Fritz, Kurt von. 1974. "Zeno of Elea in Plato's Parmenides." In Serta Turynuana: Studies in Greek Literature and Palaeography in honor of Alexander Turyn, edited by Heller, John L. and Newman, J. K., 329–341. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

"As Solmsen has correctly pointed out, Parmenides fundamental concern was different from Plato's. He was concerned with being as being, and what he wanted to prove was that it is impossible for anything that exists to become nothing since the nothing simply does not exist. The logical complement to this is that no thing can arise out of nothing, since the nothing does not exist. The conclusion then is that there can be no real coming to be or passing away, but that what is, is eternal or in a way exempt from time. Yet since this doctrine runs counter to apparent experience and to the common belief based on this experience, Parmenides had to admit the existence of a world of δόξα, of appearance or belief, in which things do come into being or pass away or at least appear to do so. To some extent in the Theaetetus,(15) but most thoroughly in the Sophist Plato deals with the problem, how false appearance or false opinion is possible, and comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish between different modes of being.

Though he says that it is necessary to modify "father" Parmenides doctrine in this respect, he shows at the same time that in his opinion it was the consequence of Parmenides’ thought to assume the existence of two different realms of being, one in which coming to be and passing away is possible and does occur, and another one, the realm of ideas, in which this is not the case, because it is not temporal but extratemporal, hence exempt from change which is a change in time." (pp.339-340)

(15) Plato, Theaetetus 187 d ff.

(16) Plato, Sophistes 236 e ff.
Fujisawa, Norio. 1974. "Εχειν, Μετέχειν, and Idioms of 'Paradeigmatism' in Plato's Theory of Forms." Phronesis no. 19:30–58.

"In this paper I propose to re-examine Plato's terminology in his theory of Forms and try to focus light upon some aspects of philosophical significance in its development with special reference to such basic problems as the Third-Man argument. Attention will be paid first to the systematic distinction drawn by Plato in his middle dialogues between the use of ἔχειν αnd that of μετέχειν a distinction the significance f which seems not to have been well brought out by commentators (sections I and II); then, a general development of Plato's conception of the relation between Forms and particulars will be traced and examined (sections III and IV). An observation on the use of ἔχειν and μετέχειν in Parmenides 133 B-134 E will serve as an introduction to the inquiry." (p. 30)
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1983. "Plato’s Parmenides and Its Influence." Dionysius no. 7:3–16.

Translated from the German by Margaret Kirby-

"The result of our investigation of Plato's Parmenides and of the question as to how far it may be considered as preparing the way for Neoplatonism is therefore not confined to the determination of reinterpretations and glosses of Platonic themes. The investigation of the 'Beginnings of Neoplatonism' which was published by Dodds in 1928 and which was carried through by Theiler, Merlan and Kramer brought them close to Plato, but did not really add anything to the Parmenides. At this point, it seems to me, my investigation goes further. Although they have been transplanted into a new medium, the impulses which are to be found in a more developed form in Plotinus, are nevertheless truly Platonic. One thing is certainly remarkable, however, and that is, that Plotinus obviously completely repressed the dialectical climax which is implicit in the essence of sudden change. Even the notion of sudden change plays no part for him. Herein lies an important indication of what is really peculiar and new to Plotinus. Whoever speaks of sudden change, no matter how much hidden truth he attributes to the timeless wonder of the 'instant', nevertheless holds fast to the concept of being which Parmenides formulated: being is that which does not change. Plotinus' concept of the soul on the other hand, has completely transformed the concept of being into the concept of a self-related power; a dynamis which thinks itself. With this he has for the first time given priority to reflection in the field of ontological questions. He stands at the threshold of a new age. This compels us to think. We too today stand at the threshold of a new age which we only see emerging gradually. It points in the opposite direction, towards a reformation of the sovereign self-consciousness of modernity and its grounding of all knowledge in subjectivity. Thus Plato might at times seem closer to us today than the modern subjective way of thinking and perhaps even closer than the Platonism of later antiquity, which inclines towards the Christian age of inwardness." (pp. 15-16)
Gardner, Darren. 2018. "The Ambiguity of the ‘One’ in Plato’s Parmenides." Méthexis no. 30:36–59.

Abstract: "This paper examines how the exercises offered to the young Socrates in the Parmenides can be understood as an educational practice, or a gymnastic that is prior to and instrumental for defining forms. To this end, I argue that the subject of the exercises given to Socrates can be understood as an open and indeterminate ‘one’, rather than a form per se. I show that the description of the gymnastic exercises, the demonstration of the hypotheses themselves, and the language concerning the ‘one’, are consistent with an indeterminate subject ‘one’.
———. 2019. "The Argumentative Unity of Plato’s Parmenides." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy no. 34:33–40.

Abstract: "This commentary examines several key points in David Horan’s paper “The Argumentative Unity of Plato’s Parmenides.” First, I discuss the general view of the paper, which engages with the first two hypotheses and in particular, the thought experiment passage in hypothesis 2 that is seen as a key to resolving the dilemma of participation. I consider the proposed view that hypothesis 1 takes up from its premise a strictly unitary, or non-multiple “one,” and hypothesis 2 takes up from its premise a one that admits of multiplicity, not a non-multiple “one.” I argue for an alternative reading whereby the premise of hypothesis 1 is not “if one is one” and hypothesis 2 is “if one is not one,” but rather that both hypotheses fall under the premise “if one is.”
———. 2019. "Commentary on Horan." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy no. 34:33–40.

Abstract: "This commentary examines several key points in David Horan’s paper “The Argumentative Unity of Plato’s Parmenides.” First, I discuss the general view of the paper, which engages with the first two hypotheses and in particular, the thought experiment passage in hypothesis 2 that is seen as a key to resolving the dilemma of participation.

I consider the proposed view that hypothesis 1 takes up from its premise a strictly unitary, or non-multiple “one,” and hypothesis 2 takes up from its premise a one that admits of multiplicity, not a non-multiple “one.” I argue for an alternative reading whereby the premise of hypothesis 1 is not “if one is one” and hypothesis 2 is “if one is not one,” but rather that both hypotheses fall under the premise “if one is”."
———. 2019. "Plato’s Parmenides and The Knowable Many: Cosmos as Discursive Order in Hypothesis 3." Études platoniciennes no. 15:1–22.

Abstract: "In this paper, I argue that hypothesis 3 of Plato’s Parmenides presents a kind of cosmological lesson that shows why the “one” needs to be understood as an essential principle of order when examining what the “others” to the “one” would be like. At face value, the “others” are defined as opposite to the “one,” and so they cannot be “one.” Nevertheless, Parmenides claims that the “others” must not be entirely devoid of the “one.” This is because the kind of “one” in question, a form-like principle rather than a unit, is responsible for the “others” to be a discursive “many” which is required for them to be considered as “others” in the first place. I argue against the view that pairing of hypothesis 3 and 4 is merely aporetic, and propose that the lessons of hypothesis 3 can be sustained in light of hypothesis 4. The benefit of this reading is that Parmenides’ claim that denying forms would destroy the power of dialogue at 135c2 can be seen as upheld. And it contributes to the task of learning to think through the relationship of forms and participants by examining the way that discursive “others” are different from, but essentially dependent upon on a form-like principle of order."
———. 2022. "Thought Experiments: Διάνοια as Propaedeutic Reasoning in Plato’s Parmenides." In Philodorema: Essays in Greek and Roman Philosophy in Honor of Phillip Mitsis, edited by Konstan, David and Sider, David, 85–98. Fonte Aretusa: Parnassos Press.

"Plato’s Parmenides offers a host of challenges, not the least of which is understanding the hypotheses that populate the second half of the dialogue. If we are to take Parmenides at his word, the hypotheses, which are described as “gymnastic exercises” (135c8), are intended to help the youthful Socrates to strengthen his thinking about forms.(2) In particular, Socrates is uncertain of how to disarm Parmenides’s critical assessment of his underdeveloped view of forms (13a8-135b1). Socrates does not yet understand, for instance, whether there are forms for all things (130e1); whether forms remain undivided when they inform multiple participants (131b1); if things participate in forms through likeness (132a-ff); and, whether knowledge of forms is possible if they are wholly separate from us (133b4). Nevertheless, Parmenides is quite clear when he tells Socrates that despite the formidable challenges, forms are not only necessary for dialectic, but also for philosophy (135b5). The need to reconsider the nature of a form is therefore an essential task in the Parmenides, if Socrates is to learn how philosophy is to be saved. To do so, Parmenides informs Socrates that he must train through a gymnastic exercise that will help him to resolve these and other challenges to prepare him to rightly consider forms." (p. 85)

(2) πρῲ γάρ, εἰπεῖν, πρὶν γυμνασθῆναι, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὁρίζεσθαι ἐπιχειρεῖς καλόν τέ τι καὶ δίκαιον καὶ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἓν ἕκαστον τῶν εἰδῶν.
Gerson, Lloyd P. 1981. "Dialectic and Forms in Part One of Plato's Parmenides." Apeiron no. 15:19–28.

