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The Interpretation of
Plato's Parmenides:
Zeno s Paradox and the
Theory of Forms
R. E. A L L E N
PLATO'S Parmenides is divided into three main parts, of uneven length, and
distinguished from each other both by their subject matter and their speakers.
In the first and briefest part (127d-130a), Socrates offers the T h e o r y of Forms
in solution of a problem raised by Zeno. In the second (130a-135d),
Parmenides levels a series of objections against Socrates' theory, objections
putatively m e a n t as refutation. Then, after an interlude to explain an unfamiliar method of dialectic (135d-137c), that method is applied in the third
part by Parmenides, with the help of the young Aristoteles (137c-166c). This
final part forms more than two-thirds of the whole.
I propose here to examine the first part of the dialogue, the interchange
between Zeno and Socrates, and to examine it with special attention to the
bearing which questions of dialectical structure and dramatic characterization
m a y have upon its interpretation. It is perhaps here proper to indicate the
general view of the dialogue which this discussion will help serve to recommend.
Briefly, it is this. T h e Parmenides is a sustained examination of Plato's
T h e o r y of Forms, and the m a n n e r of examination is Socratic: the student is
presented, not with a body of conclusions, but with a series of arguments
whose implications he is left to think through for himself. W h e n he has done
so, he will realize that the T h e o r y of Forms is proof against the objections
here brought against it: the Parmenides provides no direct support for the
thesis, currently popular, that Plato in later life ceased to believe that Forms
exist. But though sound as far as it goes, the T h e o r y of Forms does not go
far enough: the Parmenides demonstrates that there is a range of problems,
bound up with the application of unrestricted predicates, which Forms do not
solve but are prey to. A broader theory is required, though a theory which
m a y well contain the T h e o r y of Forms as a part. T h e Parmenides, whose purpose is critical, leaves unanswered the question of what that theory m a y be.

Zeno's Paradox and the Theory of Forms (127d-130a)

It is Zeno who begins the dialectic of the Parmenides, and fittingly, he begins
it with a paradox. If there are m a n y things, the same things must be both
[143]

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OF P H I L O S O P H Y

like and unlike. But this is impossible: unlike things cannot be like, nor like
things unlike. Therefore, there cannot be m a n y things (127e).
Socrates' reply begins with a solution, and ends with a challenge. There
exists, alone by itself, a F o r m of Likeness, and also a F o r m of its opposite,
Unlikeness. T h e things we call ' m a n y ' are both like and unlike; but in this
they differ from the Forms in which they partake. For things which are just
alike (abr& r& 6uoLa)1 cannot be unlike, nor things just unlike alike. But it is
no more surprising that the same things should partake both in Likeness and
Unlikeness than it is that a thing should be both one and m a n y by partaking
in both U n i t y and Plurality. Still, Unity itself is not many, nor Plurality one.
And so with other Forms: Socrates would be filled with wonder if someone
could show that Likeness and Unlikeness, U n i t y and Plurality, Rest and Motion, and the other Forms, can be combined with (~v'rK~p&vvwOaO and
separated from (SLaKotp~0a,) each other. Forms cannot be qualified by their
opposite. 2
Socrates' denial is a conjunction. Several translators, including Cornford
and Taylor, have rendered ~v3,~p&vvvaOa~ ~as &aKps
as though it were
a disjunction, 'combined or separated'. T h e reason for this was no doubt
stylistic; but the Greek means, not 'or' but 'and', and logically, the difference
is important. Zeno and Parmenides are challenged to prove, not one of two
alternatives, but both together. This conclusion rests on more than a Kas In
the Sophist, knowing how to separate (&a~ps
253e 3) according to kinds
is equivalent to distinguishing (&a~m~a0a~ 253d 1) according to kinds, and
both are equivalent to not believing that the same Form is different or a
different F o r m the same (253d 1-2). To be separated, that is, is to be recogi 129b 1. T h e n e u t e r plural is generic, as it is at Phaedo 741= 1-2. Plato is s t a t i n g a general t r u t h
a b o u t a n y t h i n g w h i c h c a n be said to be just alike. T h e c o n t e x t indicates t h a t this is true of Likeness.
If we take the Phaedo (102c ff.) as o u r guide, it m a y also be true of the i m m a n e n t characters of Likeness in like things. U n f o r t u n a t e l y , discussion of the m e a n i n g of this p h r a s e has b e e n m u c h bedeviled
by t h e a s s u m p t i o n t h a t it is a referring expression, o n the a n a l o g y of a ~ 6 r6 6j,o,ov. T h i s has led to
a t t e m p t s , in t h e n a t u r e of t h e case unsatisfactory, to d e t e r m i n e w h a t sort of things t h e phrase refers
to. I n fact, the referring use of'aurA rb ~,o,ov explains w h y Plato m u s t here resort to the generic
plural, r a t h e r t h a n t h e m o r e c o m m o n generic singular.
'- T h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n assumes t h a t the a n t e c e d e n t of ra~ra in 129e 2 is the list of opposites m e n tioned in d 8-e 1 t a k e n as pairs. T h e sense of t h e passage t h e n is t h a t one c a n n o t suppose that these
opposites are pairs, a n d therefore distinct, a n d yet also suppose t h a t they are c o m b i n e d or m i n g l e d
with e a c h other, qualify each other. T h i s interpretation is s u p p o r t e d by Republic V I I 5 2 4 b m , quoted
below. M a n y critics, however, h a v e s u p p o s e d that t h e a n t e c e d e n t of ra~ra is t h e preceding list of
opposites t a k e n singly, w h i c h suggests, or better, implies, t h a t Socrates here denies t h e C o m m u n i o n
of K i n d s later a d v o c a t e d in the Sophist (251c ft.), w h e r e c o m b i n a t i o n a n d s e p a r a t i o n are shown to be
possible after all. But this interpretation is impossible. It m a k e s Parmenides 129d 6 - c 4 irrelevant to
w h a t h a s gone before a n d will c o m e after, a n d Socrates' surprise c a n scarcely be reconciled with
his views on Dialectic in t h e Republic (VI 51 lc), n o r his c o n t i n u a l a t t e m p t to define F o r m s t h r o u g h
g e n u s a n d difference. I n d e e d , t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n w o u l d m a k e Socrates d o u b t t h e possibility of a n y
true s t a t e m e n t s a b o u t F o r m s at a l l - - a s t r a n g e skepticism. I c o n c l u d e that, t h o u g h t h e r e are verbal
similarities b e t w e e n this passage of the Parmenides a n d Sophist 251c ft., t h e p r o b l e m s u n d e r discussion
are very different.

