The Tradition about re-examined*

FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN

his paper makes no attempt to compete with the brilliant studies which in the last several scholars have ad- through thirty years vanced our understanding of the evidence for Zeno of Elea and in particular of the verbatim preserved fragments. In fact my in- tention is not to replace theories by other theories but to create doubt about that for some time have been taken for granted and to change confident assumptions into hypotheses that would tolerate others besides them. Accounts of Zeno's philosophy generally take as their starting point some well known statements at the beginning of 's Par- menides.1 Given the paucity of reports bearing on his work as a whole, the information here vouchsafed about its content and purpose must seem priceless. It also seems authoritative, the idea of examining it critically almost sacrilegious. Zeno, we here read, wrote against those who ridiculed the of his master that "all is one" ;2 the opponents tried to discredit this thesis by pointing out contradictions and "ridiculous" consequences resulting from the Parmenidean "One." In return Zeno took the adversaries' position that "there are many" as basis for his reasoning, deducing from it in each of his arguments contradictions and other results even more "ridiculous" than what the opponents had found in Parmenides' theory. It is easy to see why this testimony is so irresistible. Plato himself

116 distinguishes between what is certain and what allows doubt and more than one explanation. Doubt is possible about certain accidental aspects O'ufl.?e:?1Jx6-r{ùvTc, Zeno says, 128 c 5 f.), i.e. whether the ultimate convergence of the two treatises was meant to be obvious or to be concealed from the reader and also whether Zeno was anxous to build up a philosophical stature for himself or merely to help Parmenides against the detractors. Yet precisely because doubt is allowed on such items of secondary importance, the far more impor- tant statements concerning the subject , the method, and the objectives of Zeno's treatise seem immune to attack. Scholars writing on Zeno have usually accepted Plato's testimony as a matter of course or with the most perfunctory justification.3 A few have given reasons why the testimony deserves confidence, and no reason could be more attractive than the sensitive comments of Hermann Frankel about Plato as being by his own individuality and temperament exceptionally qualified to appreciate the peculiar, rather wanton humor which Frankel has found lurking in Zeno's sallies.4 I should be loath to disagree with this argument, even if it did not form a part of what has justly called "easily the most important philological monograph published on the subject in several decades."5 Still I am not the first to question the element of wantonness and trickery in Zeno's proofs,6 and even if it were grant- ed, one might wonder whether Plato's own humor is not normally more gentle and urbane the exuberance of the "youthful" -- Protagoras being an exccption and whether even a congenial sense of

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