claims that all the various large things partake of the single Form of Largeness (what we might call the > function). But what happens if we add the Large itself to the set of all large things. Surely, if anything is large then the Large itself is a large thing. Don't we then need a second Form of Largeness, call it Large2: the sequel, that lies behind the largeness of all the things in this new set? But now we'll have to keep adding Forms of Largeness indefinitely. Socrates tries to wriggle out of this one by arguing that the Form is not really a thing but just a thought, something that only occurs in minds. There are a lot of ways to attack this weak attempt at escape. Parmenides seems to have a representational view of thought, so he simply asks what the thought is of. What is the object of a thought of a Form? The question answers itself and leads us straight back to the multiplication of Forms -- the thought of what large things and the Large have in common will be of the Form Large2. Alternatively, if we think that Forms are thoughts, and that things (outside of humans) partake in the Forms, we seem to be committing ourselves to a sort of panpsychism, which is also not what Socrates has in mind (132d)
Parmenides' third problem again leads us to an infinite regress of Forms, this time as a result of the symmetry of the 'likeness' or similarity relation that Socrates has in mind when he says that things 'partake' in a Form. If a thing is like a Form, how can the Form not also be like the thing? But if two things are like one another, isn't that because they participate in the same Form? So again, if Form1 is like things X, Y, and Z, then things X, Y, Z, and Form1 must all partake in the likeness of Form2. And so on. We can sum up these first three problems by observing that no matter how we conceive of the relationship between Forms and things -- whether Forms are things, thoughts, or "patterns set in nature" (132d) -- the unity we would like to have in our Forms keeps fracturing into a multitude. The pluralism of the world of things keeps infecting the monism we desire for the world of Forms.
Even though he's already given three reasons why the Forms might not exist at all in the way we want, Parmenides thinks that the greatest difficulty with the theory lies not in its ontology, but in its epistemology. Even if the Forms exist, how can we know about them? These entities are completely in themselves -- they are alone, self-caused, and not contained in anything else. In particular, they are not in us or any other thing. Even if we think that things are 'like' the Forms, this likeness comes from the internal relationships amongst things and their parts somehow duplicating the pattern of the Form. In short, it seems that Forms and things could never really interact.
"Very good," said Parmenides. "And so all the characters that are what they are in relation to each other have their being in relation to themselves but not in relation to things that belong to us. And whether one posits the latter as likenesses or in some other way, it is by partaking of them that we come to be called by their various names. These things that belong to us, although they have the same names as the forms, are in their turn what they are in relation to themselves but not in relation to the forms; and all the things named in this way are of themselves but not of the forms."
"What do you mean?" Socrates asked.
"Take an example," said Parmenides. "If one of us is somebody's master or somebody's slave, he is surely not a slave of master itself – of what a master is – nor is the master a master of slave itself – of what a slave is. On the contrary, being a human being, he is a master or slave of a human being. Mastery itself, on the other hand, is what it is of slavery itself; and, in the same way, slavery itself is slavery of mastery itself. Things in us do not have their power in relation to forms, nor do they have theirs in relation to us; but, I repeat, forms are what they are of themselves and in relation to themselves, and things that belong to us are, in the same way, what they are in relation to themselves. You do understand what I mean?" (133d)
[I take the plural here to refer to several Forms each in itself, rather than an indication that the Forms interact with one another. I'll punt on whether it functions the same way for the being of things.]
As if this ontological gulf weren't reason enough to conclude that we can never interact with the Forms, Parmenides drives home the point by explicitly pointing out we will never possess the Form of Knowledge. Knowledge itself would be of Truth itself, that is, it would be of the Forms themselves. But our knowledge is always a knowledge of some particular thing. Human knowledge is knowledge of human things, just as human masters are masters of humans and not masters of Slave itself. So without the Form of knowledge being in us, we can't have knowledge of the Forms. If the Forms are truly in and of themselves, then both things and our knowledge inevitably inhabit a parallel universe to theirs.
