3 My recent Prague venture

On the 25^th of February I wrote to Dr Jakub Jirsa, the Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University:

‘Yesterday I put on my website www.juliustomin.org two essays: ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides’ and ‘’Plato and Dionysius’. Both can be found under the heading Texty v češtině (Texts in Czech). In both these essays I view Plato in a new way, and as such they need to be discussed. Therefore, I am addressing you with a request to allow me to present these two essays at your Institute. It would be great if you or another Platonic scholar opposed my views on Plato in discussions which I presume will follow my presentations. I hope you will respond positively to my request.’

Dr Jirsa replied: ‘Thank you for your offer. I have decided not to use it.’

I responded: ‘May I ask you to justify your decision?’

To this request I received no answer; I spent the rest of my days in Prague addressing Czech academics, beginning with the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Rector of Charles University, asking them to support me in my two requests addressed to Dr Jirsa, but to no avail. Before returning to England I wrote a short piece ‘K zamyšlení’ (‘For thought’, in English perhaps ‘Something to think about’) in which I wrote:

‘If you look at my website, you will find that I have devoted a number of years to Plato, Aristotle, and the whole cultural heritage of Ancient Greece. I can see that it is in a sense unfair to ask philosophers at the Institute for Philosophy and Religious Studies who have so much else to think about – their careers, grants, writing and publishing, research stays at foreign universities – to discuss Plato and Aristotle with someone who devoted almost fifty years of intensive work to the subject. But is it fair to the students of Charles University to deprive them of the possibility to attend and take part in such an event?’

2 My recent Prague venture

On the 20^th of January, 2016, I wrote to Dr Boháček at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences:

“I hope you received my letter of December 30, 2015. From then on I continued to work on the Parmenides, making some further progress. For it became clear to me that Plato faced very demanding tasks in the years that followed his return from his second and preceded his third Sicilian journey: 1/ How to prepare his students in the Academy for his departure to Sicily, when they would have to do without him. With that aim in mind he wrote the Parmenides and the Symposium, both of which point to the Republic. 2/ As his stay in Athens protracted, he had to parry the growing influence of sophists on Dionysius. The Parmenides was of fundamental importance even concerning the sophists, and so was the Symposium that far surpassed anything they could offer the ruler of Syracuse. But the reference in both these works to the Republic was not helpful, and so he wrote the Sophist and the Statesman. I realized this a few days ago, then read both these dialogues again; as a result, I posted yesterday on my blog ‘The dating of the Sophist and the Statesman’.

In consequence, the structure of the 2^nd volume of my Plato suddenly became clear to me. The 1^st volume is on my website entitled The Lost Plato. The 2^nd volume is so far just in an initial stage, and I began to doubt whether I would ever write it. All this has changed in the course of my work on the Parmenides and the dialogues which I began to see as related to it.

The 1^st volume consists of the dialogues which I view as written during Socrates’ life-time: from the Phaedrus to the Apology (the Phaedo, to which I devoted the first chapter of The Lost Plato, will be moved into the 2^nd volume in the definitive version). The 2^nd volume will be divided into 4 parts: 1/ dialogues from Crito to Menexenus; 2/ Republic; 3/ dialogues from Parmenides to Statesman; 4/ dialogues from Timaeus to Laws. If I succeed in writing this, the whole work will be entitled simply Plato.

And so I intend to approach your Institute with a request to provide me with conditions appropriate for this work. In the first place I should like to rethink in Czech the 1^st volume. As part of this work I should like to have a lecture each week during the term; in these lectures I should simply read and present for discussion the chapters dealing with the dialogues discussed in the 1^st volume. In between the terms I should work on the 2^nd volume. If the Czech philosophers become interested in this project, I am sure it would be possible to obtain for it a grant from the European Union; it concerns every nation aware of its cultural link to the Ancient Greece.

If you can do anything to help to make this happen, I shall be very glad.”

I have received no reply to this letter.

1 My recent Prague venture

It all began with a letter I wrote on the 30^th of December, 2015, to Dr Boháček, a member of the Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences, from which I quote:

‘I came to England in 1980 with an intention to stay abroad for five years [I had asked the Czechoslovak authorities for a permission to stay abroad for five years] which I would devote to the study of philosophy and classics, so that I could return home enriched and thus be of benefit to our country. Those five years have got somewhat prolonged [in May 1981, after it became clear to me that I was not wanted at Oxford, I wanted to return home, but at that point the Czechoslovak authorities deprived me of my citizenship], but I remained true to my original intention of doing my best to further my understanding in classics and philosophy.

My wife is divorcing me which provides me with an opportunity to return home and fulfil the original intention with which I came to Oxford.

I shall arrive to Prague on the 31^st of January and return to England on the 4^th of March (my son will be 14 on March 5). During the month in Prague I want to choose from my blog and rethink in Czech the texts devoted to Plato’s Parmenides. Furthermore, I should like to get acquainted with the situation in philosophy and classics at your Institute of Philosophy and at the Institute for Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University, attend your seminar and some lectures. At the end of the month I should like to give a paper on the Parmenides; if you follow my blog, you know that I have made substantial progress in my understanding of the dialogue.

