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Viewing Parmenides Through Appropriated Lenses – Two Aspects Of Viewing Parmenides Through Appropriated Lenses – Two Aspects of Plutarch’s and Proclus’ Interpretations of Parmenides’ Poem Å se Parmenides gjennom tilegnede linser – To aspekter ved Plutark og Proklos sine fortolkninger av diktet til Parmenides Vår 2020 Atle Solheim Ytrehus Universitetet i Bergen Institutt for filosofi og førstesemesterstudier Masteroppgave i FILO350 Veileder: Kristin Sampson 1 2 Abstract Parmenides’ philosophical poem is preserved to us today only in fragments consisting of what ancient writers chose to quote from the poem. Modern interpreters who aim at uncovering the meaning of Parmenides’ poem are limited by what these writers quoted from the poem and how they preserved these quotations. In general, these writers did not set out to preserve the poem for posterity. They, rather, often made use of the text of the poem for their own purposes. However, in light of the sparse set of evidence the extant fragments can present, these purposes, as a part of the context in which the fragments of the poem are preserved, are themselves potentially a valuable resource that can be made use of by modern interpreters of the poem. Two such writers are Plutarch and Proclus who both quoted from and presented interpretations of Parmenides’ poem. In this master’s thesis I consider how and to what extent reading Parmenides’ poem through the perspectives of Plutarch and Proclus can be helpful or harmful for interpreters who seek to uncover the meaning of the poem. I do this by looking how Plutarch and Proclus presented two aspects of what the information we today possess about Parmenides and his poem. Plutarch is one of our ancient sources to the claim that Parmenides was a lawgiver to his native city Elea, and he relates this biographical fact to his interpretation of Parmenides. Proclus is our sole source to fragment B5, a short and problematic fragment. By looking at the context in which Plutarch and Proclus present these pieces of information I here attempt to evaluate whether the perspectives on Parmenides that these two writers present can fruitfully also be taken on in the future. 3 Sammendrag Parmenides filosofiske dikt er bevart til oss i dag bare gjennom fragmenter bestående av hva forfattere i antikken valgte å sitere fra diktet. Moderne fortolkere som ønsker å avdekke mening til diktet til Parmenides er begrenset av hva disse forfatterne siterte fra diktet og hvordan de bevarte disse sitatene. Disse forfatterne tok generelt ikke sikte på å bevare diktet for ettertiden. Isteden tok de i bruk diktets tekst for til sine egne formål. Sett i lys av at fragmentene imidlertid er et begrenset sett med kildemateriale, disse formålene, som en del av konteksten fragmentene er bevart i, er i seg selv muligens en verdifull kilde som moderne fortolkere av diktet kan ta i bruk. To slike forfattere er Plutark og Proklos, som begge siterte fra og la fram fortolkninger av diktet til Parmenides. Jeg vurderer i denne masteroppgaven hvordan og i hvilken grad det å lese diktet til Parmenides gjennom perspektivene til Plutark og Proklos kan være til hjelp eller hindring for fortolkere som ønsker å avdekke meningen med diktet. Jeg gjøre dette ved å se på hvordan Plutark og Proklos presenterte to deler av informasjonen vi besitter om diktet til Parmenides i dag. Plutark er en av kildene våre fra antikken til påstanden om at Parmenides var en lovgiver til Elea, hjembyen hans, og Plutark relaterte dette biografiske faktum til innholdet i hans fortolkning av Parmenides. Proklos er vår eneste kilde til fragment B5, som er et kort og problematisk fragment. Ved å se på konteksten hvor Plutark og Proklos presentere denne informasjonen forsøker jeg her å evaluere om perspektivene på Parmenides som disse forfatterne presenterer kan også være gunstig å ta i bruk også i framtiden. 4 5 Preface My interest in Parmenides stems from initially wanting to understand him in order to gain a better perspective on what I saw as peculiar and interesting about Plato and Aristotle. The following can be understood as an account of the problems I was faced with when I tried to use Parmenides to make sense of those later thinkers. What I found out was that Parmenides did not just influence later thought, thinkers in the tradition that was influenced by Parmenides also arguably substantially influence how we can understand Parmenides today. I first want to thank my supervisor Kristin Sampson for helping me work through my ideas about Parmenides. I am very grateful for the help she has given me. In addition, I also want to thank the Bergen Ancient Philosophy Group, especially for letting me present for them an earlier version of chapter 2 of this master’s thesis and for providing plentiful feedback on what I presented. My parents have provided me with great support and encouragement for which I feel very lucky. I am incredibly thankful for the help I have received from my father who has read and commented on all the material here, mostly with the language, but also substantially. Finally, Kine and Barnabas mean the whole world to me. They never stop making me smile no matter what I am doing, for which I could never thank them enough. 6 Table of Contents Viewing Parmenides Through Appropriated Lenses – Two Aspects of Plutarch’s and Proclus’ Interpretations of Parmenides’ Poem .................................................................................................1 Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................3 Sammendrag...................................................................................................................................4 Preface ...........................................................................................................................................6 Introduction........................................................................................................................................9 0.1. The Ancient Tradition that Preserved Parmenides’ Poem ....................................................... 14 0.1.1– Plutarch and Proclus and how they preserved Parmenides’ Poem ...................................... 18 0.2. Remarks on the Content and Form of Parmenides’ poem ....................................................... 20 1. Chapter One – Problems and opportunities in modern Parmenides-scholarship ........................ 25 2. Chapter Two – Plutarch on Parmenides and Legendary Lawgivers ............................................. 39 2.1 – Colotes’ attack on Parmenides.............................................................................................. 40 2.2 – Plutarch’s Interpretation of Parmenides in response to Colotes ............................................ 43 2.3 – Interpretation and Biography ............................................................................................... 46 2.4 – Lawgiver and philosopher – the best human Life .................................................................. 48 2.5 – Stories about Legendary Lawgivers and Parmenides’ Poem .................................................. 53 2. 6 – Colotes and Plutarch as antecedents to a modern debate .................................................... 64 2.7 – Compulsory originality and the codification of law ................................................................ 68 2.8 – Concluding remarks .............................................................................................................. 70 3. Chapter Three – Parmenides’ Fragment B5 and Proclus’ Transmission of the Fragment ............ 72 3.1. Proclus’ view of Parmenides’ poem as completed – rather than corrected – by Plato ............. 73 3.2 – The question of how interpreters should approach B5 .......................................................... 80 3.3 – How Proclus presents B5 and the philosophical background against which he presents it ..... 87 3.4 – A xunon beginning of an inquiry into what has no beginning............................................... 101 3.5 – Concluding remarks ............................................................................................................ 112 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 115 References .................................................................................................................................. 119 Translations of ancient works cited ............................................................................................. 125 7 8 Introduction Everything must be studied from the point of view of itself, as near as we can get to this, and the point of view of its relations, as near as we can get to them. Samuel Butler, The Note-books of Samuel Butler XIX Why do they that are reputed to be of distinguished lineage wear crescents on their shoes? […] was it a lesson in obedience to authority, not to be discontent at being governed by a king, but—just as the moon is willing to attend her superior and to hold second place, “ever gazing towards the rays of the sun,” as Parmenides puts it—thus to be content with their second rank, having a ruler and enjoying the power and honor derived from him? 1 Plutarch, Roman questions 76, 281A1-282B11. In this master’s thesis, I attempt to lay out how Plutarch and Proclus, respectively, presented two aspects of the information we possess today about Parmenides’ philosophical poem.
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