"In this paper I should like to consider all four of the objections or dilemmas Parmenides raises against Socrates' theory. I do not believe that any of these can be understood properly in isolation from the rest. I shall argue that they are to be understood as links in a dialectical chain of argument which taken together comprises a super dilemma concerning participation and the separation of Forms. Thus, none of the arguments stand on their own. This assertion, if true, would cast a very different light on the way the arguments are normally treated. I shall also suggest that the super dilemma of part one provides the key to the interpretation of the desperately convoluted second part of the dialogue." (p. 19)
———. 2002. "Plato's Development and the Development of the Theory of Forms." In Plato's Forms: Varieties of Interpretation, edited by Welton, William, 85–110. Lanham: Lexington Books.

"I propose to set aside for now questions of Plato's development. Rather, I shall focus on the development of the theory of Forms, using the word "development" in a distinct sense. By "development'' in the present context I mean, roughly, logical development, in the sense in which, for example, Aquinas' Summa contra gentiles contains a logical development of a theological position or a calculus textbook might contain a logical development of calculus from geometry. This sense of development is close to but not identical with an expository development. I am not here suggesting that there is one way to approach the theory of Forms or that Plato had one way of explaining it. Therefore, I am not directly interested in finding the "correct" expository order of the dialogues as were so many early Platonists. What I am suggesting is that the theory of Forms shares with other scientific theories that posit explanatory entities a basic logic. The logic follows the explanatory exigencies. For example, quantum mechanics posits certain explanatory entities and from that follows certain questions. These questions do not necessarily have a strict order, but they do arise from the exigencies of the explanatory model. And the answers to these questions comprise in part the development of the theory.

Detaching the study of the logic of the theory of Forms from the historical development of its author might well mean that they can never be reattached. So be it. In the last section of the chapter 1 shall return to this issue and ask whether the consensus about the main lines of chronology together with the results about logical development enable us to draw any substantive conclusions about Plato's development." (pp. 86-87)
———. 2004. "Plato on Identity, Sameness, and Difference." The Review of Metaphysics no. 58:305–332.

"Among the concepts central to Plato's metaphysical vision are those of identity, sameness, and difference."

(...)

"In this paper, I propose to explore some of the systematic connections between these concepts.

Translators have sometimes obscured the fact that there are such connections. The Greek terms ταὐτόν, ἕτερον, and ὅμοιον (ἀνόμοιον) are variously rendered, often in ways that obscure the metaphysics. For example, ταὐτόν is most commonly rendered in English as "same," which, predictably, leads ὅμοιον to be translated as "like" or "similar." This has suggested to some that if two things are "like" or "similar," then they are not "the same." But "like" and "similar" are not, as I shall show, well-formed or perspicuous metaphysical concepts. There is no justification for foisting them on Plato; rendering the terms thus often leads scholars to miss the force of Plato's arguments.

In addition, translating ταὐτόν as "same" threatens to trivialize a fundamental concept in Plato, leading to complaints that to say that something is "the same as itself" is to say nothing at all." (p. 305)
———. 2016. "The « Neoplatonic » interpretation of Plato’s « Parmenides »." The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition no. 10:65–94.

Abstract: "In his highly influential 1928 article ‘The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic “One”,’ E.R. Dodds argued, inter alia, that among the so-called Neoplatonists Plotinus was the first to interpret Plato’s Parmenides in terms of the distinctive three ‘hypostases’, One, Intellect, and Soul. Dodds argued that this interpretation was embraced and extensively developed by Proclus, among others. In this paper, I argue that although Plotinus took Parmenides to contain a sort of outline of the true metaphysical principles, he understood the One of the first hypothesis of the second part of the dialogue in a way importantly different from the way that Proclus understood it.

The characterization of this One, especially its identity with the Idea of the Good of Republic, has significant ramification for Plotinus’ philosophy that set it apart from Proclus’ philosophy in ways hitherto infrequently noted. The widely accepted reasons for rejecting Proclus’ interpretation do not apply to the interpretation of Plotinus. The two different interpretations help explain why Proclus’ notorious proliferation of entities in the intelligible realm is not found in Plotinus."
———. 2022. "Plotinus and Parmenides." In Plato's Parmenides: Selected Papers of the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Brisson, Luc, Macé, Arnaud and Renault, Olivier, 491–499. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag.

Abstract: "In this paper, I consider and defend Plotinus’ interpretation of the second part of Plato’s Parmenides. According to this interpretation, the first three hypotheses of the second part refer to the three fundamental principles of Platonic metaphysics: the One, Intellect, and Soul. I argue that Plotinus understands Plato throughout the second part to be speaking “logically” about oneness, making what we would call “conceptual” distinctions among various senses of “one”. Making these distinctions is essential to being able to provide solutions to the problems raised for the theory of Forms in the first part of the dialogue."
Gill, Mary Louise. 2002. "Plato on Being a Not-Being: The Text of Parmenides 162a-b." In Noctes Atticae: 34 articles on Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Its Nachleben. Studies Presented to Joergen Mejer on His Sixtieth Birthday, edited by Amden, Bettina, Flensted-Jensen, Pernilla, Heine Nielsen, Thomas, Schwartz, Adam and Gorm Tortzen, Chr., 121–129. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
———. 2006. "Problems for Forms." In A Companion to Plato, edited by Benson, Hugh H., 184–198. Malden: Blackwell.

"In this chapter we shall focus on the main problems for Forms raised in the first part of the Parmenides. My own view, which I cannot defend in detail here, is that the Parmenides as a whole, including the philosophical exercise, has a single overall purpose: to show that there must be Forms, or intelligible objects of some sort, if we are to explain the world at all.(1) Thus the objections to Forms raised in the first part of the dialogue are to be taken very seriously. The presentation of Forms and their relations to sensible things in the late dialogues is therefore likely to differ in some important respects from that in dialogues such as the Phaedo and Republic. This chapter will focus, not on those further developments, but on singling out the main problems for Forms Plato thought he needed to address."

(1) Gill 1996. This chapter is an adaptation of parts of the first half of that longer work. All translations of the Parmenides come from the translations by Gill and Ryan 1996, reprinted in J. M. Cooper (ed.) Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997). Translations from works other than the Parmenides are my own.

References

Gill, M. L. (1996). Introduction. In M. L. Gill and P. Ryan (eds.) Plato: Parmenides (pp. 1–109). Indianapolis: Hackett.
———. 2012. Philosophos: Plato’s Missing Dialogue. New York: Oxford University Press.

"In my view the Parmenides holds the key to Plato’s strategy in our series of dialogues and to the question about its missing member. In the first part of the dialogue a youthful Socrates presents and Parmenides criticizes Plato’s theory of forms—the view that there are eternal, unchanging objects, grasped by the intellect and not by the senses, which explain selected features of things in the changing world around us— and Socrates proves unable to rescue the theory.(9) At the end of the critique Parmenides claims that Socrates has posited forms too soon, before he has been properly trained, and the second part of the dialogue demonstrates the sort of training he has in mind.(10)

In the transitional section leading up to the demonstration, Parmenides recommends that once Socrates has completed the upcoming exercise he should start again, repeating it with variations. Whereas the demonstration in the Parmenides concerns the form of oneness, Socrates should perform similar exercises taking as his subject likeness, unlikeness, change, rest, being, not-being, and similar entities (Prm. 136b1–c5). Parmenides’ recommendation suggests that new rounds of the exercise will bear some resemblance to the exercise in the second part of the Parmenides. I argue below that Plato presents a second round of the exercise repeating the dialectical pattern of argument in the Parmenides and that this second round is especially relevant to the missing Philosopher. At the end of this Introduction I set out this dialectical pattern, since it provides the backbone of my book.(11)" (p. 3)

(9) Our topic in Chapter 1 below.

(10) Our topic in Chapter 2.

(11) In Chapters 2, 3, and 7.
———. 2014. "Design of the Exercise in Plato’s Parmenides." Dialogue. Canadian Philosophical Review no. 53:495–520.

Abstract: "In Part I of Parmenides, Socrates introduces a Theory of Forms to explain opposites compresent in ordinary things, and claims that Forms cannot have opposite features. In Part II, Parmenides relies on Socrates’ claim and derives unacceptable consequences—that the Form of Oneness does not exist, and if that is so, then nothing exists: a clearly false conclusion. To avoid it, Socrates must give up his thesis in Part I and find a way to preserve the explanatory role of Forms. This paper aims to articulate the structure of the exercise in Part II."
———. 2022. "Exercise on Being: The ἀγών of Heraclitus and Parmenides." In Plato's Parmenides: Selected Papers of the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Brisson, Luc, Macé, Arnaud and Renault, Olivier, 149–162. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag.

Abstract: "At the end of the first part of Plato’s Parmenides, after Socrates has failed to rescue his theory of forms from objections, Parmenides urges him to get more philosophical training, stressing that without proper training the truth will escape him. Among his recommendations, Parmenides advises Socrates that, once he completes the upcoming exercise on oneness, he should repeat it taking other kinds as his focus: likeness, unlikeness, change, rest, generation, destruction, being, and not-being. This paper argues that new rounds will not repeat the exercise on oneness in the second part of the Parmenides, since different kinds raise different problems. Instead, each exercise will explore the problems special to the kind at issue. In this paper I examine a second round of the exercise, the exercise on being.