PLATO'S PARMENIDES

145

nized as not identical, and this meaning is plainly required for separation
here. Since Socrates himself supposes that Forms such as Likeness and Unlikeness are separate, he can hardly question the ability to prove it. Zeno
and Parmenides are challenged to show, not that Forms can be either combined or separated, but that they can both be combined and separated. T h e
point is a familiar one, already found in the Republic: w h e n opposites are
combined s in a single thing,
it is n a t u r a l in these circumstances for the m i n d to invoke the h e l p of reason w i t h its p o w e r
of calculation, to c o n s i d e r w h e t h e r any given message it receives refers to a single t h i n g
o r two. If t h e r e a p p e a r to be two things, each o f t h e m will a p p e a r as o n e thing, d i s t i n c t
from the other; a n d accordingly, each b e i n g o n e a n d b o t h t o g e t h e r m a k i n g two, the m i n d
will conceive t h e m as separate'; otherwise, it w o u l d t h i n k of t h e m n o t as two, b u t as one"
(VII 524b-c, trans. C o r n f o r d ) .

T h e Forms Socrates here mentions are not found in the middle dialogues,
a fact we shall later find of some importance? ~ But this reservation aside,
the theory outlined is substantially that of the Phaedo and the Republic. In the
Phaedo (74a-c), equal things are distinguished from Equality because they are
equal to one thing but not to another (and so both equal and unequal, qualified by opposites), whereas Equality cannot be Inequality, nor things which
are just equal unequal. 6 In Republic V (479a-c), the chief ground for positing
the existence of Forms is the fact that sensible objects are qualified by opposites, and this is clarified at Republic V I I (523b ft.), in a passage that m a y fairly
be summarized as holding that unless things qualified by opposites are distinguished from the opposites which qualify them, the result is absurdity.
T h e structure of the Parmenides suggests that difficulties in explaining qualification by opposites, difficulties of the sort that Zeno's paradox raises, were an
important motive of origin for the T h e o r y of Forms. And this is confirmed by
the middle dialogues.
Yet, as a reply to Zeno's paradox, the T h e o r y of Forms seems curiously
beside the point. T h e significance of the paradox has been m u c h misunderstood. Critics unite in regarding it as an e m p t y sophism, a piece of barren
eristic, a confusion to be cleared away by the merest reflection on the nature
of relative terms. 7
oarrKeXvu~vov 524c 4, 7.
~EX~0pur~va 524b 10, c 4; ~Lc0p~o'/~vac 7.
6 ob "r&p ~v axo~po,r'&'
"re ~bo ~ ,
~XX' ~. 524c 1.
There is one exception to this: A Form of Unity and, by implication, of Plurality, is plainly
required at Republic VII, 524d-525a. Cf. Phaedo 105c 6.
n Cf. Epistle VII 343a-b, Symposium 21 la.
It is generally claimed that Zeno neglects the relational character of his terms; that he passes
from the truth that no two things can be like and unlike each other in the same respect to the
falsehood that no one thing can be like and unlike anything in any respect; and that he finds this
transition easy because he confuses properties with relations. If this were the underlying assumption
of the paradox, Socrates would hardly invoke the Theory of Forms to solve it, since that Theory, as

