After presenting the rules of Eleatic antilogic, i.e., dialectic, I argue that Zeno was a practitioner, and, on the basis of key passages from Plato’s Parmenides (127e-128e and 135d-136c), that his paradoxes of divisibility and movement were not reductio ad absurdum, but simple derivation of impossibilities (adunaton) meant to ridicule Parmenides’ adversaries. Thus, Zeno did not try to prove that there is no motion, but simply derived this consequence from premises held by his opponents. I argue further that these paradoxes were devised, in accordance with Eleatic antilogic, following a scheme that included hypotheses and their contradictories, within which the subject is to be treated both “in relation to itself,” and “in relation to other things”.

This paper is devoted to the Parmenides’ methodological preamble, in which Parmenides teaches how one is to lead a dialectical inquiry. The method presented there recalls the goddess’s advice, as presented by the historical Parmenides in his Poem, to think “the way of being and the way of non-being.” In Plato’s Parmenides, these two ways are seen as manners of examining a hypothesis. I explain that the method is exhaustive insofar as it requires repeatedly asking what the consequences are if a thing does exist, or does not. Lastly, I suggest that the method should be distinguished from other dialectical practices found in Plato’s work.

I analyse the pros ta alla/pros heauto distinction in Plato’s Parmenides as a contrast between ordinary predication (corresponding to an individual’s display of a feature or, more technically, instantiation) and tree predication (based on a nature X being involved in a nature Y). I engage with my critics and argue that this interpretation vindicates Plato’s methodological remarks and maximizes his argumentative success. My interpretation shows how the Parmenides bridges the gap between Plato’s Middle Dialogues and the outstanding technical developments of the Late Dialogues.

In Part I of Parmenides, Socrates introduces a Theory of Forms to explain opposites compresent in ordinary things, and claims that Forms cannot have opposite features. In Part II, Parmenides relies on Socrates’ claim and derives unacceptable consequences—that the Form of Oneness does not exist, and if that is so, then nothing exists: a clearly false conclusion. To avoid it, Socrates must give up his thesis in Part I and find a way to preserve the explanatory role of Forms. This paper aims to articulate the structure of the exercise in Part II.

This article shows how Plato’s Parmenides explores the relationship between place and the geometric forms that are inscribed in it, independently of sensation, becoming and causality. The analysis concurs with essential points of what is said in the Timaeus about khôra, this receptacle deprived of any intrinsic qualities, on which every sensitive reality is drawn.

In this paper, Plato’s notion of the sudden moment is fully explored. In the Parmenides, the “now” (nun) and the “sudden” (exaiphnês), it is argued, refer to one and the same entity from the distinct perspectives of timeless Being and temporal Becoming, respectively. This interpretation tallies well with, and enriches, the Platonic views on time and eternity found in the Timaeus. Finally, the paper highlights the pivotal role of the third deduction, where the sudden moment appears, for an understanding of the entire dialectical exercise of the Parmenides.