Central to this exercise is the nature of being: is it changing (as Heraclitus thought) or resting (as Parmenides thought)? That is the contest (ἀγών) of Heraclitus and Parmenides. I argue that the general strategy used in treating the positive hypothesis in the Parmenides in four steps recurs in the second exercise and takes place across parts of the Theaetetus and Sophist.

The first two steps present opposite extremes. Step 1: being is changing (Heraclitus); step 2: being is resting (Parmenides). Step 3 proposes a middle path between the extremes: being is both changing and resting. Step 4 then undermines the solution: being is neither changing nor resting. Each exercise challenges the student to find a way back to step 3, a constructive reconciliation of the extremes."
———. 2024. "Knowledge and Forms in Plato’s Parmenides and Sophist." In Platonism: Proceedings of the 43rd International Wittgenstein Symposium, edited by Hrachovec, Herbert and Mácha, Jakub, 9–30. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Abstract: "Platonic forms explain certain features of perceptible things and equip us to know them. This paper examines three passages: the Greatest Difficulty in the Parmenides shows that Socrates’ failure to explain participation, the relation between sensible things and forms, renders forms unknowable to us. The Battle of Gods and Giants in the Sophist treats forms as immutable, but their immutability apparently rules out their intelligibility. The Stranger offers a path forward by defining being as power, a solution then undermined in the Aporia about Being, which reveals that the form of being is neither immutable nor intelligible. This paper shows where the Aporia goes wrong and opens a way back to the constructive proposal in the Battle of Gods and Giants. The paper finally considers how forms are affected in being known and gestures toward Plato’s solution to the problem of participation."
Giovannetti, Lorenzo. 2022. "Structure and sense of the seventh deduction in Prm. 164b5-165e1." In Plato's Parmenides: Selected Papers of the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Brisson, Luc, Macé, Arnaud and Renault, Olivier, 431–438. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag.

Abstract: "The paper first analyses the seventh series of deductions (D7) in the second part of the Parmenides. The starting-point of D7 is that without the One, the others differ from one another. The reciprocal differentiation between the many others produces masses. These masses are indeterminate because of the absence of the One. This means at least two things: a) there is no end in dividing a mass; b) masses appear to be different at different times. The text goes on to explain the way masses appear to be different at different times.

Parmenides does not disambiguate whether the argument is about quantities or qualities, thereby suggesting it is about both of them. Thereafter, the paper summarises philosophically relevant arguments that can be drawn from the text. First, reciprocal differentiation is the ontological basis of the notion of appearance in such a way that self-differentiation, indeterminacy and appearance are conceptually connected. Second, masses resemble concrete particulars, which without the One lose every proper determination. Third, one can never find intelligible unity in physically dividing concrete particulars in space and time. Fourth, the overall argument suggests that the One is what the others are different from as well as what provides them with unity. Finally, it seems that D7 deduces the consequences for the many in absence of the One with regard to the other, i.e. the One."
Gjørup, Ivar. 2011. "Plato’s Parmenides 127 e." Classica et Mediaevalia:33–37.
Glasner, Ruth. 1992. "The Problem of Beginning, Middle and End in Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Parmenides 137d." Hermes no. 120:194–204.

"The problem of the distinction between parts and boundaries, particularly with respect to the concepts of beginning, middle and end, is important to the understanding of Proclus' conception of the basic definitions of geometry, as well as to that of his hierarchical world picture. Dillon, in his introduction to the sixth book of the commentary, rightly describes Proclus' treatment of the subject as «less than clear» (p. 397). I think also that the fact that Proclus endeavors to defend Plato against his critics requires explanation, since Proclus is aware of the distinction between part and boundary and its significance. Let us, hence, follow Proclus' defense of Plato in the commentary on the 'Parmenides', taking also into account other relevant passages in his writings.

Proclus offers two replies, the first in 1111.35-1112.23 the second from 1112.23 to 1113.29. I shall take Proclus second reply first, because it involves the clarification of the concept part, and then deal with his first." (p. 195)

References

G. R. Morrow and J. M. Dillon Proclus Commentary on Plato's Parmenides (Princeton, 1987).
Gonzalez, Francisco J. 2008. "Plato's question of truth (versus Heidegger's doctrines)." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy no. 23:83–119.

Abstract: "Heidegger's thesis that truth underwent in Plato a fateful transformation from unconcealment to correctness is well-known because defended in an essay that Heidegger published during his lifetime and that has been widely read since: Plato's Doctrine of Truth. One goal of the present paper, however, is to show how Heidegger's interpretation of the Republic's Cave Analogy in the 1931 course from which the essay is supposedly derived, as well as his interpretation of the Myth of Er in the Parmenides course delivered shortly after the essay's composition, are in tension with, and even undermine, the essay's thesis. The other, and more important, goal of my paper is to show that this richer interpretation offers a fruitful approach to the question of truth in Plato that is missed by both Heidegger's detractors and his defenders."
———. 2019. "Shattering Presence: Being as Change, Time as the Sudden Instant in Heidegger’s 1930–31 Seminar on Plato’s Parmenides." Journal of the History of Philosophy no. 57:313–338.

Abstract "The importance of Plato for Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of the history of metaphysics is now well known and documented. However, what is arguably his most radical interpretation of a Platonic dialogue, a 1930–31 seminar on the Parmenides, remains largely unknown and for two reasons. First, while Heidegger’s notes were published in 2012 as part of the Gesamtausgabe (vol. 83), they are brief, cryptic, and cover barely half the seminar. We know this because a detailed and complete transcript is preserved in the Marcuse Archive in Frankfurt am Main, a transcript ignored by the editor of GA83 and not previously explored in significant detail. Second, Heidegger preserved a puzzling silence elsewhere about the seminar’s findings (which undermine his narrative about the history of metaphysics).

The present paper seeks to reconstruct the argument of the seminar both for its insight into the special role played by the ‘third’ hypothesis in the deductions of the second half of the Parmenides and for the light it sheds on Heidegger’s unfinished Auseinandersetzung with Plato."
———. 2022. "“Let us say the third”: The Meaning of τὸ τρίτον in the Deductions of Plato’s Parmenides." In Plato's Parmenides: Selected Papers of the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Brisson, Luc, Macé, Arnaud and Renault, Olivier, 378–391. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag.

Abstract: "Among the many sections of argument concerning the One in the second half of Plato’s Parmenides, only one is explicitly numbered: the third (to triton, 155e4). This suggests, on the face of it, that it is to be counted both after and among the first two deductions (or ’hypotheses’), as one of them. Yet one rare area of consensus today, met with only a few dissenting voices, is that it is not to be counted as a third deduction at all and can even be ignored in interpreting the genuine deductions: the only argument explicitly counted is the one that does not count. Here I propose counting it, not by treating it as simply one deduction among others, but by recognizing Plato’s use of the phrase to triton elsewhere to refer to what is neither one of two opposed things because it encompasses both. The ‘third’ argument of the Parmenides enables us to affirm both of the opposed deductions that preceded it, the first attributing to the One neither one characteristic nor its opposite and the second attributing to it both each characteristic and its opposite. It furthermore does so in a way that suggests it could mediate all of the opposed pairs of both/and, neither/nor deductions that constitute the dialectical exercise. In this case the ‘third’ stands outside of the four sets of opposed deductions because it represents the mediation that makes them all possible and equally acceptable."
Gordon, Jill. 2010. "Erotic Desire and Courage in Plato’s Parmenides." Ancient Philosophy no. 40:261–287.
Graeser, Andreas. 2000. "Parmenides in Plato’s Parmenides." Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter no. 5:1–14.

Abstract: "This essay examines the role of Parmenides in Plato’s dialogue of the same name. Over against the widely held view that this literary figure exemplifies the philosopher par excellence of an all-encompassing systematic of Eleatic provenience, it is maintained that Parmenides represents a particular frame of mind about certain philosophical matters, namely one which regards forms in a reified manner. It is suggested that by means of the literary figure of Parmenides, Plato is addressing in his dialogue inner-Academic debates about the theory of forms, especially Speusippus’ conception of Unity, which betrays a kind of naive metaphysics of things, as can be seen especially in the first three deductions of the second half of the dialogue."
———. 2010. "Plato's Parmenides." In The Fog Dispelled: Two Studies in Plato's Later Thought, 15–78. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.

Originally published in German as Platons Parmenides, Stuttgart: F. Steiner 2003; translation by Ann M. Hentschel.
Granieri, Roberto. 2024. "Plato on the Power of Dialectic and the Necessity of Forms." Rhizomata no. 12:51–78.

Abstract: "In the Parmenides Plato claims that by relinquishing Forms one would entirely destroy tên tou dialegesthai dunamin. I argue that this peculiar phrase does not indicate, as often suggested, the power or possibility of all discourse or thought, but the power of dialectic, i. e. the highest science; and that its preservation is, for Plato, a decisive reason for the necessity of the Forms."
Gurtler, Gary M. 1992. "Plotinus and the Platonic Parmenides." International Philosophical Quarterly no. 32:443–457.
Haas, Andrea. 2021. "One One, or the Unity of Being in Plato’s Parmenides." Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy no. 26:69–87.

