Hi. Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you

with the support of King's College London and the Lever Hume Trust, online at

W.W. history of philosophy dot net. Today's episode, Second Thoughts, Plato's

Parmenities and the Forms.

Back in episode 18, when I talked about Plato's life and writings, I mentioned that one of the

more contentious issues regarding the Platonic Dial dialogues is their chronology.

Most scholars accept a broad division of the dialogues into three periods, early, middle, and

late, with the so-called Socratic Dialogues falling into the early period, the great masterpiece

that is the Republic dominating the middle period, and more technical works emerging in the

late period, including the one I'm going to be talking about in this episode,

the Parmenides. But scholars disagree about the exact order of the dialogues and about more fundamental issues.

How much did Plato's philosophical views change during his career?

If his views did change, then in what direction and on what topics? It's no easy matter to answer

these questions. Some think that Plato pretty much never changed his mind or developed new ideas, but was rather setting out a systematic body of doctrines throughout his career, revealing them bit by bit or examining them from different

angles in different dialogues. This is how Plato's corpus was seen by most ancient

platenists, but I find this implausible, and would be rather disappointed if it were true.

I don't claim to know how geniuses like Plato think, but I'm guessing that they reconsider and develop their ideas quite a lot.

In any case, the dialogues themselves... and develop their ideas quite a lot.

In any case, the dialogues themselves provide ample evidence that Plato did reconsider his ideas with a critical eye.

This was no simple process where he set out a doctrine in one dialogue and then rejected it in a later dialogue.

Rather, he refined his ideas and subjected himself to the kind of searching criticism Socrates would meet out to his fellow Athenians in the marketplace.

There's no better example than the beginning of Plato's Parmenities.

...