Would you provide me with accommodation for that month in the facilities that the Institute has at its disposal? It would be great if the Czech Academy payed me a salary for the month worthy of the work I shall be doing.

In September 2015 I held ‘Three days in Prague devoted to Philosophy’ in Stromovka [a park in Prague]. A representative of the Jan Hus Foundation attended one of the meetings and recommended the Foundation to fund my coming to Prague for the event in 2016. I intend to hold the ‘Three days’ in May 2016.

If by the end of May no place in classics or philosophy is found for me in the Czech Republic or in England, I shall continue to do my work in philosophy, and with every contribution on my blog and on my website I shall be [tacitly] asking the question whether my work is not worthy of adequate support.’

I received no answer to my letter.

A cursory glance at Parmenides’ propaedeutic training

This morning I ended the first draft of my essay on ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides’ with a cursory glance at Parmenides’ propaedeutic training, which forms the second, by far the greater part of the dialogue (the 1^st part is 10, the 2^nd part 30 Stephanus pages long, roughly speaking):

“The question is, whether and in what way Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise fits Plato’s strategy in defending the forms in the dialogue. For it is not only much more thorough and radical in dismantling the forms with which Socrates challenged Zeno’s ‘many cannot be’ and Parmenides’ ‘All is one’, than the questioning to which Parmenides subjected Socrates, but it presents a serious challenge to Plato’s Forms. The forms Socrates brought in were derived from Socrates’ observation of the many things that exhibited the same form; their dismantling by Parmenides was therefore innocuous as far as the Forms presented in the Republic were concerned, to which Plato in the Parmenides directed the eyes of the reader, as I have argued. But in his propaedeutic exercise Parmenides begins by hypothesizing a single given form as being, and then the same form as not being; thus he can generate contradictory qualifications in any form he chooses to investigate; to elucidate his method, he chooses ‘the one’ as an example (135e-137b).

In the Parmenides the underlying supposition, shared by Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides, is that whatever suffers contradictory qualifications cannot truly be; the forms investigated within the framework of the Parmenidean exercise are thus deprived of true being by virtue of the contradictions concerning them generated in the course of the exercise; true being belongs exclusively to ‘All that is one’ (128a-b). Plato appears to have been well aware of this problem when he wrote the Republic: ‘Of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other form, the same remark holds: taken singly, each of them is one; but from the various combinations of them with actions and bodies and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many’ (476a4-7, tr. Jowett). But since he didn’t even dream of writing the Parmenides when he wrote those lines, he didn’t find it necessary to justify and ontologically establish the plurality of the Forms, each of which is just one. This task he had to undertake after he wrote the Parmenides, and he did so in the Sophist, in which he dons the garment of a Stranger from Elea; at the beginning of the Sophist Theodorus presents him as ‘a friend of the disciples of Parmenides and Zeno (hetairos tȏn amphi Parmenidȇn te kai Zȇnȏna, 226a3-4), but the Stranger proclaims himself to be a disciple of Parmenides at the point when he finds it ‘necessary in self-defence to put to the question the pronouncement of father Parmenides, and establish by main force that what is not, in some respect has being, and conversely that what is, in a way is not.’ (241d5-7, tr. Cornford). For only thus can Plato establish the plurality both in the realm of spurious being, in which the sophist finds his domicile, and in the realm of true being, which is accessible only to a true philosopher.

Concerning Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise, one pole of Plato’s strategy in defending the Forms remains the same as concerning Parmenides’ questioning the forms introduced by Socrates. By pointing to his brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon, and his half-brother Antiphon in the introductory scene, Plato presents himself as someone who knew of Parmenides’ criticism of the forms from the time he himself conceived the Forms; the criticism was irrelevant concerning the Forms. But the other pole of his defence, his directing the eyes of the reader to the Republic, in which his Forms are presented, was powerless in respect of Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise. Concerning it, Parmenides’ stepping out of his historical persona, in which he is presented in the dialogue, and turning into a prophet – ‘It will take a man of considerable natural gifts, who will be able to learn that there is a certain kind of each thing, and being by itself, and an even more admirable man who will discover it and will be able to teach it to someone else after examining sufficiently all these things (135a7-b2)’ – Parmenides looks into his own past as he braces himself for his propaedeutic exercise:

‘Antiphon said that Pythodorus said that he and Aristoteles and the others begged Parmenides to exhibit what he meant, and not refuse. Parmenides said, I must do as you ask. Yet really, I feel like the old racehorse in Ibycus [i.e. in Ibycus’ poem], who trembles with fear at the start of the race because he knows from long experience what lies in store. Ibycus compares himself (heauton apeikazȏn), forced (akȏn) as an old man (ephȇ kai autos houtȏ presbutȇs ȏn) to enter the lists of love against his will (eis ton erȏta anankazesthai ienai). When I remember how, at my age, I must traverse such and so great a sea of arguments, I am afraid.’ (136e5-137a6, tr. Allen)

And there comes an additional factor. Parmenides in the dialogue presents his exercise as indispensable, if Socrates is to be ‘fully trained and thoroughly discern the truth’ (136b4-5; cf. 135d5-6). Yet Plato’s disciples and followers knew well, for the Apology testified to it, that as a result of his encounter with Parmenides Socrates was left in the state of philosophic ignorance. And as far as Plato’s half-brother was concerned, Parmenides’ arguments, which he diligently rehearsed and learnt by heart as a youngster, left him uninterested in philosophy; instead, when he grew up, he became interested in horses (126c).”