Abstract: "Being can no longer be thought, for Plato, in accordance with Parmenides’ either/or; rather, it is both/and, both present in and absent from things, which is how they can come-to-presence and go-out-into-absence. But as the Parmenides demonstrates, Greek grammar hints at a fundamental ontological truth: the expression, “one one,” ἓν ἕν, shows that being can be implied, neither present nor absent—for being is an implication. But then participating must be rethought in terms of implying: being is implied in everything that is and is one, which is how it is present in beings and absent therefrom. But this understanding of participation—as Aristotle insists—is contradictory. Luckily, there is another way: implication qua belonging—being no longer participates-in, but belongs-to things, which is how it is one with them, distinct but inseparable. But this too, betrays implication, fails to grasp being’s way of being, and the meaning of being qua implied, and so cannot illuminate how being and beings are and are one—for as the suspension of presence and/or absence, implying is irreducible to participating or belonging. Rather, if being is implied, it is because implication is suspension, which is why it is so suspenseful."
Halper, Edward. 1990. "A Note on the Unity of the 'Parmenides'." Hermes no. 118:31–42.

"Despite a mass of recent work on Plato's 'Parmenides', there remain persistent doubts about the unity of the dialogue's two parts'. In the first part (126a-the title figure directs criticisms against what is usually recognized as the forms that Plato espouses in his middle dialogues. The second part (136c-166b) consists of a sketch and an application of a method of philosophical exercise. Doubts about the unity of the dialogue stem from the apparent failure of the second part to answer the criticisms of the first part. The purpose of this note is to present what I regard as decisive evidence for the unity of the dialogue." (p. 31)

(,,,)

"These remarks on the overall aim of the dialogue belong to the realm of speculation, as all such analyses are likely to do. I can plead that my remarks fare no worse than other interpretations, and indeed a good deal better if my topical analysis is correct. One reason that the 'Parmenides' continues to fascinate scholars is that the dialogue says too little to determine what its aim really is. But even this reticence tends to support my contention that the second part is intended to be an exposition of metaphysical topics in a way that avoids making the assumptions implicit in Socrates' account of forms, and an exposition that shows the dire consequences of denying the forms entirely. Since I am unable to argue this interpretation, I content myself with concluding that, whatever we are to make of the overall aim of the dialogue, the second part expounds more fully the topics employed in the first part and the two parts thus form a unity," (p. 42)
———. 2003. "Positive and Negative Dialectics: Hegel’s Wissenschaft der Logik and Plato’s Parmenides." In Platonismus im Idealismus: Die platonische Tradition in der klassischen deutschen Philosophie, edited by Mojsisch, Burkhard and Summerell, Orrin, 211–246. Berlin: B. G. Teubner.

"There is a substantial body of literature on Hegel's understanding of the Parmenides. There are three main issues: 1. how Hegel developed from his Jenaer notion that the Parmenides makes a case for skepticism,(9) 2. whether or not he correctly understood Plato(10) and 3. whether or, rather, how his dialectic differs from Plato's.(11) The first issue has been adequately treated. Hegel's discussion of skepticism belongs to the period when he still thought of logic as a propaedeutic to metaphysics, before he identified the two. Addressing the second issue requires a solid understanding of the Parmenides, but despite the large literature on this dialogue, there is no consensus even on basic issues. Although Hegel is surely mistaken on some points of detail, it is important to allow for the possibility that his method, his choice of problems or his unstated systematic assumptions could arise from this dialogue and even, perhaps, reflect a deep understanding of it. But the problems here are too large and difficult to tackle directly all at once. So let me set aside, for now, the second issue.

The focus of my attention will, then, be the third issue, how Hegel's dialectic differs from Plato's. I shall begin from Hegel's claim that Plato's dialectic is negative, and my guiding questions are: 1. whether, how and why Plato's dialectic is negative; 2. why Hegel understands it to be negative and what he does to make dialectic positive." (pp. 212-213)

(10) See H.-G. Gadamer, Hegel und die antike Dialektik, in: id., Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 3, Tübingen 1987, 20. Gadamer thinks that Hegel misunderstood the literal meaning of Plato's dialectic, but grasped, at least in the Sophistes, its deeper truth as a foundation for the hermeneutical understanding of speech.(...)

(11) G. Maluschke, Kritik und absolute Methode in Hegels Dialektik, Bonn 1974, 54, sees the decisive difference to lie in Hegel's reconstruction of the categories into a system. K. Düsing, Formen der Dialektik bei Plato und Hegel, in: Hegel und die antike Dialektik, hrsg. von M. Riedel, Frankfurt a. M. 1990, 190-191, notes, among other differences, that the meaning of the forms remains unaltered in Platonic dialectic, whereas the categories are altered and enriched in Hegelian dialectic. M. Gessman, Skepsis und Dialektik. Hegel und der Platonische Parmenides, in: Skeptizismus und spekulatives Denken in der Philosophie Hegels, hrsg. von H. F. Fulda, R.-P. Horstmann, Stuttgart 1996, 51, contrasts the inconclusive flux of Platonic dialectic with Hegel's systematic, scientific method that purports to arrive at knowledge.
Harte, Verity. 2002. Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

"This book is an examination of Plato's treatment of the relation between a whole and its parts. It is focused on discussion of relevant passages from a group of Plato's later works: (in roughly the order of my discussion) Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist, Philebus, and Timaeus. By ‘later’ I mean no more than after the Republic, which I take to be uncontroversial, if anything is uncontroversial as regards Platonic chronology. Of the works I shall consider, there is—or has been—considerable controversy surrounding the dating of the Timaeus within the post-Republic period.(1) I myself find it more natural to take the Timaeus together with the Philebus, in some order or other, and to take them both to post-date the Parmenides.(2) However, since I am not proposing a developmental story about Plato's views of part and whole (on which, see further below), nothing in what I say depends on any particular chronology for the works I discuss." (Introduction, 1)

(1) Compare Owen (1953 ) with Cherniss (1957 ).

(2) But: contrast Waterfield (1980 ).

References

Cherniss, H. (1957), ‘The Relation of the Timaeus to Plato's Later Dialogues’, American Journal of Philology, 78: 225–66.

Owen, G. E. L. (1953), ‘The Place of the Timaeus in Plato's Dialogues’, Classical Quarterly, ns 3: 79–95; repr. in Owen (1986: 65–84).

—— (1986), Logic, Science and Dialectic: Collected Papers in Greek Philosophy, G. E. L. Owen, ed. Martha Nussbaum (London: Duckworth).

Waterfield, R. A. H. (1980), ‘The Place of the Philebus in Plato's Dialogues’, Phronesis, 25: 270–305.
———. 2018. "Aporia in Plato’s Parmenides." In The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy, edited by Karamanolis, George and Politis, Vasilis, 67–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"‘The Parmenides’, says Richard Robinson, ‘comes nearest of all Plato’s works to being wholly methodological’ (1942: 178). Robinson seems to me right to be struck by the extent of the Parmenides’ focus on method and, more particularly, by the way in which this focus unifies the dialogue (1942: 176). Indeed, I would go further than Robinson in seeing this unity of focus extend back to the opening conversation of the dialogue proper, the conversation between Socrates and Zeno, all too often treated merely as a convenient excuse for Socrates’ introduction of forms.(1) Attention to this unity across the (reported) dialogue and the careful structure it reveals involving the three reported conversations and their relations to one another is one pay off, I shall argue, of attention to the dialogue’s use of ‘aporia’ and its cognates." (p. 67)

(1) Allen 1997: 75 is one notable exception, dividing the dialogue into not two, but three unevenly sized parts.

References

Allen, R. E. (1997) Plato’s Parmenides, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Robinson, R. (1942) ‘Plato’s Parmenides II’, Classical Philology 37: 159–86.
Havlícek, Ales, and Karfík, Filip, eds. 2005. Plato's Parmenides: Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium Platonicum Pragense. Prague: Oikoymenh.

Contents: Preface 7; Constance C. Meinwald: Literary elements and dialogue form in Plato's Parmenides 9; Dimitri El Murr: La critique de la participation en Parménide, 131a-132b: unité, unicité et le paradoxe de Zenon 21; Béatriz Bossi: Is Socrates really defending conceptualism in Parmenides, 132b3-d4? 58; Karel Thein: The second "Third Man Argument": what difference does the likeness make? 75; Francesco Fronterotta: Methexis et Korismos dans l'interpretation du Parménide de Platon 88; Kenneth Sayre: The method revisited: Parmenides, 135e9-136c6 125; Filip Karfik: Par rapport a soi-meme et par rapport aux autres. Une distinction clef dans le Parménide de Platon 141; Samuel Scolnicov: The conditions of knowledge in Plato's Parmenides 165; Stepán Spinka: Relation, Sein und Zeit 181; David Ambuel: On what is not: Eleatic paradox in the Parmenides and the Sophist 200; Luc Brisson: Les quatre dernières series de deductions dans la seconde partie du Parménide de Platon 216; Denis O'Brien: Le Parménide historique et le Parménide de Platon 234; Luc Brisson: Réponse a Denis O'Brien 257; Monique Dixsaut: Les hypothèses du Parménide: construire des mondes conceptuels possibles 263; John Dillon: Speusippus and the ontological interpretation of the Parmenides 296; Index locorum 313-323.
Heckel, Marta. 2021. "Parmenides's Love of Honor and Lessons about How (Not) to Do Philosophy from Plato's Parmenides." Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy no. 26:47–68.

