The “Parmenides” and the unwritten doctrines of Plato: the One and the Other

Abstract

Cornford (in his Plato and Parmenides: Way of truth and Plato's Parmenides) says that the Parmenides dialogue begins "the series of works in which Plato for the first time confronts his own doctrine with the main systems of his predecessors and submits them to a critical examination "(p.63). Yes, but it is even more so: the reconstruction of the dialogue in the light of the hermeneutic method of Tübingen-Milan leads us to gather the structure in which the ontological vision on three levels intersect, from the physical world to the Ideas and from the Ideas to the First Principles. The key element of structural development is not only theoretical but also dramatic, it is the link between the two sides of the dialogue. Only the unity between the two parts makes the dialectical course recorded in the text plausible and justifiable. The first part of Parmenides brings the theory of Ideas, but gives up a Protology. Nevertheless, a complete view of the text brings into play the One and the Other/Other, foundations of the supreme Principles. The aim here is to bring to light the structural links of argument that leads us to a totalizing view of reality in Plato.