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HISTORY

OF P H I L O S O P H Y

But they do not explain why, if this is true, Socrates should trundle in the
T h e o r y of Forms, irrelevantly, as a solution. T h e y do not explain why he
should use heavy artillery to shoot at fleas--and miss.
In fact, Zeno's paradox is not a flea, nor anything like a flea. It is a fullgrown Eleatic white elephant.
T h e essence of Socrates' T h e o r y is that there is a distinction between things
qualified by opposites and the opposites which qualify them. He would
hardly have put that distinction unless he thought Zeno had assumed its
denial. And in this he was right. Zeno assumed, as Parmenides had assumed
before him, that opposites are one with what they qualify.
This is the Eleatic elephant. O n its broad back, Parmenides erected an
ontology of the One, to the confounding of 'the aimless eye and echoing ear'
of mortals. T h e sensible world is filled with opposites: its m a n y things are like
and unlike, one and many, in motion and at rest. Such opposites, and others,
qualify the same things--and are one with what they qualify. And since this
is so, they are, though opposite to each other, one with each other as well.
But this is nonsense, illogical, to be accepted only by "confused tribes, by
w h o m it is supposed that to be and not to be are the same, and not the same"
( D K 6). T h e distinctive features of Parmenides' thought grew out of his attempt to correct the tribes, to deny the identity of opposites. Granting his
premises, there was only one way in which this could be done : deny plurality,
and with it the sensible world, deny that there is anything, after all, which
opposites jointly characterize. T h e W a y of T r u t h leads only to the One.
Zeno's paradox assumes the Parmenidean principle. It is impossible that
the same things should be both like and unlike; for if likeness is identical with
like things, and unlikeness identical with unlike things, and the same things
are like and unlike, then opposites are identical. Likeness and Unlikeness
are one with each o t h e r - - a n d opposite. This is absurd. T o d e n y the absurdity
and preserve the initial assumption of the argument, it is necessary to deny
that the same things can be like and unlike. Since the existence of any plurality
implies that its members must be both like and unlike, Zeno's denial is tantam o u n t to the denial of plurality.
Socrates, with the T h e o r y of Forms, draws a different moral. T h e moral is
that, in a certain special particular, Eleatic logic needs correction. It rests on
stated in the Parmenides, has nothing to do with it: nothing in it suggests the required distinction.
Socrates in the Republic (IV 438b ft.) gives a masterly analysis of relational terms; he repeatedly
affirms, indeed insists, that things are jointly qualified by opposites (V 479a-c, V I I 523a ft., Phaedo
102b), and that joint qualification implies no inconsistency (IV 436b, e). If Zeno were merely
confused about relations, a discussion of these matters would have been to the point; but the difficulty lies deeper. It lies at the level, not of analysis of relations, but of the very distinction of relations
from their terms.

PLATO'S

PARMENIDES

147

an unconscious confusion : the confusion of opposites with what they qualify,

the confusion, where opposites are concerned (to use the language of a logic
not then invented), of the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication. Socrates,
in his reply, brilliantly corrects the guilty assumption. Zeno's p a r a d o x is
solved by a type distinction. In place of the One, we are offered the T w o Tiered Many.

