Parts, Forms, and Participation in the Parmenides and Sophist: A Comparison

Abstract

This paper addresses the vexed question of the outcome of the second horn of the dilemma of participation in Plato’s Parmenides bringing in Sophist 257c7-d5 where the Eleatic Stranger accepts what he seems to reject in the Parmenides, namely that a Form can have parts and nevertheless remain one. Comparing Plato’s treatment of parts of Forms in both passages, and in particular the relation among Being, Change and Rest at Sophist 250a8-c8, I argue that unlike in the Parmenides, in the Sophist, parts and wholes are seen as offering a structure that can explain how things that may, at first, appear unrelated nevertheless belong together.

Keywords

• Parmenides
• Sophist
• participation
• parts and wholes