PARMENIDESSummaryIn this dialogue a young Socrates discusses with Parmenides and Zeno his own conception of reality as consisting of nonphysical (incorporeal?) “Forms.” This discussion spring from Socrates’ criticism of Zeno whether “all” is one or many - Zeno claiming the latter and in defense of Parmenides. ResultsIf a Form should be “itself by itself” then it cannot be in us. They have their being in relation to themselves (p. 367). But not necessarily: “”insofar as it is in others, it would touch the others [because it is whole]; but insofar as it is in itself, it would be kept from touching the others, and being in itself, would touch itself.” - “Apparently.” - “Thus the one would touch itself and others.” (p. 381). Round 1: One in relation to itselfOne cannot have partscannot have shapecannot contain or be containedcannot move or be movedcannot rest (because it cannot be in anything - the contained part)is undifferentiated but cannot be same either - One is not “differentness” or “sameness"outside of timeConclusion: “Therefore it is not named or spoken of, nor is it the object of opinion or knowledge, nor does anything that is perceive it.” (p. 376)Round 2: One related to othersOne is wholeone has beingBeing makes one many (because being in time divides it)*essential reversal of all claims in Round 1...Conclusion: “therefore, the one was and is and will be, and was coming to be and comes to be and will come to be.” (p. 387). Round 3: One in relation to BeingThe instant is the change between two states: “this queer creature, the instant, lurks between motion and rest - being in no time at all - and to it and from it…” (p. 388).Conclusion: One neither is nor is not… Round 4: Other to Oneothers partake of whole and have partsConclusion: “Thus the others would be both like and unlike themselves and each other."Round 5: Is One? Consequence if One is. If one is, are others not?Conclusion: Thus if one is, the one is all things and is not even one, both in relation to itself and, likewise, in relation to the others.” (p. 391). Round 6: Consequence if One is notConclusion: “And thus the one, if it is not, both comes to be and ceases to be, and does not come to be or cease to be.” (p. 394). Round 7: Is One not? Consequences for One if it is not. Conclusion: Nothing is related to One because nothing belongs to it. “Thus one, since it is not, is not in any state at all.” (p. 395)Round 8: Consequences for Others if One is not. Conclusion: “Accordingly, if one is not and many are, the many must appear both the same as and different from each other, both in contact and separate from themselves, both moving with every motion and in every way at rest, both coming to be and ceasing to be and neither, and surely everything of that sort, which it would not be easy enough for us to go through.” (p. 396). Round 9: If One is not but Others are. Conclusion: “So if one is not, none of the others is conceived to be one or many, since, without oneness, it is impossible to conceive of many. … Therefore, if one is not, the others neither are more are conceived to be one or many.” (p. 397). How it compares to previous workMain strategies used to obtain itParmenides raises six difficulties that entail in Socrates’ view. One of these is the “third man” which twentieth century analytic philosophers have paid a lot of attention to. Parmenides teaches Socrates that he must not only consider the consequences of his hypothesis but also the consequences of its denial, leading to eight different trains of thought. Explicitly: you must examine the consequences for the thing you hypothesize in relation to itself and in relation to each one of the others, whichever you select, and in relation to several of them and to all of them in the same way; and, in turn, you must examine the others, both in relation to themselves and in relation to whatever other thing you select on each occasion, whether what you hypothesize you hypothesize as being or as not being.” (p. 370).My questionsis everything contestable? Are these the boundaries of the language, or has Socrates just submitted an ill-formed theory? Does our empirical reality supplement the language game or merely provide a possible definition of reality? This conclusion is baffling. PHAEDRUSSummaryIn this dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus, Socrates critiques a speech of Lysias’. The principal theme is the nature and limitations of rhetoric, and it also includes a discussion about the lovers and the soul. ResultsWritings cannot constitute knowledge of a matter. Knowledge is only written on the soul and is capable of endless expression. There are 2 kinds of madness: illness and divine inspiration. Of divine inspiration, there are four parts: prophetic inspiration with Apollo, mystics with Dionysius, poets with the Muses, and lovers with Aphrodite. The parts of art of rhetoric: 1) seeing together things that are scattered and collecting them into one kind, making clear the subject of discussion. 2) to cut up each kind according to its species, and try not to splinter any part. Is the matter simple? What things does it have the power to act on naturally?By what things is it naturally acted upon? Is it complex? We must, then, enumerate them all and then investigate the same with respect to each. How it compares to previous workMain strategies used to obtain itSocrates’ discussion of the soul endeavors to show that it is necessary to know the truth of a particular thing before talking about it. In other words, Lysias has not done his homework. We can be led to false conclusions when we do not first properly understand the object of discussion. Socrates argues for Love on the basis of its ontology, and after that on the basis of its etymology. My questionsCould this critique of reading and writing be helpful in proceeding to write such knowledge in the soul? What about the process of writing, Socrates? Does not that exercise affect the soul in its progress?Is the theory of Forms different from Parmenides in this text?Does the One make an appearance? If so, how?We do see the soul. For Socrates, the soul is immortal because it is always in motion, and moves itself - never leaving off from its own being (which leads to it not having a source? p. 524). He then goes on to describe the soul as a team of winged horses. The transmigration of the soul (p. 524) sounds a lot like Origen’s own theory. The main difference is that Origen’s souls fall to earth, but Socrates souls, having drifted down, seek a soulless body to inhabit. Though I could be wrong, Socrates’ description on p. 526 sounds a lot like “falling”. They fall out of “forgetfulness”. How may I be beautiful on the inside (the closing prayer of the dialogue)?Lysias (on p. 508) did not learn in his soul, he merely memorized by reading. We become beautiful on the inside by training our soul well to gaze on the subject of al true knowledge, visible only to the intelligence. This is the real. These people will appear mad to the rest of the world - the madness of gazing not he true/real alone. We must reach a “reasoned unity” from our perceptions, gathered from the “recollection of the things our soul saw when it was traveling with god,” (p. 527). We are in touch with god by memory. What are the limitations of rhetoric? Why write? Why SpeakWriting is for reminding not for remembering. It cannot lodge into the soul.