"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." (134d)
Parmenides goes on to dramatize the point by arguing that if the gods possess this Knowledge itself, they have only made themselves masters of the realm of Forms, and not of the human realm, which they can't know anything about! The constant Greek refrain that the ways of the gods are unknowable is made to cut both ways here.
"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 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." (134e)
By this point you'd think that Parmenides had sufficiently dismantled the theory of Forms that he was ready to offer something in its stead. Unfortunately, no. In fact, it's right at this juncture that he surprisingly concedes that, despite all his arguments, that the Forms must exist, because otherwise we would "destroy the power of the dialectic entirely" (135c). While the translator claims that it's not clear whether he means we would destroy our ability to use words in a normal conversation ("dialectic"), or whether he means we would destroy our philosophical method ("dialectic"), I think it's obvious from the context that he means both. As we saw in Cratylus, Plato sees these two as intimately linked because they both gather together and split apart, trying to carve the world at its joints. So where do we go from here? The theory of Forms is in ruin, but we still need it.
This is precisely where Parmenides' bizarre deductions begin. In other words, yeah, I've only covered 20% of the dialog so far. Parmenides describes his training method as a way for Socrates to rescue the theory of Forms by elaborating it more carefully and thoroughly (135d). The core of the idea seems to be that Socrates must examine not only what the world looks like if the Forms exist, but must consider what it would look like if the Forms did not exist as well. But the set up is so odd that it deserves quoting in full.
"What manner of training is that, Parmenides?" he asked.
"The manner is just what you heard from Zeno," he said. "Except I was 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 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, 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 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 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." (135e)
It's hard to know quite what to make of this rigorous sounding method Parmenides advises. One thing seems certain though; it bears on the Forms themselves, and not merely things. Socrates criticized Zeno for not rising to this level in his analysis. Zeno thought his hypothesis that there are many things resulted in absurdity, in things "wandering between opposites", but for Socrates, this was merely evidence that things are a mixture. Now, it seems, we need to ask whether the Forms are, and whether there are many Forms. There's some sort of connection going on between the theory of Forms, the question of the one versus the many, and the relationship within and across the layers that this theory seems to imply. These are the elements of the problems that Parmenides has touched on, and they seem to me the issues inherent in any interpretation of the theory. There are many Forms each of which is a single entity. They are in themselves and relate only to themselves (though the plural here has become ambiguous). Yet they somehow allow many distinct things to participate in them.
The problem is still a little vague here, but I think this is at least as much Plato's fault as my own. But the real issue comes when we get into Parmenides deductions and find that they don't appear to answer this problem at all. Since Parmenides was the philosopher of the One, he will use that as his example instead of Zeno's many. And he seems to sorta follow the 8 part deduction that he just described.
- If the one IS:
- Consequence for the one in relation to itself
- Consequence for the one in relation to the many
- Consequence for the many in relation to itself
- Consequence for the many in relationship to the one
- If the one is NOT:
- Consequence for the one in relation to itself
- Consequence for the one in relation to the many
- Consequence for the many in relation to itself
- Consequence for the many in relationship to the one
[You might at first think that 1.2 and 1.4, and likewise 2.2 and 2.4 would be redundant, but bear in mind that the relationship in question doesn't have to be symmetrical. Indeed, we already saw a glimmer of this problem when we asked about the likeness between things and Forms -- encountering some asymmetrical relation would come in handy.]
Unfortunately, after Parmenides goes through all 8 parts of his method, we don't appear to have gotten anywhere. It's not as if assuming that the one IS produces some obvious contradiction, but assuming that it is NOT results in consistency. All 8 deductions in fact result in things we would usually consider contradictions, and in addition they appear to mutually contradict one another. So by the end, we don't know whether to conclude that the one is or is not, or that instead the many is or is not, and we certainly haven't reached any sort of obvious truth about whether the Forms are, nor, by implication, whether they are one or many. It's just a complete mess that doesn't seem to have advanced anywhere. I hate to leave it hanging here, but ... I completely lost my train of thought.
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