Abstract
Two of the greatest interpreters of Parmenides, Giovanni Casertano and Franco Ferrari, have given opposite interpretations of the role of the character of Parmenides. For Ferrari, Parmenides would only be a critic of ideas, as he equates them with their sensitive participants (thus, he could not be considered one of the prosopa of Plato). For Casertano, on the other hand, Parmenides expresses the ‘metaphysical’ aspects of ideas in accordance with the young Socrates’ discourse on the “prodigy” in the initial part of the dialogue. Neither of the two interpretations presents a Parmenides that represents the figure of Plato adequate for the “dramatic” development of the dialogue. If, on the other hand, we regard them both as integral parts, the image and role of Parmenides could be more appropriate to the bipolar structure of the dialogue and of Plato himself. To this end, I have assumed that Plato unifies in Parmenides his dialectical-deductive method with that of Zeno: the aporetic-paradoxical one that is more open than his to finding ways of escape from any paradoxical arguments. It would be for this reason that Parmenides encourages the young and inexperienced Socrates to follow Zeno’s tropos when defining virtue, also because it was Socrates himself, in the final part of his discourse on the “prodigy,” who praised Zeno for the double courage shown first in criticizing the common sense and the principles of current physics and then in overcoming the contrast between these principles and the more specific mathematizing logic. I identify in this praise of Socrates an assumption, on the part of Parmenides, that the burden of bringing back into ideas the courageous behaviour that Zeno showed in the world of the sensible. I agree with Vlastos in considering Parmenides to be “the manifesto of Plato’s self-criticism,” and in viewing this Parmenides as the prosopon of a Plato that is willing both to level self-criticism at his own stance and to give voice to those who do not think like him and even to those who reject his position.
References
Allen, R. E. (ed.), 1965, Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics, London.
Brancacci, A., 1990, Oikeios logos. La filosofia del linguaggio di Antistene, Napoli.
Casertano, G. et al., 2015, Eleatica 2011. Da Parmenide di Elea al Parmenide di Platone, F. Gambetti, S. Giombini (cur.), Sankt Augustin.
Centrone, B., 2000, Platone, Fedone, trad. e note di M. Valgimigli, Introduzione a note aggiornate di B. Centrone, Roma–Bari.
Cornford, F.M., 2002, Plato and Parmenides. Parmenides’ Way of Truth and Plato’s Parmenides translated with one Introduction and a Running Commentary, London–New York (19391).
Ferrari, F., 2010, “Dinamismo causale e separazione asimmetrica in Platone”, in: Fronterotta 2010, pp. 33–72.
Ferrari, F., 2015, “L’essere (e il non essere) nel Parmenide di Platone”, in: Casertano et al. 2015, pp. 148–152.
Ferrari, F., 20198 (trad.), Platone, Parmenide, Milano.
Fronterotta, F., 1998, Guida alla lettura del Parmenide di Platone, Roma–Bari.
Fronterotta, F. (cur.), 2010, La scienza e le cause a partire dalla Metafisica di Aristotele, Napoli.
Mazzara, G., 2005, “La rhétorique éléatico-gorgienne d’Alcidamas chez Diogène Laërce (IX, 54) et les quatre fonctions fondamentales du logos”, L’Antiquité Classique 74, pp. 51–67.
Mazzara, G., 2010, “L’Aiace e l’Odisseo di Antistene come ipotesi di lettura della teoria del sogno e dei tre sensi di logos dati da Platone per interpretarla”, in: Mazzara, Napoli 2010, pp. 225–262.
Mazzara, G., 2014, “La logica di Antistene nell’Aiace e nell’Odisseo”, in: Súvak 2014, pp. 121–167.
Mazzara, G., 2019, “Platone e Antistene nel Fedone: una lettura in controluce. Parte Prima”, Peitho. Examina antiqua 10, pp. 13–44.
Mazzara, G., 2020, “Platone e Antistene nel Fedone: una lettura in controluce. Parte Seconda”, Peitho. Examina antiqua 11, pp. 33–66.
Mazzara, G., 2022, “Platone, Prm. 133b4–c1/134e9–135b2. Quali logoi nella gumnasia per un tis refrattario alla persuasione e sensibile alle contraddizioni come Antistene?”, Peitho. Examina antiqua 13, pp. 83–124.
Mazzara, G., Napoli, V. (cur.) 2010, Platone. La teoria del sogno nel Teeteto. Atti del Convegno Internazionale. Palermo 2008, Sankt Augustin.
Migliori, M., 2000, Dialettica e verità. Commentario filosofico al “Parmenide” di Platone, Milano (ristampa della prima edizione del 1990).
Rossetti, L., 2020, “Verso la filosofia. Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso”, in: Rossetti et al. 2020, pp. 51–167.
Rossetti, L., 2023, Pensare i Presocratici, da Talete (anzi, da Omero) a Zenone, Milano–Udine.
Rossetti, L. et al., 2020, Eleatica 8: Verso la filosofia: Nuove prospoettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso, N.S. Galgano, S. Giombini, F. Marcacci (cur.), Sankt Augustin.
Sayre, K. M., 1983, Plato’s Late Ontology. A Riddle Resolved, Princeton.
Súvak, V. (ed.), 2014, Anthistenica, Cynica, Socratica, Praha.
Vlastos, G., 1965, “The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides”, in: Allen 1965, pp. 231–263 (orig. in: Philosophical Review 63 (1954), pp. 319–349).
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Peitho provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.