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.

This is an English translation of one of the more challenging and enigmatic of Plato's dialogues between Socrates and Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, that begins with Zeno defending his treatise of Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by (...) class='Hi'>Plato's immediate audience. (shrink)

"Gill's and Ryan's Parmenides is, simply, superb: the Introduction, more than a hundred pages long, is transparently clear, takes the reader meticulously through the arguments, avoids perverseness, and still manages to make sense of the dialogue as a whole; there is a fine selective bibliography; and those parts of the translation I have looked at in detail suggest that it too is very good indeed." --Christopher Rowe, _Phronesis_.

The reply which Socrates makes to Zeno in the Parmenides and that which he makes to the φιλοθμονς in the Republic are perhaps connected chiefly by the fact that a false interpretation of either might prejudice the other, but it seems convenient to take them together for that reason even if they have not much actual connection in themselves. Both are controversial, and in the case of Socrates' reply to Zeno, no re-statement of it could be secure which did (...) not take account of Parmenides' reply to Socrates. For if Parmenides, as is maintained by some, is not attacking the doctrine of forms as such, but only Socratic theories of their relation with particulars, it would be natural to think that these theories about ‘participation’ had been the substance of Socrates' answer to Zeno. So it is impossible to avoid some discussion of the later passage, however cursory, as a preliminary. (shrink)

Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BCE. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates' execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is likely; that he was critical of 'advanced' democracy is obvious. He lived to be (...) 80 years old. Linguistic tests including those of computer science still try to establish the order of his extant philosophical dialogues, written in splendid prose and revealing Socrates' mind fused with Plato's thought. In Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, Socrates and others discuss separate ethical conceptions. Protagoras, Ion, and Meno discuss whether righteousness can be taught. In Gorgias, Socrates is estranged from his city's thought, and his fate is impending. The Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and the unforgettable Phaedo relate the trial and death of Socrates and propound the immortality of the soul. In the famous Symposium and Phaedrus, written when Socrates was still alive, we find the origin and meaning of love. Cratylus discusses the nature of language. The great masterpiece in ten books, the Republic, concerns righteousness. Of the six so-called dialectical dialogues Euthydemus deals with philosophy; metaphysical Parmenides is about general concepts and absolute being; Theaetetus reasons about the theory of knowledge. Of its sequels, Sophist deals with not-being; Politicus with good and bad statesmanship and governments; Philebus with what is good. The Timaeus seeks the origin of the visible universe out of abstract geometrical elements. The unfinished Critias treats of lost Atlantis. Unfinished also is Plato's last work of the twelve books of Laws, a critical discussion of principles of law which Plato thought the Greeks might accept. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes. (shrink)

A compilation of the essential works of Plato in one paperback volume: The Republic, The Symposium, Parmenides, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo.

The Parmenides is arguably the pivotal text for understanding the Platonic corpus as a whole. I offer a critical analysis that takes as its key the closely constructed dramatic context and mimetic irony of the dialogue. Read with these in view, the contradictory characterizations of the "one" in the hypotheses dissolve and reform as stages in a systematic response to the objections that Parmenides earlier posed to the young Socrates' notions of forms and participation, potentially liberating Socrates from (...) his dependence on sensible simile and yielding a distinctively conceptual articulation of the difference and relation of forms and their sensible participants. The dialogue as a whole thereby functions as the means for the "conversion" of the soul to eidetic being for which Plato has the elder Socrates call in Republic VII. (shrink)

Introduction.--Illustrations of manuscripts and printed books.--Pettas, W. Notes on English translations of Phaedrus.--Lee, P. On the wings of Thymós.--Blaisdell, G. A nobler seduction.--Appendix: The Parmenides fragments.