Dramatis Personae
W h e n Socrates has finished his outline of the T h e o r y of Forms, Parmenides,
who has been listening quietly to the conversation, turns to him and raises a
series of criticisms. Those criticisms have long been cruces of scholarship.
T o understand them, it is best to bear in mind a truism.
T h e truism is this: the Parmenides is a dialogue, not a treatise. It is a d r a m a
of ideas, and Zeno, Socrates, and Parmenides are dramatis personae, masks in
that drama. T o interpret it as if it were a piece of philosophical geometry is
absurd. Its characters speak in their own voices, and to understand them, we
must understand who they are and what they are after, their character and
purposes. The dialectic of the Parmenides is discussion, the exchange of thought
in conversation; if its play is part logic, it is also in part the play of personality. 8
At the dramatic date of the Parmenides, Parmenides is a m a n sixty-five,
Zeno approaching forty, Socrates 'then quite y o u n g ' - - p r o b a b l y a b o u t twenty
(127b-c). As the dialogue opens, Socrates remarks to Parmenides, in Zeno's
presence, that Zeno's work pretends an originality it cannot claim. Parmenides
had asserted the One. Zeno asserts no Many, and thus varies the form of his
conclusion, Socrates thinks, in order to delude his readers into thinking his
position is different from Parmenides'.
This remark is rude, b u t Zeno is unruffled and corrects it. Socrates had
mistaken the inspiration and purpose of his work. It is not, Zeno frankly
admits, that of a philosopher; it aims at no independent conclusions. 9 It was
meant solely to defend Parmenides against his pluralistic critics by attempting
8 It follows f r o m this t h a t a c o m m o n w a y of a n a l y z i n g P a r m e n i d e s ' criticisms e m b o d i e s a failure
in m e t h o d . T h e criticisms are e n t h y m e m a t i c . But it is surely a m i s t a k e to interpret t h e m merely by
a t t e m p t i n g to specify u n s t a t e d premises in order to d r a w their r e q u i r e d conclusions. F o r e a c h a r g u m e n t a d m i t s of alternate reconstructions, a n d choice b e t w e e n t h e m , unless directed b y t h e d r a m a t i c
considerations Plato h a s p r o v i d e d as signposts, is no m o r e t h a n guesswork.
9 Z e n o r e m a r k s t h a t t h e book in w h i c h his p a r a d o x a p p e a r e d was p u b l i s h e d a g a i n s t his will:
it was written in a spirit of y o u t h f u l contentiousness w h i c h he w o u l d n o w like to disown, a n d for
w h i c h he apologizes. Critics h a v e inferred f r o m this r e m a r k t h a t Z e n o himseff discounts the serioushess of his p a r a d o x , b u t t h a t is a mistake. H e apologizes for the polemical tone of his book b u t now h e r e implies t h a t he questions t h e validity of its a r g u m e n t s . N o r does Socrates d o u b t for a m o m e n t
t h e seriousness of the p a r a d o x here in view; o n t h e c o n t r a r y , he sets o u t directly to solve i t - - t h o u g h
with t h e false o p t i m i s m of y o u t h , he thinks t h e solution will be easy. But see Cornford, op. dr., p p .
67-68.

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to show that pluralism is itself absurd. Zeno's motive was not the discovery
of truth but the refutation of falsehood. It was polemical, not contemplative.
This very accurately describes the historical relationship between Zeno
and Parmenides. But in the Parmenides, they interchange their roles. It is
Zeno who, relative to the dialogue, presents an independent thesis, the denial
of plurality. It is Zeno who is attacked by a pluralist, Socrates. And it is
Parmenides who, by internal criticism of the T h e o r y of Forms, will indirectly
support Zeno's original thesis. Socrates had replied to Zeno by drawing a
sharp distinction between opposites and the things they qualify, distinguishing
what Zeno had presumed identical. Parmenides will aim to show that that
distinction, as Socrates expounds it, is absurd. Zeno had assumed identity.
Parmenides will attempt to prove no difference.
This point is important for understanding Parmenides' criticisms, and their
relation to the discussion between Zeno and Socrates that had gone before.
But it must be reconciled to another feature of characterization which is
apparently incongruent with it, and not less important. T h a t is this:
Parmenides' heart is not in his work. He accepts the theory he so diligently
attacks, and he does not accept the identity he indirectly defends. The fact is
remarkable, b u t certain. After concluding a series of criticisms which would,
if valid, overthrow the T h e o r y of Forms, Parmenides remarks that to reject
that T h e o r y is to destroy the significance of all thought and discourse (135b-c).
No m a n could say this who did not accept the Theory, and least of all Parmenides, for whom, historically, the intelligibility of Being was the motive
principle of thought. Nor could anyone who thought Parmenides' criticisms
valid remark, as Parmenides remarks, that a m a n of outstanding gifts could
answer them. ~~ It is curious, but true: Parmenides in this dialogue implicitly
rejects his own hypothesis of the One, n accepts in its place the Theory of
Forms, and levels against that T h e o r y a series of objections he knows to be
unsound. ~2
This is surely one of the most peculiar features of the dialectic of the Parmenides, that Parmenides should attack what he accepts and defend what he
denies. It is so peculiar, indeed, that m a n y critics have shut their eyes to the
palpable fact. W h a t accounts for it? And why, if the objections are unsound,
does Socrates have such difficulty in seeing through them?
a0135 a-b; cf. 135c-d, 133b, 130e. I can find no trace