Abstract: "In this paper, I show that the Parmenides provides important insight into how to properly engage in philosophical discussion—or, more accurately, how not to engage in it. From references to age, love-of-winning and love-of-honor, and a parallel to the Phaedo, I show that Parmenides is ruled by the spirited part of his soul in a way that compromises his ability to philosophize, and that the Parmenides is a warning about doing philosophy from a love of honor. Ideally, we should do philosophy from a love of wisdom. When we are honor-loving, we are not only motivated by the wrong kind of thing, but our love of honor can also blind us to the specific ways in which we might be falling short of ideal philosophical engagement, such as missing the potential dangers of engaging in philosophy with certain kinds of interlocutors."
Heiser, John H. 1991. "Plotinus and the Apeiron of Plato's Parmenides." The Thomist no. 55:53–81.

"In my view, the only way to appreciate Plotinus's achievement, and to learn from him, is to take these difficulties with great seriousness and to struggle through them with Plotinus.

Another point most commentators overlook is something I take to be both a fruit and a clue to much of what Plotinus says about the Infinite Source of the universe. This is that, in explaining why the One should be called " infinite," Plotinus is presenting his e:xiegesis of a perplexing passage in Plato's Parmenides.(2) Rather than following his own line of thought to the conclusion that the One must be infinite, we see Plotinus casting about for some meaning he can assign to a term he is confronted with. I happen to think that his exegesis of Plato is mistaken. This raises the interesting possibility that Plotinus's breakthrough, if it is a breakthrough and not an aberration, resulted by accident from a mistake." (p. 54)

(2) Most commentators simply ignore the point, but Professor Armstrong, who is usually so alert to sources, makes the surprising statement that "there is no clear evidence that Plato ever thought or spoke of the One or Good as in any sense apeiron" ("Doctrine of the Infinite," p. 48). Professor Rist goes further and claims that "the 'beyond Being' of Plato must mean a finite Being in some way beyond other finite beings" (Road to Reality, p. 24). But Rist appears to assume he and his readers share a common understanding of what it means to be "infinite," one that goes without saying. I am unable to make out what that is.

References

A. H. Armstrong, "Plotinus' Doctrine of the Infinite and its Significance for Christian Thought," Downside Review 73 ( 1955) : 47-58.

John M. Rist. Plotinus: The Road to Reality, Cambridge University Press 1977.
Helmig, Christoph. 2007. "Plato’s Arguments against Conceptualism: Parmenides 132 B3-C11 Reconsidered." Elenchos no. 28:303–336.

"With the suggestion that Forms are thoughts, young Socrates introduces ἀπορία three, and the text makes it clear that he is addressing problems raised in ἀπορία one and two. If the Forms are thoughts, Socrates maintains, they no longer face the difficulties mentioned in the first two ἀπορίαι, because as thoughts each of them is one(4). Hence, we have to keep in mind that with his conceptualist thesis Socrates wants primarily to safeguard the unity of the Forms. In his twofold reply, Parmenides will not question this unity, but demonstrates that a Form is rather an object of thought (νοούμενον) and not a thought (νόημα), that is, a thought-process.

The argument is based on the assumption that every thought has an object, is a thought of something. As we shall see, the main problem with Socrates’ suggestion lies in the fact that he does not specify how a νόημα comes to be (ἐγγίγνεσθαι) in the soul, that is, from where or how it originates and what its object is. But before we enter into a discussion about the argument itself, let us say some words about Socrates’ proposal as such." (p. 305)
———. 2022. "Interpreting Parmenides of Elea in Antiquity: From Plato’s Parmenides to Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics." In Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic World, edited by Lammer, Andreas and Las, Mareike, 175–206. Leiden: Brill.

"Parmenides and Heraclitus are probably the most successful Presocratics as far as their scholarly reception is concerned.(1)" (p.175)

(...)

"Because of its eminent role in the transmission and interpretation of Parmenides, it is worthwhile looking a bit closer at how Simplicius dealt with the material he quotes from the poem. Since our volume has a special focus on doxography, I shall, in what follows, try to situate Simplicius in the broader doxographical context of Parmenides’ philosophy and raise the question as to how the Parmenidean doxographical tradition can best be characterised and delineated. What is the role of Simplicius within the doxographical tradition of Parmenides and how can he be characterised compared to his predecessors (esp. Plato and the Platonic tradition after him)?" (p. 178)

(1) On the history of the interpretation of the Presocratic Parmenides of Elea, see Tarán, Parmenides, 269–295 and Kraus, “Parmenides,” 496–501. Stamatellos, Plotinus and the Presocratics (esp. 19–89) studies Plotinus’ interpretation of Parmenides (and other Presocratics), while Abbate, Parmenide e i neoplatonici focusses on Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius. On Simplicius’ reading of Parmenides, see Bormann, “The Interpretation of Parmenides by the Neoplatonist Simplicius”; Cordero, “Simplicius et l’ «École» Éléate”; Drews, “intelligibles = sinnliches?”; and the two more recent comprehensive monographs by Licciardi, Parmenide tràdito and Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente; cf. esp. the summary the useful overview in Licciardi, Parmenide tràdito, 27–88.

References

Abbate, M. Parmenide e i neoplatonici, Dall’Essere all’Uno e al di là dell’Uno. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2010 [reprint with corrections in 2014].

Bormann, K. “The Interpretation of Parmenides by the Neoplatonist Simplicius.” In: The Monist 62 (1979), 30–42.

Cordero, N.-L. “Simplicius et l’ «École» Éléate.” In: Simplicius, sa vie, son oeuvre, sa survie.Actes du colloque international de Paris (28. Sept.–1er Oct. 1985). Ed. by I. Hadot. Peripatoi 15. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1987, 166–182.

Drews, F. “intelligibles = sinnliches? Simplikios’ differenzierter Umgang mit Aristoteles’ Parmenides-Kritik.” In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 155 (2012), 389–412.

Kraus, M. “Parmenides.” In: Die Philosophie der Antike. Vol. 1: Frühgriechische Philosophie. Ed. by H. Flashar, D. Bremer, and G. Rechenauer. Basel: Schwabe, 2013, 441–530.

Licciardi, I.A. Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente, Simplicio interprete di Parmenide nel commentario al De Caelo di Aristotele. Symbolon 44. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2017.

Licciardi, I.A. Parmenide tràdito, Parmenide tradito nel Commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele, Saggio introduttivo, Raccolta dei testi in greco, Traduzione e Commentario. Symbolon 42. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2016.

Stamatellos, G. Plotinus and the Presocratics. A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus’ Enneads. New York: suny Press, 2007.

Tarán, L. Parmenides. A Text with Translation, Commentary and Critical Essays. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press, 1965 [includes Chapter iv: “Parmenides in the Ancient Philosophical Tradition,” 269–295].
Hermann, Arnold. 2011. "Parricide or Heir? Plato’s Uncertain Relationship to Parmenides." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 147–165. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "Most scholars view Plato’s critique of Parmenides in the Sophist, particularly the observations surrounding the “parricide” remark, as quite apt and justified. The theory is that Parmenides deserves to be rebuked for failing to recognize that “What Is Not” can be understood in more ways than one, namely, not only in an existential sense, but also predicatively or, in the language of the Sophist, as indicating “difference.” I aim to show, nevertheless, that Plato’s indictment of Parmenides misses the mark in significant ways, allowing Parmenides to escape the so-called threat of parricide not once but twice.

For example, Parmenides' abundant use of alpha-privatives (e.g., ἀγένητον)—as well as the negative οὐ (or οὐκ) when there is no a-privative form available—indicates that he was well aware of the difference between indicating “is not” predicatively versus existentially. Moreover, the Poem nowhere suggests that his strictures regarding the use of What Is Not are to be taken in the broadest possible sense, disallowing, in effect, the discrimination between the existential and the predicative case. Only when sought after as a “way of inquiry” does What Is Not—in contrast to the Way of What Is—fail to provide us with a graspable, expressible object. After all, the “Way of What Is Not,” lacks any sort of sēmata, or signs, that can be used to navigate it. As a “way of inquiry for thinking” (B2), it leads nowhere, lacking any sort of expressible or knowable object or goal. The complete absence of an object or result, however, does not hinder us from making statements to this effect, nor from uttering the words “What Is Not” or “Not Being.” Yet this fine distinction is lost to many who have criticized Parmenides for being inconsistent, careless, or simply ignorant. The move from the intellectual unavailability of an object that marks a defunct way of inquiry, to the claim that to even speak of such a “way” is both illegitimate and impossible—all the while insisting that Parmenides himself is to be blamed for such a monstrous fallacy—seems an egregious gloss-over, even if the perpetrator is someone of Plato’s stature. If my arguments prove sound, then Parmenides should be absolved of the charges leveled against him."
———. 2012. "Plato’s Eleatic Challenge and the Problem of Self-predication in the Parmenides." In Presocratics and Plato: Festschrift at Delphi in Honor of Charles Kahn, edited by Patterson, Richard, Karasmanis, Vassilis and Hermann, Arnold, 205–231. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

"To summarize the direction of my exposition, I aim to show how Plato’s attempt to distinguish a Form “itself-by-itself ” (as demonstrated by Argument I of the Parmenides) precludes any possibility for self-predication by the Form. Above all, Plato’s rigorous distinction between being the property versus having properties is crucial to our grasping the difference between the Form as itself, and the Form in relation to other Forms. Moreover, the effort to think of a Form just by itself is self-defeating, because thinking of it in any way at all involves some connection between it and a predicate.