Plato's Sophist is a dialogue which is key to the understanding of Platonic metaphysics and dialectics: its traditional subtitle is 'On Being.' Thomas Taylor's translation was first published in 1804 as part of his Works of Plato - the first ever complete translation of Plato into English. This Students' Edition volume has extensive notes to help those coming anew to the Sophist to grasp some of the important concepts which stand behind the dialogue. Also added is an (...) extract from Proclus On Forms, Reasons and Dialectic (from his Commentary on the Parmenides); a dissertation, On Ideas, by Thomas Taylor; and two modern essays which the Trust hopes will further the understanding of the newcomer to Plato and his tradition. (shrink)

v. 1. Apologia di Socrate, Critone, Eutifrone, Ione, Carmide, Lachete, Liside, Ippia maggiore, Ippia minore, Protagora, Giorgia, Menone, Fedone, Eutidemo.--v. 2. Cratilo, Simposio, Fedro, Teeteto, Parmenide, Sofista, Filebo.

Parmenides is generally recognized as Plato's most difficult dialogue. This work argues that the key to unlocking the puzzles of Parmenides II lies in the proper interpretive pairing of the eight hypotheses under which its arguments are grouped.

The Parmenides is notorious for the criticisms it directs against Plato's own Theory of Forms, as presented in the middle period. But the second and major portion of the dialogue has generally been avoided, despite its being offered as Plato's response to the problems; the text seems intractably obscure, appearing to consist of a series of bad arguments leading to contradictory conclusions. Carefully analyzing these arguments and the methodological remarks which precede them, Meinwald shows that to understand (...) Plato's response we need to recognize his important distinction between two kinds of predication. Read in the light of this distinction, the arguments can be seen to be sound, and the contradictions merely apparent. Meinwald then proceeds to demonstrate the direct application of Plato's crucial innovation in solving the problems of the first part of the dialogue, including the infamous Third Man. On Meinwald's interpretation, the new distinction is associated with developments in metaphysics which take Plato well beyond the problems commonly thought to tell against Platonism. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

1. Bd. Theaitetos. Der Sophist. Der Staatsmann. Kratylos.--2. Bd. Philebos. Parmenides. Timalos. Kritias.

--2. Bd. Des Sokrates Apologie. Kriton. Euthydemos. Menexenos. Gorgias. Menon. Bearb. von H. Hofmann.--3. Bd. Phaidon. Das Gastmahl. Kratylos. Bearb. von D. Kurz.--4. Bd. Politeia. Der Staat. Bearb. von D. Kurz.--5. Bd. Phaidros. Parmenides. Briefe. Bearb. von D. Kurz.--6. Bd. Theaitetos. Der Sophist. Der Staatsmann. Bearb. von P. Staudacher.--7. Bd. Timaios, Kritias. Philebos. Bearb. von K. Widdra.--8. Bd. Nomōn. Gesetze. Bearb. von K. Schöpsdau. 2 v.

Bd. 1, 1. Phaidros ; Lysis ; Protagoras ; Laches. Bd. 1, 2. Charmides ; Euthyphron ; Parmenides ; Des Sokrates Verteidigung ; Kriton ; Ion ; Hippias, das kleinere Gespräch ; Hipparchos ; Minos ; Alkibiades, der sog. Zweite -- Bd. 2, 1. Gorgias ; Theatetos ; Menon ; Euthydemos. Bd. 2, 2. Kratylos ; Der Sophist ; Der Staatsmann ; Das Gastmahl. Bd. 2, 3. Phaidon ; Philebos ; Theages ; Alkibiades, der sog. Erste ; Menexenos ; (...) Hippias, das grössere Gespräch ; Kleitophon -- Bd. 3. Der Staat. (shrink)

The “revised edition” of the book Allen first published with the University of Minnesota Press in 1983 makes a number of slight changes to the original. In the Preface Allen says that he corrected some typographical errors in the translation of the dialogue and in the 200-plus-page “analysis” now called a “comment.” He or his new editors also added and subtracted a few of the subheadings in the comment, to which he has added two pages on the anachronistic character of (...) the contemporary “thirdman” debate. Unfortunately, Allen did not take the opportunity offered by the reissue of his book—as part of a series of new translations of the dialogues—to respond to three other book-length studies of the Parmenides that appeared after the initial publication of his own, by Constance Meinwald, Mitchell Miller, and Kenneth Sayre. (shrink)