of irony in these remarks.

n Presumably he subscribes to the criticisms of the One leveled by another Eleatic, the Stranger

in the Sophist (244b ft.).

~2There are critics who post to the conclusion that, because there are criticismsof the Theory of
Forms in the Parmenides, Plato himself accepted those criticisms. They neglect the fact that Parmcnides himself,the very mask of the dialogue who urges them, rejects them and acceptsthe Theory
he criticises. If Plato ever abandoned the Theory of Forms, he did not announce his intention in this
portion of the Parmenides.

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149

Parmenides answers the second question directly: he says that Socrates,

though he has a noble passion for argument, is young and in need of training
in dialectic (135c-d, el. 130e). This remark fits precisely with Plato's characterization of Socrates throughout the dialogue: his impetuousness and youthful gaucherie in his discussion with Zeno, his inability to withstand the onslaught of Parmenides' criticisms. H e is brilliant, so brilliant as to invent a
theory which a far older man, a great philosopher himself, will accept in
place of his own. But he is young in philosophy; his mind leaps to conclusions
before it has thought its problems through and, despite its imaginative power
and spirit, it lacks the essential patient discipline that philosophy requires.
And therefore, when put to the question, Socrates is able only feebly to defend
himself.
In light of this, we can explain why Parmenides should criticize what he
accepts. T h e motive for criticism is not doctrine, b u t education. Parmenides
is a man of sixty-five, old in philosophy and a teacher, teaching a youth of
twenty that he must think better before he thinks well. His aim is itself Socratic: to teach a m a n who thinks he knows that he does not know, to purge
the mists that blind his inner vision and curtail his aim. Parmenides offers
Socrates a Socratic elenchus, ridding him of the false conceit of knowledge,
forcing him to inquire further into questions he has answered correctly, and
too soon.
If this is true, it leads us to remark another feature of Plato's dramatic
characterization. Parmenides is Socratic in his purpose, Socratic in the underlying irony of his approach, and also Socratic in his method. Socratic dialectic
has an Eleatic root. It is Zenonian dialectic freed of its geometrical rigor,
the reductio ad absurdum adapted to the flexible needs of conversation, depending
less on the formal implication of propositions than on the admissions of a
respondent in discussion. Parmenides criticizes as a man steeped in this new
method of conversation, which Socrates was to invent long after his death.
Further, Parmenides has a grasp of the language and tenets of the T h e o r y of
Forms that strongly suggests that he has read and r e m e m b e r e d the Phaedo, a
dialogue which records the views of a Socrates who is fifty years older than
the Socrates of the Parmenides, and a b o u t to die. Parmenides, in a word, speaks
as a man who has lived on after his own death, who has glimpsed a new philosophy and a n e w pattern of discussion, and embraced them in the ashes of his
tomb. H e is a ghost holding converse with the living, instructing Socrates in
the technique of a dialectic Socrates will himself one d a y invent, instructing a
Socrates w h o is young and undisciplined and not yet the Socrates who speaks
for the Phaedo. It is nothing strange that artistically, dramatically, the Par-

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menides leaves one with a curious impression of timelessness, the impression

that the conversation, even though it occurs in Athens in the middle of the
Fifth Century, has occurred in the nowhere and the nowhen. T h e color of
place and time, the bustle of h u m a n activity which Plato knew so well how to
capture when he wished, are absent from it. It is a dialogue of the living and
the dead. A n d the dead, agelessly contemporary, differ from the living only in
their wisdom, only in the tenseless vitality of their thought.
If this is a true account of characterization in the Parmenides, the question
naturally and insistently arises as to what Plato intended by it. T o answer
that question, it is best first to m a r k a peculiarity of dialectic.

