2025-10-03 NSFRI - Plato - Parmenides

Noetic Society Class: Parmenides 127E-130A     

     This talk allowed one of our members to try to bring to birth a theory about a section of the Parmenides. Regrettably the rest of us present didn't ask the questions needed to bring it to birth so that it could be judged. Hence the talk is rather a slow slog through material we read at a previous meeting. Section 127E through 130A. The question being pursued was whether the plurals of "The Like" and "The Unlike" were to be read as Real Ideas, Likeness and Unlikeness rather than as a collection of many things with a characteristic in common. 

     The Greek language allows both the neuter singular article "the" with a neuter singular adjective such as Beauty, Good, etc. to be read as The Beauty, The Real Idea Beauty, Beauty Self, The Good Self, The OneSelf, etc. According to Smythe’s Greek Grammar the plurals of article and adjective may also be read as what are called abstract nouns, Real Ideas. The trouble with this possibility is that it’s dependent on the translator’s understanding of the materials. So, if a translator has no knowledge of Reality, but he understands only the realm of becoming, an understanding only of things which pass into and out of being, our world of the senses, his translations are also bound to this realm.

      On the other hand, If you take these phases literally as plurals which they are, the passage would read The Likes and The Unlikes. Such a reading would perhaps be more consistent with Zeno's hypothesis since he was setting out to prove that Reality is Many leads to as many ridiculous conclusions as Reality is One and support Parmenides’ position against those who argue against it. In any case, no clear conclusion was reached in class.