Thinking anything about a Form must involve more than grasping the bare Form, in and of itself, in mind, since the bare Form, in and of itself, is unintelligible. All thinking or saying, including even so-called “self-predication,” involves some sort of copulative link to a predicate, some symplokê (in the language of the Sophist). Thus, when the hypothetical One “by itself” is finally attained at the end of Argument I, what is lost is not only intelligibility, but also the possibility of self-predication." (p. 206)
Hestir, Blake E. 2016. Plato on the Metaphysical Foundation of Meaning and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 5: The foundation exposed: Parmenides 135bc, pp. 84-104.

"Since Plato’s conception of truth is tied to his conception of meaning, I approach the above project first by a detailed examination of the foundation of Plato’s semantic views. I argue that Plato employs a style of argument to establish the ontological, cognitive, and semantic conditions of stability and combination,(26) each of which is necessary for meaningful discourse and truth.

The direct expression of this argument occurs during an exchange at Parmenides 135bc." (p. 7)

(26) Here broadly construed to include separation since for Plato the mechanism of separation also involves a combination of kinds, most significantly being and difference.

"Parmenides informs Socrates in an exchange at Parmenides 135bc that without forms the capacity (dunamis) for dialegesthai will be destroyed in every way (pantapasi diaphtherei).(1) This remark is particularly unsettling because it arrives on the heels of what are taken to be some fairly damning objections to the theory of Forms – after all, if Plato thinks the Forms are the bedrock of practically everything, including dialegesthai, and the theory of Forms is shown to be problematic, then Plato’s project in the Parmenides looks paradoxical.

Parmenides 135bc contains the most obvious appeal to the Grounding Argument, this time expressly for the claim that forms are necessary for the possibility of dialegesthai and dianoia, with the implication that forms must exist. In this chapter, I reconstruct the view expressed at 135bc, and argue that (a) by “forms” Parmenides need mean nothing more than entities that are one and always the same in at least one respect, and (b) “dialegesthai” should be understood more broadly as “discourse” rather than exclusively as “dialectic” as some scholars at least back to Proclus have supposed."

(1) I use the infinitive throughout since that is the word Socrates uses.
Horan, David. 2019. "The Argumentative Unity of Plato’s Parmenides." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy no. 34:1–32.

Abstract: "This paper argues that the resolution of the dilemma of participation presented in the first part of Plato’s Parmenides is a central purpose of the arguments of the first hypothesis and the beginning of the second hypothesis in the second part of the dialogue. I maintain that the training demonstrated by Parmenides in the first and second hypotheses, by shifting the consideration away from sense objects to intelligible objects and away from forms to the one, enables Parmenides to develop an understanding of what it means for anything to be one. This understanding shows that multiplicity is not inimical to the one remaining one when participated in. It argues for an intelligible one that is divisible and still remains one when divided. The model of participation in the second part of the dialogue differs from that in the first part where the dilemma of participation initially arises, insofar as there is a strong ontological connection in part two between the one and whatever participates in the one, a connection that is not present in part one, where sense objects participate in intelligible forms. I conclude by taking stock of how far the resolution of the dilemma of participation has been progressed to resolution by 144e7 and what problems still remain to be analysed and resolved."
———. 2021. "The Introduction to Plato’s Parmenides: What Does It Introduce and to Whom?" In Framing the Dialogues: How to Read Openings and Closures in Plato, edited by Kaklamanou, Eleni, Pavlou, Maria and Tsakmakis, Antonis, 243–262. Leiden: Brill.

"The Parmenides is usually divided into two parts, the exchange between Socrates and Parmenides followed by the lengthy and elaborate discussion between Parmenides and Aristoteles.

(...)

Apart from its possible role in emphasising and enhancing the final part, I believe that the introduction also has a part to play in indicating how the reader should use, engage with and understand the final two thirds of the dialogue.(3) There is a marked lack of agreement among scholars about the content and function of the final part of the Parmenides. Accordingly, we might expect that study of the introduction could do little to help clear up such great controversy. However, I do believe that the introduction, like all the other material leading up to the final part, 'is directed toward emphasizing and enhancing its importance’.(4) I would now like to suggest a number of ways in which it does this, and perhaps more." (pp- 243-244)

(3) 3 For a similar claim, see Brumbaugh (1961) 26.

(4) Allen (1997) 75.

References

Allen (1997): Allen, R.E., Plato’s Parmenides, translated with Comment, rev. ed., New Haven and London.

Brumbaugh (1961): Brumbaugh, R.S., Plato on the One. The Hypotheses in the Parmenides, New Haven (repr. Port Washington, NY and London 1973).
House, Dennis. 2003. "Commentary: The Criticism of Plato's Doctrine of Participation in Parmenides: A Propaedeutic to the Platonic Dialectic." In Philosophy and Freedom: The Legacy of James Doull, edited by Peddle, David G. and Robertson, Neil G., 140–166. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Commentary to the essay by James Doull in the same volume.

"(hereafter [Parmenides] 126a-137c3 will be referred to as P1 and the remainder of the dialogue as P2)." (p. 141)

"I will examine the following points of interpretation where Doull stands alone or with the very few in his reading of P1:

1 The problem Parmenides addresses is indicated by the audience to the dialogue - the Clazomenian philosophers who have come to Athens.

How is Anaxagoras's Nous as pure and unmixed related to the finite as a mixture?

2 Zeno and Socrates are to be understood as holding opposed positions and the unification of this opposition occupies the remainder of the dialogue.

3 The order and structure of the aporiai follows the fourfold division of the line in Republic.

4 When Socrates introduces the 'day image,' the reader is to understand this as the 'light image' of the Republic.

5 131c-132b is not a separate aporia but is to be taken together with 132b-132c as forming one aporia.

6 Although Plato uses the abstract Eleatic concepts of Being and Unity, the reader is to understand by the terms the Good of Phaedo and Republic.

7 There is one point of difference between Doull and most other commentators concerning P2 which must come into view in considering P1: that 155e-156b, rather than being a corollary or appendix of H2 (hereafter the hypotheses will be referred to as H1, H2, H3, etc.), is the Third Hypothesis.

The reader of Parmenides should put himself in the place of the Clazomenian philosophers who came to Athens to hear the great argument of Socrates with Zeno and Parmenides.(2)" (pp. 141-142)

(2) Doull, chapter 2 [Plato's Parmenides] above, 93.
Hrachovec, Herbert. 2011. "“... goaded perhaps by Parmenides” – Preliminaries to a Platonic Problem." Conceptus: Zeitschrift für Philosophie no. 40:53–69.

Summary: "Donald Davidson, in his Truth and Predication, suggests that Plato’s concern with “gluing together” subject and predicate in assertive sentences might be traced back to Parmenides. Taking his lead this paper discusses the connection, proceeding in three steps. A short overview of the literature on Parmenides’ fragment B2 will be given and a Davidsonian move to reduce the complexity of the hermeneutical situation will be proposed. Secondly, given this reduction, a Parmenideian tableaux will be put forward and compared to our present understanding of elementary propositional and predicate logic. This will provide the basis for the concluding discussion of Plato’s characteristic transformation of Parmenides’ dictum into the bundle of arguments that give rise to the problem of the unity of propositions."
Hubler, J. Noel. 2010. "Moderatus, E. R. Dodds, and the Development of Neoplatonist Emanation." In Plato's Parmenides and Its Heritage. Vol. 1: History and Interpretation from the Old Academy to Later Platonism and Gnosticism, edited by Turner, John D. and Corrigan, Kevin, 115–128. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

"In 1928, E. R. Dodds rewrote the history of Greek Philosophy by arguing that Moderatus, an obscure Neopythagorean philosopher of the first century, had anticipated the celebrated emanation system of Plotinus by two centuries (1928, 129–42)."

(...)