The Dialectical Impasse oJ the Parmenides

It is a remarkable fact, though one not often remarked, that Socrates'
proposed solution to Zeno's paradox is a failure: T h e T h e o r y of Forms does
not solve, but is prey to, the difficulty it is introduced to solve.
Zeno's problem had been absolutely general in its scope. If there is a plurality, all of its members must be both like and unlike. This, in his view, was
absurd, and therefore, there could be no plurality.
Socrates defends plurality by introducing the T h e o r y of Forms, thereby
resolving the minor premise of Zeno's argument: qualification by opposites
implies no absurdity. But in denying the minor, Socrates was compelled to
deny the major as well. Because no F o r m can be qualified by its opposite, it is
false that every m e m b e r of a plurality is both like and unlike. Likeness and
Unlikeness are exceptions.
With ordinary Forms, of the sort Plato mentions in the middle dialogues,
this consequence would be acceptable. H a d Zeno argued, for example, that
if anything is large it is also small, and that it is impossible for the same
things to be both large and small, the T h e o r y of Forms could have corrected
the flaw in the minor without internal strain. For there is nothing to suggest
that Largeness must itself be small, or Smallness large. And this is so, not only
of large and small, but also of beautiful and ugly, just and unjust, equal and
unequal, double and half. T o the degree that Zeno raises the problem of how
things can be jointly qualified by any sort of opposite at all, the Theory of
Forms provides a sataisfactory answer. Indeed, it was tailored to fit the question.
But it does not solve the specific difficulty Zeno had raised. Largeness,
Justice, Beauty, and their opposites, and in general, the other Forms in view
in the middle dialogues, are restricted terms. T h a t is, there is nothing intrinsic
to them that requires their universal application. T h e r e is no internal neces-

PLATO'S

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sity, for example, that Largeness characterize Smallness, that Beauty be ugly,
or Equality unequal, or Justice unjust. O n the contrary, there is an internal
necessity that such terms not have universal application; they are not only
restricted, but necessarily restricted. For the assumption that Forms such as
these are qualified by their opposites is not merely false: it is absurd. 13
But with Likeness and Unlikeness it is different. It makes no sense to say
that Inequality is equal to Equality. But it does make sense to say that U n likeness is like Likeness. It makes sense, and furthermore, it is true : both Forms
are alike, for example, in being real, intelligible, and unchanging. Also,
Likeness is unlike Unlikeness: it is, and does not merely have, a different
character; it is not, as Unlikeness is, the source of unlikeness in unlike things.
T o say, then that Likeness and Unlikeness cannot be qualified by their opposite is false. Likeness is unlike. Unlikeness is like.
This is because such terms are unrestricted. T h e y are terms of ultimate
generality, terms which apply to every subject of discourse without exception.
T h e major premise of Zeno's paradox, that, if there are m a n y things, they
must be both like and unlike, is in fact sound. T h e members of any plurality,
quite apart from special characteristics they m a y have, must be different
from each other, and in that respect unlike: numerical distinctness implies
distinctness of character. 14 Further, the members of a plurality must be alike :
for example, they are alike in that they are all the same as themselves, different from each other, and real. 15 Therefore, the T h e o r y of Forms, in affirming
that Likeness and Unlikeness cannot be qualified by each other and, in
denying Zeno's major premise, denies what is true and affirms what is false.
It m a y be supposed that this difficulty is unimportant, that Socrates could
get around it by allowing that certain Forms, I,ikeness and Unlikeness a m o n g
them, can be qualified by their own opposite. And this seems a mere minor
correction. In fact, however, it is not. It is equivalent to denying that such
Forms are Forms at all.
T h a t Forms cannot be qualified by their own opposite is not an accidental
feature of the Theory, b u t of its essence. T h e obverse of " B e a u t y itself is not
ugly" is " B e a u t y itself is beautiful," and Plato believed that obverse true.
Specifically, Beauty itself is pure beauty, abr~ rb K~Xbv dX~KO~v~, b e a u t y
unalloyed with any taint of ugliness. T o say that Forms are not qualified b y
a3 T h i s m a y be s h o w n dialectically. If a n y t h i n g w h i c h participates in one opposite participates
in t h e o t h e r - - a p r e m i s e w h i c h Plato characteristically a s s u m e s - - a n d if to participate in a F o r m is
to be a deficient copy of t h a t F o r m (for w h i c h see, for e x a m p l e , Phaedo 74e 1-4) ; t h e n if a n y F o r m
p a r t i c i p a t e d in its opposite, it w o u l d be a deficient copy o f itself. T h i s is a b s u r d .
14 A s s u m e d as a premise in Hvp. V, 161a; cf. 148b, c, 159a. So also Proclus (cited b y Cornford,
op. tit., p. 68, n. 4). CL Sophist 255c--d.
a6 Cf. Sophist 254d IT., Parm. 147c, 148c, 158c.

