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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2015
There are presently two modern critical editions of Proclus' commentary on the Parmenides. One, the edition of the Oxford Classical Texts, was completed under the auspices of Carlos Steel in 2009. The other, the Budé edition, under the editorship of Concetta Luna and the late Alain-Philippe Segonds, followed soon after, with the third of the first three books of the commentary having appeared in the early 2012. This most recent two-part volume of the Budé addresses, for the final time it seems, the Budé's criticisms of the OCT edition. The first volume could be well described as a long philippic against the OCT and its editor and contributors, going well beyond the tone of measured academic discourse. Relentlessly, it imprecates the readings of the OCT, the length and tone of which criticisms will not weather time well. However, there is one disagreement between the two editions, perhaps the most textually significant one and certainly the largest, which is noted as a part of a comprehensive list by the Budé, but no discussion ensues. This is all the more curious because Steel had, in a separate article, directly raised objections to their solution to this passage. Why in this single case is the Budé suddenly so taciturn?
1 This work has been supported by the Scientific Research Fund of Fatih University (Istanbul, Büyükçekmece 34500, Turkey) under project number P51121102_Y and also through a doctoral research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada). With thanks to Dr Burcu Gürkan, who helped clarify my writing, and to the anonymous referee for CQ, who made helpful comments. Remaining mistakes are my own.
2 Luna, C. and Segonds, A.-Ph. (edd., trans.), Proclus: Commentaire sur le Parménide de Platon, vols. 1–3 (Paris, 2010–12)Google Scholar. Steel, C. (ed.), Procli in Platonis Parmenidem commentaria, 3 vols. (Oxford, 2007–9Google Scholar). I shall refer to these works as they are commonly known: the Budé and OCT respectively.
3 I will refer to the pagination of Cousin, preserved in the OCT and Budé, but the lineation of the OCT, except where noted. The text I use is that of the OCT. The translation is that of Morrow, G.R. and Dillon, J.M., Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Parmenides (Princeton, 1987)Google Scholar, modified where noted.
4 As observed already by Professor Dillon: in his review of this edition, he describes this Budé edition as ‘a full-scale hatchet-job’ on the OCT, infused ‘miasma of overheated polemic’, which comes across as ‘disedifying’. See BMCRev 2012.05.26.
5 For a comprehensive list of disagreements found in Book 1, see Luna and Segonds (n. 2), 3.1.cccxviii–cccxxii.
6 They only reference it as a part of that comprehensive list and nowhere treat it in detail. Cf. ibid., 3.1.cccxx, ad note 631.28ff.
7 Steel, C., ‘De novis libris iudicia’, Mnemosyne 63.1 (2010), 120–42Google Scholar, especially 129–31. For a review of Budé volume 2, see B. Strobel, BMCRev 2012.01.46 and Butorac, D.D., CR 63.2 (2012), 130–2Google Scholar. For volume 3, cf. Steel, C., ‘Corrections and hypercorrections: on a recent edition of Proclus’ commentary on the Parmenides', Aevum 87 (2013), 215–45Google Scholar.
8 Cf. 631.1.
9 Cf. Hadot, P., ‘Sur divers sens du mot pragma dans la tradition philosophique grecque’, in Aubenque, P. (ed.), Concepts et catégories dans la pensée antique (Paris, 1980), 309–19Google Scholar.
10 For clarity's sake, I will refer to the very first interpretation as the ἀντιγραφή interpretation, the second as the logical gymnasia interpretation, and to the fourth interpretation as Syrianus'.
11 For a detailed summary of the received order of the manuscripts, see Luna and Segonds (n. 2), 2.2.193–6.
12 On these details, see Steel (n. 2), 1.xxv.
13 Cf. Steel, C., ‘Proclus et l'interprétation “logique” du Parménide’, in Benakis, L.G. (ed.), Néoplatonisme et philosophie médiévale (Turnhout, 1997), 68Google Scholar, and Brisson, L., ‘The reception of the Parmenides before Proclus’, ZAC 12 (2008), 99–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Middle Platonic classifications, cf. C. Steel, ibid., 74–80. For a further discussion of ἀντιγραφή, see n. 21 below.
14 As Steel points out, ‘Une histoire de l'interprétation du Parménide dans l'Antiquité’, in Barbanti, M. and Romano, F. (edd.), Il Parmenide di Platone e la sua tradizione (Catania, 2002), 25Google Scholar.
