Plato's Forms in Transition: A Reading of the Parmenides (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521110488)

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.

Author: Samuel C. Rickless
ISBN-10: 0521110483
ISBN-13: 9780521110488
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/07/2009
Pages: 292
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.66d