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their opposites is to say that they are purely what they are. Particulars are
impure mixtures, jointly qualified by opposites, themselves no opposites at all.
T o be a Form, then, is to be a paradigm, or exemplar, to be purely the
character which particulars own only deficiently. And this is connected with
the other main criteria of reality that Plato recommends in the middle dialogues. Because Forms are not qualified by their own opposites, because they
are unmixedly what they are, they are intelligible. For the same reason, they
are serf-identical and unchanging, 6~t &r
~x~. Change is always between opposites. W h a t cannot be qualified by an opposite cannot change
with respect to that opposite. O n the other hand, particulars, as mixtures, are
relatively unintelligible. As qualified by opposites, they are subject to change.
T h a t Forms are not qualified by their own opposites, then, is at the heart
of Plato's ontology in the middle dialogues: it is implicated with the other
main criteria of reality that he accepts. But this has an unfortunate consequence, as we have seen. T h e F o r m of Beauty is the exemplar of beauty, and
because it is the exemplar, it is in no sense ugly. But if there were an exemplar
of likeness, that exemplar would be pure likeness, in no sense unlike, in no
sense qualified by its opposite. But unlikeness is an unrestricted term. Therefore, there can be no such Form as Likeness. Its existence assumes that impossible.
O n the other hand, if Likeness is not a Form, the T h e o r y of Forms is
irrelevant to Zeno's paradox. Worse, there is no way then to distinguish,
where unrestricted terms are concerned, between things qualified by opposites
and the opposites which qualify them. But if this distinction is denied, opposites are identical, and plurality impossible.
T h e T h e o r y of Forms, then, is neatly impaled on the horns of a dilemma.
If Likeness is a Form, the result is absurdity: an unrestricted term is then
m a d e restricted. If Likeness is not a Form, the result is again absurdity:
opposites are then identified. It is impossible that Likeness should be unlikeness. It is equally impossible that Likeness should not be unlike. T h e dialectical
structure of the Parmenides thus exhibits, at its very outset, an impasse, an
impasse which is nowhere directly mentioned in the dialogue. The consequences of that impasse must, of necessity, be of grave import for Plato's
ontology.

Plato and Parmenides

Plato in the Parmenides is not portraying historical fact, playing Boswell
to Socrates' Johnson. T h e historical Parmenides did not accept the T h e o r y
of Forms; it is unlikely that he ever met the young Socrates; it is certain that
if he did, he did not discuss the T h e o r y of Forms with him, since it was Plato,

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not Socrates, who invented that Theory. The peculiarities of characterization

