Parmenides (Part V) - A Very Young Socrates

Socrates: I admit that I believe this matter is just as you have stated it to be. But satisfy me on the following details:

Do you think there is an unquestionable idea of likeness when The Self is maintained with The Self and another one which exists contrary to this and is a dissimilar idea? 

Do yourself and myself and all other things, which we name Many, share of these two existences? 

Do such things that share in similitude become similar to the extent of how far they share?

Do such things that share in dissimilitude become dissimilar?  

And do such things that share in similitude and dissimilitude become both?

But if such things share in both, which are contrary to each other, and become similar and dissimilar to each other through sharing in both, is there anything wonderful about this?

For, if anyone can show that similar Selves become dissimilar or dissimilars become similar, I think it would be a wonder. 

But if he demonstrates that such things that share in both things likewise experience both things, it does not appear to me, O Zeno, that there would be anything absurd.

Nor again should anyone demonstrate that all things are one through their participation of The One, and at the same time Many through their sharing in the form of plurality.

But I would also wonder if anyone could demonstrate that Self, which is One, is Many. And that the Many is One. 

And I shall wonder in a similar way for all the other instances, for no doubt he would produce an argument to be admired by showing that both collective and, indeed, Self suffer these contrary experiences 

But what occasion for wonder, should anyone demonstrate that I am both One and Many. And then proves his argument by saying that when he wishes to demonstrate I am Many, the parts on the right-hand-side of me are different from the left, the front parts differ from the back parts, and in a similar manner, the upper from the lower parts, because I think that I participate in the form of plurality.

But when he wants to show that I am One, he will say that we are seven in number, I am One man and participate of the One, thereby, in this way, he would argue the truth of both of these statements.

If anyone should seek to show that stones, wood, and all other such matter are both Many and One, we would say that his Self holds to our view that such things are Many and One. But he who does not seek to show that The One is Many, nor the Many is One, nor speak of anything wonderful, simply demonstrates that which is acknowledged by all men.

But, if anyone should first disperse the Forms of the things we have just been speaking about, separating their essence apart from each other, such as Similtude and Dissimiltude, Many and The One, and rest and movement, should then be able to show himself as being able to mix with (Many) and separate apart in one's selfhood, I should be bewildered in wonder, O Zeno.

It appears to me that we should make a great effort to work through these matters. I should be bewildered if anyone could solve this uncertainty, which is found so profoundly participating in the form of Selves. We should be able to explain no less clearly that these matters of form, which are understood by the power of reason, rather than those powers belonging to visible matter, as you have already discussed.

Plato, The Parmenides

Socrates has exhausted the editor. 

More coming soon.

Note from the editor of Classical Philosophy