{"_index":"sire","_id":"1016","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1016,"authors_free":[{"id":1532,"entry_id":1016,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":316,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Solmsen, Friedrich","free_first_name":"Friedrich","free_last_name":"Solmsen","norm_person":{"id":316,"first_name":"Friedrich","last_name":"Solmsen","full_name":"Solmsen, Friedrich","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/117754641","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Tradition about Zeno of Elea Re-Examined","main_title":{"title":"The Tradition about Zeno of Elea Re-Examined"},"abstract":"This paper makes no attempt to compete with the brilliant studies through which, in the last thirty years, several scholars have advanced our understanding of the evidence for Zeno of Elea, and in particular of the verbatim preserved fragments. In fact, my intention is not to replace theories with other theories but to create doubt about matters that, for some time, have been taken for granted, and to change confident assumptions into hypotheses that would tolerate others alongside them.\r\nAccounts of Zeno's philosophy generally take as their starting point some well-known statements at the beginning of Plato's Parmenides. Given the paucity of reports bearing on his work as a whole, the information here vouchsafed about its content and purpose must seem priceless. It also seems authoritative, the idea of examining it critically almost sacrilegious. Zeno, we read here, wrote against those who ridiculed the thesis of his master Parmenides that \"all is one.\" The opponents tried to discredit this thesis by pointing out contradictions and \"ridiculous\" consequences resulting from the Parmenidean \"One.\" In return, Zeno took the adversaries' position that \"there are many\" as the basis for his reasoning, deducing from it, in each of his arguments, contradictions and other results even more \"ridiculous\" than what the opponents had found in Parmenides' theory.\r\nIt is easy to see why this testimony is so irresistible. Plato himself distinguishes between what is certain and what allows doubt and more than one explanation. Doubt is possible about certain accidental aspects (t\u00f4n symbeb\u00eakot\u00f4n ti, Zeno says, 128c5 ff.), i.e., whether the ultimate convergence of the two treatises was meant to be obvious or to be concealed from the reader, and also whether Zeno was anxious to build up a philosophical stature for himself or merely to help Parmenides against the detractors. Yet, precisely because doubt is allowed on such items of secondary importance, the far more important statements concerning the subject matter, the method, and the objectives of Zeno's treatise seem immune to attack.\r\nScholars writing on Zeno have usually accepted Plato's testimony as a matter of course or with the most perfunctory justification. A few have given reasons why the testimony deserves confidence, and no reason could be more attractive than the sensitive comments of Hermann Fr\u00e4nkel about Plato as being, by his own individuality and temperament, exceptionally qualified to appreciate the peculiar, rather wanton humor that Fr\u00e4nkel has found lurking in Zeno's sallies. I should be loath to disagree with this argument, even if it did not form part of what Gregory Vlastos has justly called \"easily the most important philological monograph published on the subject in several decades.\" Still, I am not the first to question the element of wantonness and trickery in Zeno's proofs, and even if it were granted, one might wonder whether Plato's own humor is not normally more gentle and urbane (asteion)\u2014the exuberance of the \"youthful\" Protagoras being an exception\u2014and whether even a congenial sense of humor would guarantee the correct understanding of a philosophical endeavor.\r\nBut it is perhaps more profitable to develop Fr\u00e4nkel's doubts \"as to how much Plato, or his readers for that matter, would be interested in problems of mere historicity.\" For these doubts apply even farther than Fr\u00e4nkel may be inclined to think. Would Plato really wish to make sure that his readers had a correct knowledge of what Zeno's treatise intended and achieved? Had he carefully and with something approaching philological accuracy worked his way through all the \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 in the treatise and found out to his satisfaction what purpose they served? Does he now, to communicate this discovery to the readers, use the dramatic device of making Socrates ask whether his interpretation is correct and Zeno confirm that in substance it is? Why, anyhow, must this be more, or much more, than a dramatic device\u2014especially if the device has a bearing on the later developments in the dialogue? [introduction p. 116-118]","btype":3,"date":"1971","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/6pPpfWHeO2IY3ri","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":316,"full_name":"Solmsen, Friedrich","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1016,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"16","issue":"2","pages":"116-141"}},"sort":["The Tradition about Zeno of Elea Re-Examined"]}