in the Parmenides--peculiarities which any contemporary student of philosophy would immediately have detected--are not historical and can scarcely
be accidental. They are intended as an indirect illumination of the dialectic.
They are the symbol of an impasse in thought.
In his reply to Zeno, Socrates mentioned three sets of Forms not found in
the middle dialogues: Likeness~Unlikeness, Unity/Plurality, and Rest/Motion. The first two pairs are unrestricted terms: they apply to everything, including each other, te All three figure prominently in the thought of the
historical Parmenides, both by way of affirmation and by negation. The Way
of Seeming, the world for which Parmenides could find no reality, combined
these contraries, along with such sensible opposites as light and dark, hot and
cold. The Way of Truth separates them; it avoids the joint qualification of
unrestricted opposites by denying plurality, and with it unlikeness and motion.
Plato believed that that denial sprang from an error, the confusion of characteristics with things characterized. The Theory of Forms was intended to
correct that error, to vindicate plurality, and thereby to provide, what Parmenides in the nature of the case could not provide, a status--however mean
- - f o r the sensible world.
In the Parmenides, Plato seems to suggest that had Parmenides lived to
learn of the Theory of Forms, he might well have accepted it. The idea is not
far-fetched. Plato corrects Parmenides in a way Parmenides himself might
well have approved. The Way of Truth springs from a vision of Being which is
as simple as it is profound: what is real is intelligible, unchanging and selfidentical, and not qualified by opposites. And those are precisely the criteria
of reality in Platonism. Plato stands with the great pluralists of the fifth century in his attempt to reconcile those criteria with the fact of motion and the
existence of the sensible world. He stands with them too in the broad outline
of his solution. Empedocles and the Atomists, each in their own way, recommend a Two-Tiered Many: shattering the Parmenidean sphere into many
ones, their reconciliation is effected by distinguishing between simples and
compounds. Plato effects it by distinguishing the Worlds of Knowledge and
Belief--a familiar Parmenidean contrast--distinguishing characteristics,
which fully satisfy the criteria of reality, from things characterized, which do
not. Parmenides is to be reconciled to the sensible world by a theory of degrees
of reality.
16 Unity must have distinguishable aspects : at t h e very least, it must be one, and real. It is therefore in this sense m a n y . Similarly, Plurality is one F o r m . I shall n o t here consider the special difficulties which attend the analysis of Motion a n d Rest. T h e s e t e r m s play no f u r t h e r direct role in the
dialectic of the Parmenides, a n d are best considered in c o n n e c t i o n w i t h the Sophist, where, though
they are restricted universals, and do not apply to e a c h other, they figure among the Greatest K i n d s .

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Plato's answer is the answer of genius. But unfortunately, there is a sense in

which it fails. Plato had set out to correct Parmenides. He came eventually
to realize that Parmenides, in the face of correction, had still m u c h to teach
him. He came to realize that the T h e o r y of Forms, though perhaps sound as
far as it goes, does not go far enough. It explains how things can be qualified
by opposites when those opposites are restricted--how things can be both
large and small, double and half, just and unjust. But in the Parmenides, Plato
confronts his T h e o r y with the issues which had bulked most large in
Parmenides' own thought, issues bound up with the application, not of restricted, but of unrestricted, terms. A n d the result is impasse, a dilemma which
the T h e o r y of Forms cannot answer. T h e Parmenidean tradition, which had
provoked Plato's own best thought, was to provoke further thought. For it
raised metaphysical issues he had not yet fully understood.
T h e characterization of the Parmenides is a symbol of this crisis in thought.
As Plato stood to the historical Parmenides, so Socrates stands to the
Parmenides of the dialogue. Here, in the dialogue, the old Parmenides sees
his theory rejected by the young Socrates, and generously admits that Socrates
is right. So might the historical Parmenides have done, had he lived to learn
of the T h e o r y of Forms. Socrates is right, but he has not fully thought his
problem t h r o u g h - - a s Plato had not thought it through when he championed
Forms in the middle dialogues. T h e old Parmenides, a teacher who does not
teach but questions, does not directly indicate to the young Socrates his
failure to solve Zeno's paradox; instead, he works to convince him of his own
ignorance, works to stir h i m - - a n d us with h i m - - t o inquire further. Just so
Plato, looking back to the middle dialogues, must have seen the historical
P a r m e n i d e s - - t h a t Parmenides he was later to call Father--silently questioning him. And like the young Socrates of the dialogue, he was hard put to find
an answer.
Let me now summarize m y argument. I have been concerned to examine
the relationship between Zeno's paradox and Socrates' proposed solution to it,
the T h e o r y of Forms. T h a t relationship has been found complex. T h e Theory
of Forms solves the paradox by distinguishing what the paradox, and Eleatic
logic generally, identifies: things characterized and characteristics. For the
Theory, this distinction is the distinction between exemplars and exemplifications. Yet in solving the paradox, the Theory falls prey to it. T h e required
distinction, as Plato draws it, works well enough when restricted terms are in
question. But it does not work at all when applied to unrestricted t e r m s - the terms that Zeno, and Parmenides before him, had had mainly in view. To
the degree that the T h e o r y of Forms cannot explain joint qualification by
unrestricted opposites, to that degree Plato's defense of plurality fails, and
with it his attempt to reconcile the Parmenidean requirements of Being with

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the existence of the sensible world. When thought through, Plato's middle
ontology faced crisis.
The Theory of Forms, then, was an instrument for the laying of a ghost in
Elea. But the ghost rose, and walked abroad in Athens. In the Parmenides, it
speaks.

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