Plato’s dialectic and the Parmenides

Abstract

The author examines the lines of continuity and the differences in relation to Plato’s dialectic between the Phaedo and the Republic, on the one hand, and the Theatetus and the Parmenides, on the other, for it is only in the latter where we find a demonstration of the dialectic exercise. The methodological reflexions on dialectic in the Parmenides establish in his view three dimensions: (a) a gymnastic component which is necessary for thought, (b) the need to explore ways that show the impracticability or the wandering of the ontological theses proposed and (c) its undeniable connexion with truth. Given the great diversity of interpretations that have been proposed about the validity of the eight hypotheses in the second part of the Parmenides, the author tries to clarify the true value of the hypotheses or their impracticability exploring the cognitive vocabulary within them, because this procedure reveal how has to be executed.