A letter to the Pension Service

Dear Pension Service,

My wife is divorcing me and we have separate bank accounts. My bank account at Lloyds bank, sorting code: 30 97 81, the account number: 29319468.

My address remains the same. With my £28.03 a week State Pension I cannot allow myself to rent a private accommodation. My wife does her best to get me an accommodation in the vicinity – within the range of an easy cycle ride, so that I could visit my children and my children could easily visit me. How long will it take before I can leave 74 Everlands? A week, a month, a year, several years?

In November or December 2015 I received pension from the Czech Republic; it was a back payment for the last five years. If I remember it well, it was £7.200. If I count it correctly, it means a yearly pension of £1.440, which means a weekly pension of slightly less than £28. You are more generous: my State Pension Minus Adjustment of £13.00 is £28.03 a week.

I have appealed to the Master of Balliol at Oxford University concerning the Adjustment. I am sending you a copy of my Appeal.

Regards,

Julius Tomin

The Pythagoreans, Parmenides, and Socrates

I ended ‘Plato’s Parmenides and Parmenides’ poem’ (posted three days ago, on March 21) with the words: ‘Parmenides’ discussion of all the antinomies that he derives from the hypothesis ‘if the one is and if the one is not’ should be viewed in the light of what Aristotle says in the Metaphysics concerning the Pythagoreans who ‘extend their vision to all things that exist, and of the existing things suppose some to be perceptible and others not perceptible’ (989b24-26); they got their principles from non-sensible things’ (989b31, tr. Ross). The ancients viewed Parmenides as an associate of the Pythagoreans (Fr. A4, A12, A40a, A44). If Parmenides were to uphold his thesis that All is one, he had to do so face to face with the Pythagorean doctrines; Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise in Plato’s Parmenides shows us the way he (and Zeno) did it in the Eleatic school.’

After posting it, I resumed my reading of Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise in the Parmenides. At 157b6 Parmenides begins to examine ‘what qualifications would beseem the others if the one is’ (ti de tois allois prosȇkoi an paschein, hen ei estin). Within the framework of that investigation, he says at 158d3-6: ‘To the others than the one (Tois allois dȇ tou henos) it then happens (sumbainei) that from their communion with the one (ek men tou henos kai ex heautȏn koinȏnȇsantȏn), as it seems (hȏs eoiken), something different comes to be in them (heteron ti gignesthai en heautois), which provides them with a limit relative to each other (ho dȇ peras paresche pros allȇla); their own nature in themselves provides unlimitedness (hȇ d’ heautȏn phusis kath’ heauta apeirian).

Concerning this sentence, I jotted on the margin of my Burnet’s Oxford edition of Plato (more than thirty years ago, reading Cornford in Bodleian Library at Oxford) Aristotle’s Physics 203a10-12, which in Cornford’s view ‘seems to echo’ it: ‘The Pythagoreans (kai hoi men [hoi Puthagoreioi]) identify the infinite with the even (to apeiron einai to artion). For this (touto gar), when it is cut off and enclosed (enapolambanomenon) and limited by the odd (kai hupo tou perittou perainomenon), provides things with infinity (parechein tois ousi tȇn apeirian).’

***

In the essay I have been writing on ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides’ I wrote:

“Socrates attempts to escape the infinite multiplication of Forms by viewing the Forms simply as thoughts. The ensuing passage in which this attempt is discussed appears to have been long misunderstood; I therefore put the whole passage, 132b3-c12, in R. E. Allen’s translation:

‘But Parmenides, said Socrates, may it not be that each of the characters is a thought of these things, and it pertains to it to come to be nowhere else except in souls or minds? For in that way, each would be one, and no longer still undergo what was just now said? – Parmenides: ‘Well, is each thought one, but a thought of nothing?’ – Socrates: ‘No, that’s impossible.’ – Parmenides: ‘A thought of something, then?’ – Socrates: ‘Yes.’ – Parmenides: ‘Of something that is, or is not?’ – ‘Of something that is.’ – Parmenides: ‘Is it not of some one thing which that thought thinks as being over all, as some one characteristic?’ – Socrates: ‘Yes.’ – Parmenides: ‘Then that which is thought to be one will be a character, ever the same over all?’ – Socrates: ‘Again, it appears it must.’ – Parmenides: ‘Really? Then what about this: in virtue of the necessity by which you say that the others have a share of characters, doesn’t it seem to you that either each is composed of thoughts and all think, or that being thoughts they are un-thought? – Socrates: ‘But that is hardly reasonable.’