Not every dialogue in Plato's Complete Works is thrilling, and some are in fact downright boring and difficult to get through. Nevertheless, it's no exaggeration to say that Plato's dialogues are a cornerstone to Western and world-historical thought. I read these dialogues in the order they were presented in the book, but if I had it to do over again, I think I would have read the dialogues in the order in which Plato would have intended them to have been read. More on that in a moment, but first on some remarks regarding the characters and ideas that emerge in the reading of these dialogues.The main character in most of the dialogues is Socrates. In many of the dialogues he is, with few exceptions, an old Athenian man who is going around Athens and questioning people about their beliefs and why they believe what they believe. As for the man Socrates himself, the highest goal in life is to better know himself and to help other people better know themselves. On Socrates's interpretation, knowing yourself means having no pretense about what you actually know and being willing to learn what you don't know. Unfortunately for Socrates, most of the people he encounters who claim to know something, and from whom he wants to learn, don't really know what they claim to know, and so usually end the conversation in a huff or just agreeing with whatever Socrates says to get him to hush up. Socrates is eventually sentenced to death in Athens on the charge that his teachings are corrupting the young people of Athens and also on the charge that he is teaching atheism and disobedience to the gods. Readers can draw their own conclusions.One of Socrates's students, Plato, goes on to write these dialogues, some in memory of Socrates, and some in an effort to show the kinds of conversations Socrates had been having and demonstrate his method--and perhaps some of them with the purpose to advance Plato's own ideas. Minimally, what we know about Socrates' beliefs is that he thought exploring one's beliefs and learning is essential to a flourishing life. He also believed that if a person is virtuous, no harm can truly come to him and that no person, whether good or bad, knowingly does evil. He might also have believed that there was a unity to the virtues, that is, that it would be impossible for someone to be virtuous in some aspects of life but not in others; for example, if a man were brave, he would also be honest, and vice versa. Other ideas Socrates might have entertained get fuzzier, so I'll just mention the focus of the dialogues, aspects that are, at least, interesting to me.First, the dialogues clearly militate against the sophists. The sophists were a group of people who in Socrates' time taught men to be clever speakers about diverse matters but did not teach people real knowledge in such matters they were speaking. In other words, the sophists taught people how to appear to know and speak eloquently about different subjects but not to have any knowledge about real subjects. These are BS artists, basically.Second, the dialogues are interested in a division between soul and body. The soul is thought to be a truer part of the self and the body in some way to be the possession of the soul. It's the soul, or mind, that the dialogues argue needs to be cultivated, and that will be what allows a person to know herself.The dialogues also have a preoccupation with knowledge and learning. According to the dialogues, knowledge is a matter of people remembering everything they knew when they were souls in Heaven, during a time when everyone possessed all that there was to know. The process of learning is, therefore, the process of recollecting what was already imprinted in the soul but which, because we are embodied, we had sort of lost access to.Closely connected to the ideas of knowledge and learning is what has been called the Theory of the Forms. The idea is something like the following. For me to be able to recognize a playing card, an iPhone, a laptop screen, and so on, as more or less rectangular means that these objects possess some abstract quality: rectangularity. But rectangularity is a feature of the world that doesn't exist in the world, according to the dialogues. Proof of that is that we could, time after time, destroy all the rectangular objects but never destroy the possibility that someone could be rectangular. If you don't like that example, think of the example of beauty. People and works of art appear beautiful because they possess some basic quality or property: beauty. But, argues Plato, destroy all beautiful objects and you still have not destroyed beauty; it's an eternal property that could exist, no matter the place or time. These properties--pick your favorite, beauty, rectangularity, symmetry, etc.--are Forms, and our minds somehow have access to these eternal Forms that do not exist in the world. So argues Plato.Finally, another interest in the dialogues is the perfection of the soul and the perfection of government. For Plato, these enterprises seem to be tied up, since in some sense, a perfect government is like a perfect soul writ large. Also, the more perfect the society, the more perfect the soul can become, argues Plato. I won't spell out all the details of this but certain of these ideas come up in The Republic and The Laws, sometimes with contradictory ideas or pictures of what the perfect soul or society looks like.If I were to read these dialogues again, I'd probably take one scholars' advice and read them in the following order.1st tetralogy (getting started): Alcibiades I + Lysis/Laches/Charmides2nd tetralogy (the sophists): Protagoras +Hippias major/Gorgias/Hippias minor3rd tetralogy (Socrates'trial): Meno + Euthyphro/Apology/Crito4th tetralogy (the soul): Symposium + Phædrus/Republic/Phædo5th tetralogy (logos): Cratylus + Ion/Euthydemus/Menexenus6th tetralogy (dialectic): Parmenides + Theætetus/Sophist/Statesman7th tetralogy (kosmos): Philebus + Timæus/Critias/LawsAccording to that scholar, that was the way Plato intended to the dialogues to be read. I'll take his word for it.
