Arguments and Able Man Colud Refute: Parmenides 133b-134e

In his polemic against the Theory of Forms put forward by the young Socrates in Parmenides 128 e-130 a, Parmenides does not save the best until last. After the probing questions about the extent of the Form-world and the nature of participation, after the fireworks of the Third Man Argument, there comes a curious argument that Parmenides himself hints is no good. At 133 b 4 and following, Parmenides says that only an intelligent and experienced person, one who feels no horror at the prospect of a long, drawn-out argument, would be able to uphold the position that Forms are knowable. It surely follows from this that Plato believed that Forms are knowable, and hence that any argument that purported to prove the contrary must be fallacious. In that the argument of 133 b-134 e does try to show that we cannot know the Forms, Plato must have believed that this part of Parmenides' polemic contains a subtle, but discoverable error. Cornford, in his Plato and Parmenides, agrees that there is an error in Parmenides' reasoning but not a subtle one. It is, he says, "almost grossly fallacious."" (One wonders about the qualification implied by the 'almost'l) The fallacy, according to Cornford, lies in taking the Form of Mastery as if it were "the master of Slavery or of anything else."3 One must not confuse Forms with their perfect instances. Unfortunately, Plato makes such a confusion many times. I do not propose here to rehearse the arguments showing that Plato, at least at one time, held the view that every Form possesses that quality with which it is associated. It is surely sufficient to mention that the Third Man Argument, which precedes the passage with which I am dealing, rests on precisely the same Self-Predication assumption.8 If Self-