At this point an attentive reader must wonder on what basis could Parmenides view Socrates as saying ‘that in virtue of the necessity by which the others have a share of characters, each is composed of thoughts and all think, or that being thoughts they are un-thought’. In fact, Parmenides says something very different; Allen, Cornford, Jowett, Novotný, the Czech translator, and presumably all other translators back to Schleiermacher misplaced the necessity of which Socrates speaks and to which Parmenides refers. (See three entries on my blog: on September 26 I became aware that Allen and Cornford share the same misrepresentation of Plato’s text (I copied Cornford’s translation on the margin of my copy of Burnet’s Oxford edition of Plato and marked it as wrong). In the evening of the same day it occurred to me to go back to Jowett; I found the same misrepresentation (see my second entry of September 26). Two days later it occurred to me that Jowett must have consulted the passage with Schleiermacher. And indeed, I found the same mistake in Schleiermacher; see my blog of September 28.)

So let me give my translation of the passage as it can be found on my blog posted on September 26, 2015: ‘But may not each of the Forms (Alla mê tȏn eidȏn hekaston) be just a thought of these things (êi toutȏn noêma), to which it would appertain to be nowhere else (kai oudamou autȏi prosêkêi engignestai allothi) than in souls (ê en psuchais). For in this way each would be one (houtȏ gar an hen hekaston eiê) and would no more suffer (kai ouk an eti paschoi) what was said just now (ha nundê elegeto).’ – Parmenides: ‘What then (Ti oun)? Is each thought one (hen hekaston esti tȏn noêmatȏn), but thought of nothing (noêma de oudenos, ‘but thought of not even one [thing]’)? –Socrates: ‘But that’s impossible (All adunaton).’ – Parmenides: ‘But a thought of something (Alla tinos)?’ – Socrates: ‘Yes (Nai).’ – Parmenides: ‘Of something that is, or of something that is not (Ontos ê ouk ontos)? – Socrates: ‘Of something that is (Ontos).’ – Parmenides: ‘Is it not of something that is one (Ouch henos tinos), which that thought thinks to be on all (ho epi pasin ekeino to noêma epon noei), to wit a Form which is one (mian tina ousan idean)?’ – Socrates: ‘Yes (Nai).’ – Parmenides: ‘Won’t this then be a Form (Eita ouk eidos estai touto), to wit this which is thought to be one (to nooumenon hen einai), always being the same on all (aei on to auto epi pasin)? – Socrates: ‘Necessarily, again, it appears (Anankê au phainetai).’ – Parmenides: ‘What then (Ti de dê)? Is it not so by the necessity that compelled you to say that things participate in the Forms (ouk anangkêi hêi t’alla phêis tȏn eidȏn metechein), or does it seem to you that each thing is composed of thoughts (ê dokei soi ek noêmatȏn hekaston einai) and that all think (kai panta noein), or being thoughts (ê noêmata onta) they are unthinking (anoêta einai)?’ – Socrates: ‘But this does not make sense either (All’ oude touto echei logon).’ (132b3-c11)

As can be seen, Socrates explicitly qualified as necessary Parmenides’ suggestion implied in his question ‘Won’t this then be a Form, to wit this which is thought to be one, always being the same on all?’ His ‘again’ (au) makes it clear that with the ‘Yes’, with which he answered Parmenides’ previous question, he expressed necessity as well. The first suggestion thus qualified by Socrates as necessary is expressed in Parmenides’ words ‘Is it not of something that is one, which that thought thinks to be on all, to wit a Form which is one?’ It is this necessity twice expressed by Socrates to which Parmenides refers when he asks: ‘Is it not so by the necessity that compelled you to say that things participate in the Forms?’ If so, Socrates’ idea of the Forms being thoughts leads him back to the Forms embroiled in the problems of participation, which he tried to escape. But Parmenides is well aware that Socrates might still maintain that the Forms are just thought, but in that case he would have to choose between two possibilities: ‘or does it seem to you that each thing is composed of thoughts and that all think, or being thoughts they are unthinking?’ These two possibilities Parmenides does not qualify as necessary, and Socrates discards them as making no sense.”

***

On the margin of my Plato I jotted Cornford’s remark on this passage: ‘Plato’s Parmenides repudiates the doctrine which some critics ascribe to the real Parmenides that “to think is the same as to be”: to gar auto noein estin te kai einai.’ If the critics Cornford repudiates mean ‘human’, ‘subjective’ thinking, then he is right. But I don’t presume that on account of Plato’s Parmenides he wants to reject the fragment 3 of Parmenides’ poem. In the light of Plato’s Parmenides, fr. 3 must mean that being of ‘All, which is one’ is thinking. Let me give the fragment within the framework in which it is found, in Plotinus: ‘Parmenides brought being and thinking into one (Parmenidȇs … eis t’auto sunȇgen on kai noun) and he did not put being in the objects of senses (kai to on ouk en tois aisthȇtois etitheto) saying (legȏn) “to think is the same as to be” (to gar auto noein estin te kai einai). And he says that it is motionless (kai akinȇton de legei auto) – although he attributes to it thinking (kaitoi prostitheis to noein) – excluding from it all bodily movement (sȏmatikȇn pasan kinȇsin exairȏn ap’ autou), so that it remains always the same (hina menȇi hȏsautȏs). Plotin. Enn. V 1, 8.

