From the Beginning to Plato

FROM THE BEGINNING TO PLATO 153
23 Empedocles promises magical powers to the disciple who meditates on his
cosmology: Empedocles DK B 110 and 111.
24 On the internal structure of the ‘opinions’, and the parallelism with Alētheiē, see
Mourelatos [4.24], 222–63.
25 This reading is supported by Aristotle’s testimony (Metaphysics 1.5,
26 ‘Love’ as a power: DK 613, cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 1.3, 984b20–31; struggles of
gods: Plato Symposium 195c, Cicero On the Nature of the Cods I.II.28 (DK 28 A
37). There is no need to be puzzled by the appearance of Hesiodic divinities here, if
Parmenides, as suggested, is taking an ‘operationalist’ view of what he is doing.
27 On details of the cosmology not discussed here (except for the theory of mental
functioning, on which see pp. 150–1; see Guthrie [2.13] II: 57–70.
28 But there is much disagreement about the details. An extended ancient
allegorization is found in Sextus Empiricus (Adversus Mathematicos VII.111–14).
For the important parallels in Homer, Hesiod and Orphic writings, see Burkert [4.
28].
29 On the theory of mental functioning, Fränkel [4.20], sect. 3; Laks [4.54]. Both text
and meaning of the lines of Parmenides here quoted by Theophrastus are,
unfortunately, uncertain at vital points.
30 Of course it does not follow from this that reality’s thinking is what alone
constitutes reality, nor that reality is just what thinks itself. (It does follow that
reality is not ultimately ‘mind-independent’, in that it is necessarily thought by
itself. In this rather special sense, Parmenides is an idealist, but not provably in any
wider sense.)
31 Zeno was ‘the Eleatic Palamedes’ (Plato Phaedrus 261d6), the ‘inventor of
dialectic’ (Diogenes Laertius Lives VIII.57 (W.D.Ross Aristotelis Fragmenta
Selecta, Oxford, 1955:15).
32 Plato’s evidence has not gone unchallenged. Zeno has sometimes been read as
attacking Parmenides as well as his opponents, particularly by those who question
whether Parmenides was a monist. The attempt of Solmsen [4.72] to undermine
Plato’s testimony was countered by Vlastos [4.73]; but even Vlastos doubts Plato’s
testimony that all the arguments in the book were directed against plurality.
33 Closeness to common sense is also suggested by the knockabout flavour of
‘making fun’ (kōmōidein). (The phrase ‘as against all the things that are said’
(127d9–10) is too vague to be of use.) But mere unreflecting common sense would
not have tried to make fun of Parmenides by arguments, as Zeno implies his
opponents did.
34 This fits the earlier suggestions of ad hominem argumentation by Zeno. It does not
imply that, in Plato’s opinion, Parmenides’ monism was a monism about the ordinary
world.
35 So Aristotle, Metaphysics III 4, 1001b7–16, who calls the argument ‘crude’
because of this assumption.
36 Vlastos ([4.64], 371) points out that the step made here was taken as valid by many
later ancient writers.
37 Other possible arguments of Zeno against plurality appear at: Aristotle On
Generation and Conception 1.2, 316a14–317a12 (not attributed, and introduced in
the context of Democritus’ atomism); and Simplicius Physics 139.24–140, 26,
Themistius Physics 12.1–3, Philoponus Physics 80.23–81.7 (attributed to