Universe of Platonic Thought 2021

Panteleev Aleksey D., CSc in History, Associate Professor; Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russia), Associate Professor

Ponikarovskaya Marina Vladimirovna, CSc in History; the Saint-Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), academic secretary

Actors and the State: from Plato to the Roman Empire · Recorded Video

Rassadin Sergey Valentinovich, CSc in Philosophy, Associate Professor; Tver State Technical University (Tver, Russia), Professor; RAS Institute of Philosophy (Moscow, Russia), Postgraduate

Kozlova Nataliya Nikolaevna, DSc in Political science, Associate Professor; Tver State University (Tver, Russia), Head of Chair

Plato’s Theological Myth as a Tool for Constructing the «Happy Policy»

29th International Conference “The Universe of Platonic Thought: Rational Theology in Platonism”

Vladimir Rokhmistrov, MPhil

Parmenides's Shadow in Plato's Dialogues

Eleatus Parmenides was revered by Plato as "the father of philosophers." There are the so-called Eleic dialogues: Teetetus, Sophist, Parmenides and Statesman; they all have one distinctive feature - a guest from Elea participates. However, the "presence" of Parmenides in Plato's work is found not only in these four texts.

Keywords: Parmenides, Plato, metod, sensuously perceptible, mentally perceptible

The Parmenides's philosophy was so significant to Plato that he dedicated a whole dialogue to him, named after the great eleate. The dialogue tells that Parmenides visited Athens during the celebration of the Great Panathenae in 450 BC. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that Parmenides himself never came to Athens, and his philosophy was presented to the Athenians by his disciple Zeno, who, according to the testimony of Plato himself (Alcibiades I, 119a5), taught in Athens. This left its mark on the perception of the Parmenides's philosophy. In Plato's dialogues, noticeable not only the undoubted influence of the Eleatic's philosophy, but also, according to the dialogues drawn up in different periods of his activity, to trace the transformation of the philosophy from the Eleatic to the Platonic. For example, the stability of the basic thesis of the Eleatic, asserting that there is only existing exist, is clarified in the "Sophist". The approach to this consideration is outlined already in the earlier dialogue of Plato "Euthydemus", where not only Parmenides is not mentioned, but even the guest from Elea. The fact that Plato does not mention Parmenides in the “Euthydemus” is eloquent in its own way; and the fact that Parmenides is mentioned in the “Sophist” already as an opponent, indicates that the study of the problem has moved away from the school development of the Eleatic's philosophy and seeks to move further, which is happening in the dialogue “Parmenides”. First of all, this concerns the basic concept of Parmenides ἐὸν (existing), which Plato, under the influence of Zeno, replaced by the concept ἓν (one), and then, developing the dialectic of the relationship "one – many" and considering them as existing and as non-existing, introduced the concept of "being" (τὸ εἶναι).