Plato's forms in transition : a reading of the Parmenides / Samuel C. Rickless.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rickless, Samuel Charles, 1964-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato. Parmenides.

Plato.

Form (Philosophy).

Reasoning.

Physical Description:

xv, 272 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Summary:

There is a mystery at the heart of Plato's Parmenides. In the first part, Parmenides criticizes what is widely regarded as Plato's mature theory of forms, and, in the second, he promises to explain how the forms can be saved from these criticisms. Ever since the dialogue was written, scholars have struggled to determine how the two parts of the work fit together. Did Plato mean us to abandon, keep, or modify the theory of forms, on the strength of Parmenides' criticisms? Samuel Rickless offers something that has never been done before: a careful reconstruction of every argument in the dialogue. He concludes that Plato's main aim was to argue that the theory of forms should be modified by allowing that forms can have contrary properties. To grasp this is to solve the mystery of the Parmenides and understand its crucial role in Plato's philosophical development.

Contents:

1 The theory of forms 10

1.1 The high theory 11

1.2 The higher theory 45

2 The theory criticized 53

2.1 The extent of the forms 53

2.2 Parts and wholes 56

2.3 The Third Man 64

2.4 Forms as thoughts 75

2.5 Paradigmatism 80

2.6 The Greatest Difficulty 85

3 The theory modified: methodology 95

4 The First Deduction 112

5 The Second Deduction 138

6 From the Appendix to the Fourth Deduction 188

6.1 The Appendix to the first two Deductions 189

6.2 The Third Deduction 198

6.3 The Fourth Deduction 207

7 From the Fifth to the Eighth Deduction 212

7.1 The Fifth Deduction 212

7.2 The Sixth Deduction 223

7.3 The Seventh Deduction 228

7.4 The Eighth Deduction 236.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-256) and indexes.

ISBN:

0521864569

OCLC:

71347563

Publisher Number:

9780521864565