Having decided to read Parmenides’ poem as a background to my reading of Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise in the Parmenides, I enjoyed reading and understanding the latter as a representation of Parmenides’ “to think is the same as to be”.

***

In the essay on ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides’ which I am writing (and in all entries on my blog devoted to this theme) I have been arguing that the historicity of Parmenides’ encounter with Socrates is essential for Plato’s defence of the Forms in the dialogue. The question is, whether and in what way Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise fits Plato’s strategy. For it completely destroys Socrates’ Forms, in so far as Socrates introduced them free from contradictory qualifications and thus as a challenge to Parmenides’ “All is one”, and so it might be seen as counterproductive. But as I have argued, Plato neatly differentiates between the historical Parmenides and the prophetic Parmenides who steps out of his historical persona and turns his eyes into the future, envisaging the coming of a man who will discover the Forms immune to the difficulties that Socrates could not answer. It is the historical Parmenides who gets engaged in the propaedeutic exercise, Parmenides looking into the time when he was younger, drawing on his past philosophic activities.

Since Parmenides attributes true being to the one which is uncreated (agenȇton) and indestructible (anȏlethron), complete (oulomeles) and without end (ateleston), which never was (oude pot’ ȇn) nor will be (oud estai), for it is all now, in the present (epei nun estin homou pan, fr. 8, 5), immovable (akinȇton), without beginning (anarchon) and without end (apauston), since coming into being (epei genesis) and passing away (kai olethros) have been cast away by true belief (apȏse de pistis alȇthȇs, fr. 8, 26-28), his propaedeutic exercise challenges Plato’s Forms. But with this challenge Plato cannot deal within the framework of the Parmenides; he cannot present Parmenides refuting Parmenides. To deal with that challenge he dons the garment of the Eleatic Stranger in the Sophist to commit what the Stranger fears to be a parricide, so as ‘to establish by main force that what is not, in some respect has being, and conversely that what is, in a way is not’ (241d5-7), for only on that basis can Plato secure plurality both on the level of appearances in which falsity thrives, the domain of the sophist, characterized by darkness, and on the level of true being, which is full of light, the level that only a true philosopher can reach (253b-254b).

And yet, viewed in the context of Socrates’ life, Parmenides’ exercise represents a powerful, though indirect affirmation of Plato’s Forms. For Parmenides with his exercise left Socrates in a situation in which he could not return to his own Forms as ontologically sound, yet could not reject them, for his eyes were fixed on them in all his discussions on how to live the best life; Parmenides left him in a situation of philosophic not-knowing in which we find him at his trial in the Apology. 

An appeal for help addressed to the Master of Balliol

Dear Master,

Since 2009 the Pension Service has charged me with the debt of £11,856.70. All my appeals to the Pension Service to revise their decision have been made in vain. It would be great if a Balliol lawyer could look into the matter.

Let me give you some basic facts. On March 20, 2015 I wrote to the Pension Service: “Today I have received your letter of 14/03/2015 in which you inform me of my pension. In the paragraph entitled ‘How your benefit is made up’ you write: ‘Basic State Pension £37.10. Pre 97 additional State Pension 2.85. Minus Adjustment of £13.00. The amount each week is £26.95.’ Would you explain to me on what basis you are making the Minus Adjustment of £13.00?”

In a letter of 31 March 2015 Glyn Caron replied: ‘I have been requested to reply to your letter of 20^th March 2015. As you are aware you have an overpayment of Pension Credit to pay.’

In my letter of 4^th April I wrote to her:
'What you wrote in your letter is wrong. I am not aware that I have ‘an overpayment of Pension Credit to pay’. I have been aware, of course, that in 2009 I have been charged with the debt of £11,856.70, and that ever since the pay I have been receiving was weekly lessened by a certain amount. In 2009 it was 9.50 a week, now it is £13.00 a week. All my attempts to learn on what basis I have been found in debt have thus far remained unanswered. Those who asked you to reply to my letter ought to have given you access to the basic facts underlying the whole matter. Instead, you have been left in the dark. If you are not allowed an access to the facts, would you inform me to whom I should appeal, who would have the power to ask for and obtain an access to those facts?'

In a letter of 09 April she replied:
'I have been requested to reply to your email of 4th April 2015. Your initial enquiry was regarding the £13.00 minus adjustment to your State Pension which I feel I answered.'