What do You think about Complete Works (1997)?
This is one of the finest translations of Plato's works that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Since my Attic Greek is now quite rusty, it is a chore to read Plato in the original (although I did so in High School thus helping me recognize the translation quality). The Foreward is a paean to the greatness and timelessness of Plato's works. It also explains the reason for the order chosen by the editor. The footnotes and editorial notes (marginalia) both help further explain the more obscure Greek concepts or social mores.What else can I say? It is a great translation of Plato and everyone should read it.
—Jerrid Wolflick
Ok, been throwing myself in at the deep end with this one.I know, Plato/Socrates are best known by quotation.Still, my absolute lack in knowledge of philosophy had me hesitant, since I tend to read cover to cover (and everything in between)....But hey, a gift, nice hard cover, inviting typeface, sound introduction.(and my weak spot for 'big' books, sorry to iPad)I will surely re-read much of this tome.In the first place because of its unrivalled value as a dictate of humanity.Also, because I can finally make sense of all those references to ...I don't feel ignorant anymore ;-)But not in the least because it is good and fun reading, Socrates is amiable, the standards, vices and virtues, of the time are relieving as set off to our own.To cut the crap; Plato is a mastermind of an age bygone, but an absolute inspiration for me in the present one.
—Wilbert
Having finally read this from cover to cover (with the exception of The Republic to which I went to Allan Bloom’s translation) one cannot help but feel some sense of achievement. The purist in me loves that the entire corpus of Plato’s works is easily accessible in one volume. But I wouldn’t recommend reading Plato: Complete Works as I have.To read Plato, and actually digest Plato, is not an easy task. At times, I am not ashamed to admit that it’s a chore. Though the Complete Works contain short introductions to each piece, they are not thorough analyses. The footnotes are welcome but far too few and sparse to provide any significant aid to understanding context. Citing Plato as great is easy, but I question how many of us truly understand why. In contrast, when reading Bloom’s edition of The Republic it became painfully apparent how little I could appreciate Plato’s writing simply because I don’t have a full background of 5th and 4th century B.C. Athens. So much of what was written must be understood in context of the times and the people Plato is responding too. The arguments on their face are oftentimes specious in light of different values, science and presuppositions of modern times.Each work and dialogue is probably worthy of, and has been subject of, an essay unto itself. It would be a mistake to try to make comprehensive summaries here. There is a reason that certain dialogues are more well known than others. For example, I think few readers would get much out of Cratylus which focuses on Greek etymology and whether the name of a thing reflects its intrinsic value. Etymology was a highly respected and philosophic study in ancient Greece; not so much today. There are some exceptional and foundational works that should be read if for no other reason than gaining familiarity with the core works referenced by others. My personal list would include Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Gorgias, Protagoras and The Republic. I’d recommend Symposium simply as a good example of the need to read the works in context. I also plan on revisiting Parmenides when I can find a good interpretive essay to help explain it. It’s described as a challenging and enigmatic dialogue which is a vast understatement.Some would include Laws as a necessary read as well. It seems to exist in the shadows of The Republic and I know some believe it’s an often missed gemstone. I’d disagree. I thought it tedious and lacking in any real engaging argument. Even Plato seems to abandon his dialectic form so that he can espouse his own legal code.All in all, an excellent compilation to have on your bookshelf for reference or to impress people. However, if you are genuinely interested in understanding, I’d highly recommend buying select works individually with accompanying literature on the significance of each.
—Matt
