Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Parmenides’ Lesson: Translation and Explication of Plato’s ‘Parmenides’ by Kenneth M. SayreHenry TelohKenneth M. Sayre, author and translator. Parmenides’ Lesson: Translation and Explication of Plato’s ‘Parmenides’. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996. Pp. xx + 383. Cloth, $50.00.Kenneth Sayre has written a masterful translation and commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. The translation is literal but readable, and the commentary is informative, challenging, and close to the text. Sayre’s main concern, and what he takes to be the “main problem of interpretation” (xi) is “what to make of Plato’s treatment of the several hypotheses that constitutes the second portion of the dialogue.” Sayre devotes over half of his book to the second half of the Parmenides, and anyone who knows Plato’s text will infer correctly that this is not a book for novices, but rather one which will yield ample reward to serious students of Plato. The book would have benefited from signposts which would locate Sayre’s intricate analyses of passages within his larger scheme of Plato’s development, an account of Plato’s more mature theory of Forms, and a [End Page 524] discussion of how each section of the Parmenides connects or fails to connect with the later. (Granted that we can obtain Sayre’s views from his other works.)Sayre’s book is not only an analysis of Plato’s text; it is also an engagement with important commentaries on that text. He carefully outlines and criticizes Miller, Meinwald, Allen, and Cornford (being most indebted to Cornford’s statements about the Pythagorean elements in Plato’s mature theory). Sayre maintains that the first part of the Parmenides questions the immature theory of Forms which is found in the Phaedo and Republic (68). Sayre believes that this immature theory is in need of more careful articulation and revision, and that the Parmenides begins the process. (Note that Sayre does not worry about whether there are multiple theories of Forms, or developments and changes in a single theory.) The major tenets of the youthful theory are that Forms are: (1) real in that they are “themselves in themselves,” (2) the causes of determinate characteristics in sensible things, (3) paradigms for the naming of their participants, (4) directly known by mind or reason, and (5) absolute in the sense of being independent of their participants (75).Sayre argues that Parmenides’ arguments in the first part of the Parmenides show that (1)—(5) need more elaboration and interpretation. The sections on the sail, day, and participating in a part of a Form force revisions of (1) and (2); Forms must be free of contrary predicates, they cannot be divisible spatially, and hence Plato must rethink participation. The point of the third man argument is that since “.… Largeness has lost its self-determinate status by virtue of being 'demoted' (in thought) to an object of appearance, it is no longer capable of providing determination to the shared features of this augmented group of individuals” (81). Sayre claims that Largeness is no longer one, and that it is “indefinitely multitudinous” (82), and hence that Largeness lacks definite properties. I am unclear about what Sayre’s point is here. Does he mean that Forms come to have contrary predicates—Largeness is both one and many—and each of these predicates is definite enough, but confused when found in the same entity, or that these predicates are themselves indefinite, whatever that might mean? The first interpretation seems to fit Sayre’s overall theory best, and if this is correct, then the third man argument shows that Plato needs to reinterpret (1) and (2) above. The second third man argument shows, Sayre claims, that both participation and resemblance are unexplained in the immature theory, and thus that (3) needs work. The section on our knowledge of the Forms reveals that (4) and (5) must be rethought. Sayre states that Plato rejects radical separation for the position that forms are distinct from their participants. I concur with this last claim, but Sayre needs a sustained discussion of what this claim means. Sayre concludes that the point of the first part of the Parmenides is that...