So let me quote from my letter to the Pension Service of 7/10/2009, in which I responded to the only attempt the Pension Service has ever made to substantiate their claim that I have an overpayment of Pension Credit:

‘In a letter of 08/09/2009 you informed me that my Pension Credit was overpaid £158.34 for the period 06/07/2009-26/07/2009. I received the letter on Monday September 14. In the letter you stated: “The overpayment occurred because on 09/07/2009 your circumstances changed and the office that paid your benefit was not told at the correct time about a change to the level of earnings in your household.” This allegation is false. On 23 July 2009 I sent The Pension Service a letter, in which I informed you of my wife’s earnings for three days of supply teaching for the period 2 to 14 July, and I enclosed the three pay slips. I did so as soon as my wife received the pay. I did not contact you on the day I received your letter of 8/9, for I expected a visit from the Pension Service Customer Liaison Officer, announced for the next day, with whom I wanted to discuss the issue.

On September 15 I was visited by the Pension Service Customer Liaison Officer to whom I showed the relevant documents concerning the supposed overpayment. At that point she gave me your letter of 11 August 2009 in which you inform me that in the period from 01/08/2005 to 12/10/2008 I was overpaid £11,688.36, and from 13/10/2008 to 19/10/2008 I was overpaid £75.28, that is in total £11,763.64. I phoned your department in the officer’s presence, appealing against your decision.’

Today I received from the Pension Service a similar letter to the one I had received on March 14, 2015. I have reasons to believe that any further appeal on my part to the Pension Service would be futile. I made an attempt to obtain help from the Citizens Advice Bureau (see the entry of November 22, 2014), to no avail. May I hope that you will look into the matter?

I have discussed the matter on my blog in three entries: ‘An urgent request addressed to the Pension Service’ of June 10, ‘It is all wrong’ of June 15, and ‘It has nothing to do with Oxford University’ of June 19, 2015.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

Julius Tomin

Plato's Parmenides and Parmenides' Poem

I am returning to my blog after a gap of almost two months. On January 31 I went to Prague for more than a month. I wrote there two essays: ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides’ and ‘Plato and Dionysius’. I returned from Prague on March 4; my son Dan had his 14^th birthday on March 5. After returning from Prague, for a weak I just relaxed, spending my time with Alan Wood’s Bertrand Russell and with Conan Doyle’s Watson and Holmes; my intention was to ‘swim from Czech back into English’ before I get back to work – rethinking my two essays written in Prague into English. My intention was to return to my blog only after I finish writing the first essay in English. But this evening I have decided to register on my blog some of my this-day’s thoughts, which will not enter the essay I am writing, although they are essential to my work on it.

In my essay I came to the point where Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides culminates, that is in Parmenides’ reflections on ‘the greatest difficulty’ facing the Forms. I quote from the essay:

“Parmenides reiterates that ‘the Forms are necessarily involved in these and many other difficulties (tauta mentoi kai eti alla pros toutois panu polla anankaion echein ta eidê), if these Forms of beings exist (ei eisin hautai hai ideai tȏn ontȏn), and if one is going to define each Form itself’ (kai horieitai tis auto ti hekaston eidos) (134e9-135a3). Then he envisages  the time of Plato’s coming: ‘It will take a man of considerable natural  gifts (kai andros panu men euphuous), who will be able to learn (tou dunêsomenou mathein) that there is a certain kind of each thing (hȏs esti genos ti hekastou), and being by itself (kai ousia autê kath’ hautên), and an even more admirable man (eti de thaumastoterou) who will discover it (tou heurêsontos) and will be able to teach it to someone else (kai allon dunêsomenou didaxai) after having sufficiently and well examined all these things (tauta panta hikanȏs dieukrinêsamenon).’ – Socrates embraces this prospect: ‘I agree with you (Sunchȏrȏ soi), for what you say is very much according to what I think too’ (panu gar moi kata noun legeis). (135a7-b2)

The discussion of ‘the greatest difficulty’ facing the Forms transcends everything that precedes and which follows it; in introducing it and in closing it Parmenides steps out of his historical persona and turns his eyes into the future, envisaging the coming of a man who will discover the Forms immune to the difficulties that Socrates could not answer. Parmenides’ next entry has nothing to do with Socrates’ ‘I agree with you, for what you say is very much according to what I think too (135b3-4)’ with which Socrates endorsed the unambiguous affirmation of the Forms with which the greatest difficulty is concluded by Parmenides.

