How Parmenides Saved The Theory of Forms

Plato's Parmenides divides up into two main parts, the first ostensibly devoted to a series of criticisms launched by a venerable Parmenides against a theory of Forms previously articulated by a youthful Socrates, the second consisting of a virtually unbroken series of deductions (some from the hypothesis that the One is, the rest from the contradictory hypothesis that the One is not) to seemingly incompatible conclusions. As such, the dialogue poses a serious interpretative challenge, for it is unclear what conclusions Plato expected his readers to draw from both parts and how (or even whether) the conclusion of Part II is supposed to bear on the conclusion of Part I. Among scholars, opinions vary on all possible fronts. While some' believe that Plato intended the arguments of Part I to be valid reductiones, others2 hold that the purpose of the entire dia-

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