"Unwritten Teachings" in the 'Parmenides.' (Plato's Work)

The project of this essay is to study hypotheses of Parmenides for evidence of the so-called ([Greek Text Omitted]) that Aristotle ascribes to Plato A6 of Metaphysics.(1) At first hearing, this must sound both paradoxical and problematic. Even if one accepts for sake of argument that there may be such teachings, can we reasonably hope to find them one of Plato's writings?(2) And even if this is granted, still, can we really hope to find them notorious hypotheses, arguably single most obscure of all of Plato's writings, a text whose very aim and subject matter are uncertain and whose argument is fiddled contradiction and fallacy? Though difficulties are indeed formidable, I will try to show that these hopes are fact well founded. The key is recognizing kind of writing hypotheses are and adjusting accordingly our understanding of what it means for teachings to be in them. In making this claim, I am building on results of earlier work I have done on Parmenides.(3) In that work I have argued that hypotheses are to be read on two levels. On their surface, they are purely formal exercises abstract thinking; indeed, many of very features that make them so obscure - notably, their densely conceptual language, absence of imagery and of value terms, and way which almost every thesis is both compounded by its contrary and canceled by its contradictory - serve to require us, just order to follow argument, to forego any reference to concrete particulars world at hand; we must learn to think by way of abstractions. If, however, we manage this, we find ourselves positioned to discover a deeper level of meaning. I will explicate this shortly (Part B below). What is important to bring to focus here is peculiar nature of text and, correspondingly, sort of discovery it invites. On one hand, to reader who has grasped them as formal exercises, hypotheses present themselves as a massive set of carefully (though by no means always validly) argued contradictory theses regarding the One; Plato must have known and intended effect that such a web of antitheses would have on an attentive and persistent reader, for he began dialogue by showing how young Socrates, confronted Zeno's famous antitheses on the many, was provoked to try to undermine them his distinction of forms from their participants. On other hand, Plato has now removed Socrates from his role as Parmenides' interlocutor, replacing him youthful the least likely to make trouble meddlesome inquiries ([Greek Text Omitted]: 13766-7);(4) this Aristotle, eventually to become one of Thirty Tyrants, is consistently passive and often obtuse. Thus Plato both constructs a challenge and shifts to reader responsibility of rising to it. The text effect invites reader to follow Socrates' earlier example and to probe critically where Aristotle does not, to interrupt hypotheses with meddlesome inquiries aimed at testing depth and solidity of contradictions.(5) The basic thrust of my earlier work on Parmenides was to show that for reader who responds to this challenge, hypotheses prove much more than merely formal exercises. If, particular, one brings Socrates' seminal insight - distinction of forms from sensibles - to bear upon contradictions, they give way, yielding a timely new content process; read thus, I have argued, they provide basic elements for a systematic and conceptual rearticulation of distinction itself and of notion of participation. I offer these synoptic remarks here order to acknowledge from start special sense which, on reading I want to propose this essay, unwritten may be found written and in Parmenides. It is only hypotheses read at second, subsurface level that we will discover them. …