What Parmenides is going to say next connects with his remark on Socrates’ failed attempts to defend the Forms, which preceded Parmenides’ introduction of ‘the greatest difficulty’. At 133a8-10 Parmenides said to Socrates: ‘Do you see, then (Horais oun), how great the perplexity is (hosȇ hȇ aporia), if someone were to define as Forms that are alone by themselves (ean tis hȏs eidȇ onta auta kath’ hauta diorizȇtai)?’ – Socrates: ‘Only too well’ (Kai mala). – At 135b5 Parmenides picks up that thread of thought: ‘And yet (Alla mentoi), if someone (ei ge tis dȇ), on the other hand (au), will not allow Forms of things to exist (mȇ easei eidȇ tȏn ontȏn einai), in view of all these and other such difficulties (eis panta ta nundȇ kai alla toiauta apoblepsas), and will not define some Form of each thing (mȇde ti horieitai eidos henos hekastou), he will not even have whither to turn his mind (oude hopoi trepsei tȇn dianoian hexei), since he will not allow a Form of each thing to be ever the same (mȇ eȏn idean tȏn ontȏn hekastou tȇn autȇn aei einai); and so he will utterly destroy the power of discourse (kai houtȏs tȇn tou dialegesthai dunamin pantapasi diaphtherei). Of this sort of consequence (tou toioutou men oun), it seems to me (moi dokeis), you are only too well aware (kai mallon ȇisthȇsthai).’ – Socrates: ‘True (Alȇthȇ legeis).’ – Parmenides: ‘What will you do about philosophy, then (Ti oun poiȇseis philosophias peri)? Whither will you turn (pȇi trepsȇi) with all this unknown (agnooumenȏn toutȏn)?’ – Socrates: ‘I am not really sure I can see (Ou pany moi dokȏ kathoran) at present (en ge tȏi paronti).’ – Parmenides: ‘For too early (Prȏi gar), before being trained (prin gumnasthȇnai), you attempt to define (horizesthai epicheireis) something beautiful and just and good (kalon te ti kai dikaion kai agathon) and each one of the Forms (kai hen hekaston tȏn eidȏn) … but drag yourself and train yourself rather (helkuson de sauton kai gumnasai mallon) through what is regarded as useless (dia tȇs dokousȇs einai achrȇstou), and condemned by the multitude as idle talk (kai kaloumenȇs hupo tȏn pollȏn adoleschias). If not (ei de mȇ), the truth will escape you (se diapheuxetai hȇ alȇtheia).’ (135b5-d6)”

The question was whether I should bring in any reflections concerning the proposed training into my essay, which is concerned with Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides. I decided to go at least as far as introducing it:

“Socrates: ‘What is then the manner (Tis oun ho tropos), O Parmenides (ȏ Parmenidȇ), of the training (tȇs gumnasias)? – Parmenides: ‘This one (Houtos), the one you heard from Zeno (honper ȇkousas Zȇnȏnos). Except that I admired this of you, and you saying it to him (plȇn touto ge sou kai pros touton ȇgasthȇn eipontos), that you were not allowing to examine the wandering among things we see nor concerning them (hoti ouk eias en tois horȏmenois oude peri tauta tȇn planȇn episkopein), but concerning those things (alla peri ekeina) which one would in particular grasp by reason (ha malista an tis logȏi laboi) and think to be Forms (kai eidȇ an hȇgȇsaito einai). – Socrates: ‘For it seems to me (dokei gar moi) that in this way (tautȇi ge) it isn’t difficult (ouden chalepon einai) to show that things are similar and dissimilar and that they suffer anything else (homoia kai anomoia kai allo hotioun ta onta paschonta apophainein).’ – Parmenides: ‘And that’s fine (Kai kalȏs ge). But it is also necessary to do yet this in addition (chrȇ de kai tode eti pros toutȏi poiein), not only if each supposed thing is (mȇ monon ei estin hekaston hupotithemenon), to examine the consequences of the hypothesis (skopein ta sumbainonta ek tȇs hupotheseȏs), but suppose as well if the same thing is not (alla kai ei mȇ esti to auto touto hupotithesthai), if you wish to be better trained (ei boulei mallon gumnasthȇnai).’ (135d7-136a2) – It is worth noting that Parmenides’ discussion of Socrates’ Forms proceeded along these lines. In the first part, which begins at 130e5 and ends at 133a9, Parmenides examines what happens if one posits the Forms as Socrates does, at 135b5-c3 he considers what would happen if one denied the existence of Forms.

Unsure what the exercise was to be all about, Socrates asked Parmenides: ‘How do you mean (Pȏs legeis)?’

Before I turn to Parmenides, let me refer to Samuel Rickless’ explanation of the purpose of the exercise: ‘Parmenides makes it clear that the power of dialectic cannot be saved unless the forms themselves are saved. As a means of saving the forms, Parmenides recommends a process of training that focuses on forms and takes note of the fact that forms wander (in the sense of having contrary properties, such as being like and unlike: 135e1-7). (Plato’s Parmenides, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, first published on internet Fri Aug 17, 2007; substantive revision Thu Jul 30, 2015).

Pace Rickless, Parmenides does not recommend the training he suggests as means of saving the Forms, but as a training one must undergo if one is ‘accurately to discern the truth’ (kuriȏs diopsesthai to alȇthes, 136c5).