"Unfortunately, Dodds’ claims rest on the thinnest textual evidence, a single passage from the sixth-century commentator, Simplicius (In phys. 9:230–231 Diels). A close examination of the thin textual evidence does not support Dodds’ claims about Moderatus’s anticipation of Plotinus’s theory of emanation. For Dodds failed to take into account Simplicius’s methods of interpretation and the potential for Simplicius’s own supplementation of the textual tradition. He failed to take into account further textual evidence about Moderatus’s teachings from sources earlier than Simplicius, including references in Porphyry, Stobaeus, and

Syrianus. Finally, he failed to take into account the historical context of Moderatus’s first-century Neopythagoreanism. Once we take into account Simplicius’s methods, further textual evidence from Moderatus, and other Neopythagoreans, a different reading of Simplicius’s account of Moderatus’s teachings emerges—one that places Moderatus squarely within the tradition of Neopythagoreanism. Then the Neoplatonist anticipations that Dodds attributes to Moderatus are much more plausibly viewed as Simplicius’s own transformation of his source through his own hermeneutical methods, which are less than historically reliable and compromise Simplicius as a historically reliable witness." (pp. 115-116)

References

Dodds, E. R. 1928. The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic “One.” Classical Quarterly 22:129–42.
Inwood, Michael. 2015–2016. "The Greatest Difficulty: Can we Know the Forms?" Ariadne no. 22:107–126.

"I therefore propose to consider what Plato’s own solution might have been to the ‘greatest’ difficulty raised by Parmenides, namely the supposed unknowability of the Forms; I argue that a solution can be found in the Sophist, where, in the course of his criticism of the ‘friends of the Forms’, the Eleatic stranger produces another difficulty for the knowability of Forms and proposes a modification of the doctrine in order to meet it." (pp. 107-108)
Ionescu, Cristina. 2019. On the Good Life: Thinking through the Intermediaries in Plato's Philebus. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Appendix: The Philebus’s Response to the Aporiai of Participation from the Parmenides, pp. 145-156.

"As indicated already in chapter I, there is some overlap between the concerns raised in the three puzzles of the Philebus 15b–c and the aporiai of participation spelled out in the first part of the Parmenides. Just as I suggested in the closing of that chapter that the Philebus implicitly addresses the three puzzles regarding the intelligible monads, I want now to suggest that the Philebus addresses also implicitly the aporiai regarding participation that are mentioned in Parmenides 128e–130a. A comprehensive treatment of either the aporiai of participation themselves or of the ways in which the Philebus implicitly addresses them is beyond the boundaries of this Appendix. I only aim to sketch here some hints for the direction that a study dedicated to these issues could take. In what follows, I discuss briefly each one of the six aporiai and then suggest what I envision to be the direction of a response based on the Philebus." (p. 145)
Jackson, Belford Darrell. 1967. "Plotinus and the Parmenides." Journal of the History of Philosophy no. 5:316–327.

"In 1928 E. R. Dodds argued that the first two hypotheses of Plato's Parmenides are the primary source of Plotinus' doctrines of the One and of Nous.(1) Dodds' main evidence was a list of parallels between the Parmenides and the Enneads.(2) He argued further that the Neoplatonic interpretation of the Parmenides as positive metaphysics was neo-Pythagorean in origin." (p. 315)

(;;;)

"In this article I shall re-examine Dodds' position. I believe the case for Plotinus' dependence upon the Parmenides can be strengthened. I shall try to do this by examining the systematic relation of Plotinus' thought to the Parmenides. Dodds considered only parallel terminology. I shall in addition look at parallel argumentation and conclusions. Furthermore, since Dodds accounts only for Plotinus' first two hypostases, I shall consider the relation of the third hypostasis (soul) to the Parmenides.

(...)

In the following pages I shall attempt to show three things: (1) how Plotinus explicitly interprets the Parmenides, (2) to what extent he draws upon the language of the Parmenides, and (3) to what extent Plotinus' system may be understood by its relation to the Parmenides." (pp. 315-316)
Jeng, I-Kai. 2022. "Nonbeing and the Final Four Deductions in Plato’s Parmenides." In Plato's Parmenides: Selected Papers of the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Brisson, Luc, Macé, Arnaud and Renault, Olivier, 453–466. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag.

Abstract: "The historical Parmenides famously prohibited nonbeing, or what is not, from philosophical inquiry. Plato, on the other hand, makes the titular character of his Parmenides announce a method of philosophical training that does not seem to prohibit nonbeing at all, as he urges us to investigate the consequences of both “if some Form is” and “if some Form is not.” This paper argues that the contradiction between the historical and the Platonic Parmenides is only apparent; once the method is carried out, it ends up honoring Parmenides’ prohibition. The argument proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, it selectively summarizes certain current approaches to the second half of the Parmenides to motivate my approach. Based on a reading of the refrain πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς / ἐπὶ ἀρχήν, I argue that the last four eductions, all of which begin with the hypothesis “if one is not,” should be read together as a single argument. In the second stage I carry out my reading of the final four deductions and show how key moves made by Parmenides correspond to parts of the poem.

This leads to the conclusion that the four deductions together are meant to portray the unthinkability of the nonbeing of the one. Plato furthers his own agenda in the Parmenides while remaining faithful to the historical Parmenides’ thought."
Johansen, Karsten Friis. 1957. "The one and the many. Some remarks concerning Plato's Parmenides and the method of collection and division." Classica et Mediaevalia no. 18:1–35.
Kahn, Asadullah. 2023. "τὸ ἐξαίφνης and Time in Plato’s Parmenides." Dialogue. Canadian Philosophical Review no. 62:553–567.

Abstract: "I argue, through Heidegger, that the notion of τὸ ἐξαίφνης in the Parmenides does not signify eternity, or a trace of eternity in time, but rather implies a primordial conception of time. In deduction two, the relationship between stasis and kinesis becomes problematic due to the notion of τὸ νῦν. This leads Parmenides, in deduction three, to posit the notion of τὸ ἐξαίφνης to solve this problematic relationship, implying a primordial conception of time."
Karasmanis, Vassilis. 2012. "Dialectic and the Second Part of Plato’s Parmenides." In Presocratics and Plato: Festschrift at Delphi in Honor of Charles Kahn, edited by Patterson, Richard, Karasmanis, Vassilis and Hermann, Arnold, 183–203. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

"The Platonic dialogue Parmenides has certain important and distinctive features that have long puzzled scholars. What is its aim, what philosophical problems does it posit, what answers does it provide, why does it have the structure it has—extraordinary for a Platonic dialogue—and how are its two main parts related, which can at first seem unconnected? How is it related to other Platonic dialogues and what is the role of the hypothesis of the “One,” and the method of its examination? This short essay will try to give an answer to the last three questions, without, however, avoiding the other ones when they relate to my main subject." (p. 183)
Karuzis, Joseph. 2005. "Some Problems of the One over Many in Plato's Parmenides." Annals of the Philosophical Society of Hokkaido University no. 41:1–24.

Abstract: "Western philosophy erupted in Greece in the 4th century BC. The most influential of all the Greek philosophers was Plato, (427 BC- 347 BC) who was a student of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle and a prolific writer who started the Academy. The style of Plato's writings is that of dialogues. In Plato's early dialogues, Socrates plays a lively role and participates in an exchange of questions and answers with other characters in the dialogue. The earlier dialogues present Socrates' views on ethical matters such as justice and virtue. In the middle dialogues, Plato expresses his own philosophy through the character of Socrates. In the latter dialogues Socrates doesn't speak very much, he may be present, but he remains silent. The Parmenides, one of the last of the middle dialogues, has challenged scholars as to its meaning for over 2000 years. There are nine characters in the dialogue. Among them, there is the young Socrates, and he engages in a philosophical discussion with two other philosophers, Zeno and Parmenides, who are from Elea. Eleatic philosophy started with Parmenides in the 6th century BC, and is distinguished by its doctrine of an unchanging, indivisible reality. "All is one" is what the Eleatics professed. At the beginning of the dialogue, Zeno reads his treatise, which is a defense of Parmenides' monism. This defense is aimed at those who believe in plurality and say that Parmenides’ one results in absurdity and contradiction. Zeno states that if there is a plurality, then things that are like will be unlike, which is impossible because opposites cannot be the same. Socrates does well in his reply to Zeno by positing the Forms. There are sensibles that we perceive to be a multiplicity, and there is also a separate realm of the Forms. The Forms are what all things participate in, that is, an act is just because it has a certain relationship to the unchanging and incorporeal Form of Justice. Because of the Forms, a man can be both a plurality and a unity. He may have many parts, but these parts make up a complete whole. This is due to participating in the Forms of Unity, Plurality, Likeness and Unlikeness. In the remainder of the dialogue, Parmenides continues as the interlocutor. The Form of Unity is analyzed by Parmenides in a barrage of arguments. Throughout these arguments several points are raised that show Plato's Theory of Forms to be problematic. There is no clear conclusion at the end of the dialogue, and we left wondering what Plato thought about the problems posited in the dialogue. In this paper I propose that Plato took these problems seriously, yet they were not damaging to his Theory of Forms. Surely, Plato would not have published this dialogue if he believed the objections in it destroyed his Theory of Forms. The Forms are central to Plato's philosophy and metaphysics. By analyzing Unity, I believe that Plato wanted to show that there are two different types of predication. One type of predication is things in relation to themselves. The other type of predication is things in relation to others. Unity is analyzed, and by doing so, Plato answers the problems that were raised in the early part of the dialogue, such as the Third Man Argument. By using the dialogue and presenting his philosophy in a dramatic act, Plato compels the reader to draw his own conclusions. The dialogue must be seen as a unity because only then can we see Plato's intention in writing it. The Forms for Plato did exist, yet he was aware of the problems that arise with his theory. By writing the Parmenides, Plato wanted to show us that the objections to the Forms were not insurmountable."
Kirwan, Christopher. 1974. "Plato and relativity." Philosophia no. 19:112–129.