15 631.14–18. Note that this passage's place in the manuscript is uncontroversial.
16 ... εἰς ... ταὐτὸν ἐπιχειρῶν, 632.20.
17 632.21–2; Phaedrus 264c.
18 632.23; Phaedrus 237cd.
19 ... εἰς δὲ τὸ ἀντικείμενον πρόβλημα μεταβὰς ..., 633.2.
20 ... οὐδεμίαν ὑπερβολὴν παρῆκε τῶν ἐλέγχων, 633.3–4; this clause is absent in the Morrow–Dillon translation.
21 Thus Steel (n. 14), 25 is wrong in asserting that ‘[l]a réplique (ἀντιγραφή) est un genre littéraire bien connu dans l'antiquité’, referring to Caesar's Anticato and LSJ s.v. It is, in fact, the only example in antiquity of such a classification. Likewise, LSJ only refers to Caesar's work to establish its meaning, not as a classification. The title itself of Caesar's work is not uncontested: Suetonius refers to it as Rescripta Bruto de Catone (Aug. 85.1), while Plutarch refers to it as Ἀντικάτων (Vit. Caes. 54.6, 4). On the Anticato and a complete history of sources, cf. Tschiedel, H.J., Caesars Anticato: Eine Untersuchung der Testimonien und Fragmente (Darmstadt, 1981)Google Scholar, especially the section ‘Literarische Form’, 22–5. Tschiedel makes no mention of ἀντιγραφή, although it is likely that he did not know about Proclus' classification. Likewise, Frederick the Great's Enlightenment work, Anti-machiavel, would follow Caesar's exemplar and not some well-known ancient categorization. LSJ also refers us to Hermias (ed. P. Couvreur) in Phdr. (Paris, 1901), 189A, but this usage is also not classificatory. (Note that LSJ refers to Ast's pagination. For Couvreur's own, cf. 235.3. Cf. also 8.14 and 18; 10.2. See now also the editions of C.M. Lucarini and C. Moreschini [Berlin, 2012], 246.27. Cf. also 9.11 and 16; 10.29.) Hermias likely also had access to the same Middle Platonic texts as Proclus, while studying the Phaedrus under Syrianus. L. Brisson follows Steel in his account of ἀντιγραφή as well known. Cf. Brisson, L., ‘Columns VII–VIII of the anonymous commentary on the Parmenides: vestiges of a logical interpretation’, in Corrigan, K. and J.D. (edd.), Plato's Parmenides and its Heritage, vol. 2: Its Reception in Neoplatonic, Jewish and Christian Texts (Atlanta, 2011), 115Google Scholar.
22 631.25–632.3. Here I find no problems with how the Budé editors interpret the text. Accordingly, I will not quote their French translation.
23 ... τὴν τῶν ἀντικειμένων συνδρομήν, 631.11–12. Morrow–Dillon translate this as ‘antithetical arguments’. I believe Proclus is referring to contradictory predicates.
24 Morrow–Dillon have correctly interpreted the sense here and I follow their reading.
25 The subject here is Plato. While Proclus is describing Plato's intent behind the particular way in which he wrote the dialogues, Plato's purported criticisms of Zeno occur through the voice of Parmenides. When Proclus records how the logical gymnasia group and Syrianus interpret this ἀντιγραφή account, they will refer to the prosopographical relation between Zeno and Parmenides. This difference must be noted as I will take Proclus' description of the method and the subjects of the methods which here belong to ‘Plato’ and transpose them to ‘Parmenides’ and do so without impairing what I take to be Proclus' point when he discusses how the method works: Proclus goes on to talk about how Parmenides interacts with Zeno. Also note that in this article, I do not refer to the historical Parmenides, but to the character in Plato's dialogue.
26 As Steel (n. 7), 130 also notes.
27 See n. 25 above. Thus although earlier Proclus reports how this group interpreted Plato's intention, it is plain that it is through Parmenides that the action takes place.
28 As there is no substantial problem or differences in the interpretation of this particular text, I do not provide the French translation.
29 Cf. their notes: ‘de même que Zénon avait composé quarante arguments pour démontrer que la thèse de la multiplicité de l’être aboutit à des absurdités, de même Platon (par la bouche de Parménide) développe une variété extraordinaire d'arguments pour démontrer que l'être est un', Luna and Segonds (n. 2), 1.1.cdlxxx–cdlxxxi.
30 Ibid., cdlxxxii.
31 As Steel (n. 7), 130 notes.