Parmenides explains what he means as follows: ‘Take, if you like, Zeno’s hypothesis, if many is. What must follow for the many themselves relative to themselves and relative to the one, and for the one relative to itself and relative to the many? If, on the other hand, many is not, consider again what will follow both for the one and for the many, relative to themselves and relative to each other. Still again, should you hypothesize if likeness is, or if it is not, what will follow on each hypothesis both for the very things hypothesized and for the others, relative to themselves and relative to each other. The same account holds concerning unlikeness, and about motion, and about rest, and about coming to be and ceasing to be, and about being itself and not being. In short, concerning whatever may be hypothesized as being and as not being and as undergoing any other affection whatsoever, it is necessary to examine the consequences relative to itself and relative to each one of the others, whichever you may choose, and relative to more than one and relative to all in like manner. And the others, again, must be examined both relative to themselves and relative to any other you may choose, whether you hypothesize what you hypothesize as being or as not being, if you are to be finally trained accurately to discern the truth.’ (136a4-c5, tr. R. E. Allen)

Parmenides’ going back to Zeno’s performance is significant, for Zeno demonstrated that Parmenides’ thesis that All is one holds good by showing that if there were many things, they would be implicated in contradictory qualifications, which is impossible (touto de dȇ adunaton, 127e3). Socrates shared Zeno’s assumption that things that are self-contradictory cannot truly be, and so he challenged him to show that such contradictory qualifications apply as well to Forms, which he could not envisage as being self-contradictory: similarity to be dissimilar, dissimilarity to be similar. For only if that could be done, Parmenides’ thesis could be upheld.

Parmenides’ affirmation of Zeno’s enterprise indicates that the truth Parmenides has in mind is that All is one. Zeno proved it on the level of things that can be seen with the eyes, now Parmenides outlines the task of doing so on the level of entities which one would grasp mainly by reason (ha malista tis an logȏi laboi) and consider to be Forms (kai eidȇ an hȇgȇsaito einai, 135e3-4). It corresponds to the task that Socrates had suggested in his original challenge to Zeno, but Parmenides now presents it as a philosophic training he recommends, as something with which he is well acquainted.”

***

This morning I realised I cannot go on with the essay without reading once again the whole training as Parmenides presents it in the dialogue: Parmenides is hypothesizing about the one itself, what must follow if one is or one is not. I read the first hypothesis, which discusses the one deprived of all qualifications, and ends as follows. Parmenides: ‘So it is neither named nor spoken of, nor will it be an object of opinion or knowledge, nor does anything among things which are perceive it.’ – The young Aristotle (who later became one of the Thirty Tyrants): ‘It seems not.’ – Parmenides: ‘Now can these things be true of unity?’ – Aristotle: ‘I don’t think so.’

With all its destructiveness, the antinomic character of Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise exemplifies what he meant at 135b-c when he insisted that one must accept Forms as being always the same if discussion is to be possible. We must keep the Form of one in our mind all through the exercise, for only thus we can follow all the contradictions in which Parmenides implicates the one. The Forms which he considers at 135b-c do not threaten his thesis that All is one; they are prerequisite if the discussion is to take place in which their self-contradictory nature is to be revealed and the truth that All is one to be arrived at.

At this point I felt I had to read again Parmenides’ poem, which I did. As I read it, I began to appreciate the correspondence between it and Parmenides and Zeno as they are presented in the dialogue. In his poem Parmenides describes the one as uncreated (agenȇton) and indestructible (anȏlethron), complete (oulomeles) and without end (ateleston), which never was (oude pot’ ȇn) nor will be (oud estai), for it is all now, in the present (epei nun estin homou pan, fr. 8, 5), immovable (akinȇton), without beginning (anarchon) and without end (apauston), since coming into being (epei genesis) and passing away (kai olethros) have been cast away by true belief (apȏse de pistis alȇthȇs, fr. 8, 26-28). All this should be read in connection with Socrates’ words addressed to Parmenides in the dialogue: ‘In your poems you say that All is one, and you provide fine and excellent proves of this.’ (128a8-b1, tr. Allen). The latter part of the poem – in which Parmenides presents his critical account of the opinions of mortal men, in describing the nature of things on high, how the sun and the moon, the milky way, and the stars came to being (hȏrmȇthȇsan gignesthai) (fr. 10 and 11) – should be viewed in the light of Zeno’s enterprise as it is presented in the dialogue: his proving that all things that can be apprehended by our senses are self-contradictory, impossible, can’t be, so that Parmenides’ All is one prevails, for many can’t be.

Parmenides’ discussion of all the antinomies that he derives from the hypothesis ‘if the one is and if the one is not’ should be viewed in the light of what Aristotle says in the Metaphysics concerning the Pythagoreans who ‘extend their vision to all things that exist, and of the existing things suppose some to be perceptible and others not perceptible’ (989b24-26); they got their principles from non-sensible things’ (989b31, tr. Ross). The ancients viewed Parmenides as an associate of the Pythagoreans (Fr. A4, A12, A40a, A44). If Parmenides were to uphold his thesis that All is one, he had to do so face to face with the Pythagorean doctrines; Parmenides’ propaedeutic exercise in Plato’s Parmenides shows us the way he (and Zeno) did it in the Eleatic school.