"Conclusion. Plato's classical exposition of the theory of forms in the Phaedo and Republic relies almost entirely on examples which are contraries in the wide sense of prima facie incompatibles, but which owing to their relativity are actually compatible - exceptions to the principle forbidding compresence of contraries. It is tempting to presume that Plato recognized their exceptional status, and even that he traded on it in arguing for the theory. But the evidence goes against this presumption. We find the possibility of compresence conceded at Republic 436-9, but neither exploited there nor even apparently fully recognized. We find compresence of comparative contraries conceded at Phaedo 102, but without extension to the wider class of relatives; and even the limited concession may be jeopardized by Theaetetus 154-5. At Republic 479 Plato seems to be on the brink of acknowledging the special status of relatives, but he steps back from the brink, covering his hesitation as at Phaedo 74 by the word 'appear'. At Republic 5234 and 580-7 he definitely overlooks the relative/non-relative distinction in contexts where it matters. So we cannot be sure that he put himself in a position to employ the Academic 'argument establishing ideas of relatives' until Parmenides 129 - the very dialogue in whose second part that argument seems to come under attack." (pp. 128-129)
Klein, Sherwin. 1991. "Plato’s Parmenides and St. Thomas’s Analysis of God as One and Trinity." The Thomist no. 55:229–244.

"I intend to establish, in the first and main part of this article, the logical agreement between the Platonic and Thomistic analyses of an absolutely simple unity. The argument at Parmenides 137b-142a, Plato's analysis of the absolute one, provides a basis for determining what God, as an absolutely simple unity, is not. By applying this 'argument in the Parmenides to St. Thomas's discussion of God as one, I shall show that what appears to be " as dry and prosaic as a textbook on algebra " has, contrary to Cornford, " religious significance." [*]

In the second part of this article, I shall use the arguments at Parmenides 157b-159b and 159b-160b to determine what can be predicated of God, if St. Thomas's analysis of the Trinity is to accord with the articles of faith (God as an absolutely simple unity as well as a Trinity). Once again, we shall see the ":religious significance" of Plato's analysis and the irony of Cornford's suggestion about the meaninglessness of applying

Plato's analysis to " a trinity of unknown gods." (pp. 229-230)

[*] Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides' Way of Truth and Plato's Parmenides, trans. with introduction and commentary by Francis MacDonald Cornford (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1939), p. 131.
Klibansky, Raymond. 1943. Plato's Parmenides in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A Chapter in the History of Platonic Studies. London: The Warburg Institute.

"The scantiness of the information available about the dialogue was thus wholly disproportionate to the importance evidently ascribed to it by Chalcidius. The higher the expectations raised by the commentator's allusion to the esoteric doctrine enshrined in the work, the more tantalizing must have been the scarcity of clues to its contents." (p. 3)

(...)

"This situation was radically changed when, some time before his death in 1286, the Dominican friar William of Moerbeke translated Proclus' Commentary on the Parmenides. Embedded in this work, but clearly distinguished from the text of Proclus' exposition, the Platonic dialogue, up to the end of the first hypothesis, became accessible to the Latin world.(3)" (p. 4)

(...)

"It was in the same year (1463) in which Nicholas of Cusa composed the De venatiom sapientiae that Marsilio Ficino, "in his passion for Plato Bessarion's heir", undertook, at the request of Cosimo de Medici, to translate the whole of Plato's works. In Cosimo's lifetime, i.e. before August 1464, he completed his rendering of ten dialogues which included the Parmenides preceded by the Euthyphron and followed by the Philebus." (pp. 32-33, notes omitted)

(...)

"Marsilio had not only been the first to translate the whole of Plato's works; his translation was the first to appear in print.(1) preceded the editio princeps of the Greek text, the Aldine of 1513, by about thirty years."(p. 43)

(1) Printed in Florence, 'per Laurentium Venetum', s. a. (1484). The Commentary to the dialogues was first printed in Florence in 1496.
———. 1981. The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition durig the Middle Ages. München: Kraus International Publications.

wWth a new preface and four supplementary chapters together with Plato's Parmenides in ther Middle Ages aand the Renaissance with a new introductory preface.

"This essay is intended to indicate the materials which constitute the body of the Platonic tradition in the Middle Ages and to show the main lines in which this tradition developed. It should thus serve as the framework for a history of mediaeval Platonism and its bearing on the philosophy of the Renaissance. This larger work requires a collection of the relevant texts in a 'Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi' which will reveal a neglected link in the history of thought.

The programme which we outline here having been accepted by the British Academy, the Corpus Platonicum is to be published under its auspices, and those of the Union Academique Internationale, with the assistance of the Warburg Institute of London, which under its present director, as under its founder, Aby Warburg, has always sponsored research on Platonism." (Preface, p. IX)
Kutschera, Franz von. 1998. "Parts of Forms: An Essay concerning Plato's Parmenides." Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy no. 1:57–74.

German version: "Teile von Ideen: zu Platons Parmenides" in: F. von Kutschera, Ausgewählte Aufsätze, paderborn: Mentis Verlag 2004, pp. 273-291.

Abstract: "The Parmenides is, especially with respect to its second part, one of Plato's most difficult dialogues. The paper sketches an interpretation which is characterized by the following main points: The interpretation is neither rejectionistic nor compatibilistic, that is, according to it, neither should none of the statements of the 2nd part be taken seriously as an assertion meant to be true, nor are all statements of the 2nd part acceptable as true if correctly interpreted. In the 2nd part of the Parmenides, Plato develops a logical theory - a theory of predication, participation and of the community of ideal forms in general - on mereological foundations; in doing this, he advances far beyond elementary mereological principles. This forces us to revise our views concerning the beginnings of logic. It is due to the incomparably high rank which Plato accorded to the active working-out of insights that Plato presents his results not in an expository manner, but as a web of contradictions. The readers are challenged to find the truth for themselves."
Lampert, Laurence. 2018. "Reading Benardete: A New Parmenides." Interpretation. A Journal of Political Philosophy no. 44:403–423.

!In this article I concentrate on the four and a half compacted pages that end his late essay “Plato’s Parmenides: A Sketch.”(1) Its particular reward is access to a hitherto unsuspected yet wholly persuasive understanding of an especially resistant Platonic dialogue. That gain opens a window on two further rewards: Parmenides, the author of the philosophic poem that exists for us only in fragments, takes on a depth and shape that befit the singular praise Socrates lavished on him at the end of his life; and the whole history of philosophy back to Homer begins to show itself as genuinely philosophic in the radicality of its discoveries and in the restrictions it placed on sharing them. Without ever explicitly saying so, Benardete shows how hidden Greek wisdom believed it had to be in order to maintain a presence in the world and sustain its future, how inaccessible to all but the most driven, most gifted “lucky hits,” as Nietzsche called them. And he shows primarily what that hidden wisdom was, genuine knowledge of the human and through the human of the world." (p. 403)

(1) Seth Benardete, “Plato’s Parmenides: A Sketch,” in The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Readings of Ancient Poetry and Philosophy, ed. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s, 2012), 229–43. In the list of works the editors append to this collection, the Parmenides essay seems to be the last one Benardete completed before his death on November 14, 2001; see also their preface, 1 n. 1. References to Benardete’s essay will be to paragraph numbers in the text.
———. 2021. How Socrates became Socrates: A Study of Plato’s Phaedo, Parmenides, and Symposium. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Chapter 2: Parmenides: The Second Stage of Socrates’ Philosophic Education, pp. 89-151.

"Among the three dialogues that report the stages of Socrates’ philosophic education, the Phaedo and Symposium each have Socrates himself report the stage of his philosophic advance, framing it each time to fit their very different settings and audiences. The stage recorded in the Parmenides, however, the central stage, is not reported by Socrates: he is dead when the great event was recovered by nameless foreigners bent on hearing it— “men of Clazomenae” said to be “very much philosophers,” residents of the Greek city in Asia Minor in which essential advances in natural philosophy had been made. And the whole of it is narrated not by one of those philosophers but by their countryman, Cephalus, who led them to the Athenian who they hoped might be able to remember what had been said when a young Socrates met old Parmenides and his associate Zeno some sixty years earlier.(2) Cephalus narrates it at a later unknown time to an unidentified audience: the Parmenides is unique as the only Platonic dialogue whose actual narration lacks a specified setting, date, and audience. And it is unique among the three dialogues that record the stages of Socrates’ philosophic education in being the only one not reported by Socrates himself." (p. 90)

(2) Christopher Planeaux (pers. comm.) sets the dramatic date of the frame of the Parmenides in 394/3 based on the political relations of Athens and Clazomenae and on the ages of the Athenian participants in the frame.

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