In this book, RE Allen provides a translation of the'Parmenides' along with a structural
analysis that procedes on the assumption that formal elements, logical and dramatic, are
important to its interpretation and that the argument of the Parmenides is aporetic, a
statement of metaphysical perplexities.

The Parmenides is notorious for the criticisms it directs against Plato's own Theory of Forms,
as presented in the middle period. But the second and major portion of the dialogue has
generally been avoided, despite its being offered as Plato's response to the problems; the
text seems intractably obscure, appearing to consist of a series of bad arguments leading to
contradictory conclusions. Carefully analyzing these arguments and the methodological
remarks which precede them, Meinwald shows that to understand Plato's response we need …

But far more excellent, in my opinion, is the serious treatment of these things, the treatment
given when one practices the art of dialectic. Discerning a kindred soul, the dialectician
plants and sows speeches infused with in sight, speeches that are capable of defending
themselves and the one who plants them, and that are not barren but have a seed from
which there grow up different speeches in different characters. Thus the seed is made
immortal and he who has it is granted well-being in the fullest measure possible for …

THE following observations are arguments in favour of a certain interpretation of Plato's
dialogue, the Parmenides. According to this interpretation the dialogue is philosophically
serious, in the sense that its author thought that its arguments were valid and that its problem
was one of philosophical importance. Further, it will be maintained that he was right on the
latter point and predominantly right on the former point. The problem is important and most
of the arguments are valid. It will be suggested that the obvious obscurity of the dialogue is …

Of all Plato's dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars
of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have
ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the whole of Platonic metaphysics to
seeing it as a collection of sophisticated tricks, or even as an elaborate joke. This work
presents an illuminating new translation of the dialogue together with an extensive
introduction and running commentary, giving a unified explanation of the Parmenides and …

" Gill's and Ryan's Parmenides is, simply, superb: the Introduction, more than a hundred
pages long, is transparently clear, takes the reader meticulously through the arguments,
avoids perverseness, and still manages to make sense of the dialogue as a whole; there is a
fine selective bibliography; and those parts of the translation I have looked at in detail
suggest that it too is very good indeed."--Christopher Rowe, Phronesis

part assigned in the dialogue to Parmenides. Certain commentators, feeling that Plato
cannot have had a greater respect for Parmenides th for Socrates, have held that he would
not put into the mouth of Parmenides criticisms of the theory of forms which he (Plato) could
not in fact refute. It has further been suggested that Plato intended t dialogue to be an implicit
refutation of views which the historic Parmenides might be supposed to have held. 2
However, it is, I think considerably more plausible to suggest that Plato uses the young …