I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates; and what you say is
very much to my mind.
And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, if a man, fixing his attention
on these and the like difficulties, does away with ideas of things and
will not admit that every individual thing has its own determinate
idea which is always one and the same, he will have nothing on which
his mind can rest; and so he will utterly destroy the power of
reasoning, as you seem to me to have particularly noted.
Very true, he said.
But, then, what is to become of philosophy? Whither shall we turn,
if the ideas are unknown?
I certainly do not see my way at present.
Yes, said Parmenides; and I think that this arises, Socrates, out of
your attempting to define the beautiful, the just, the good, and the
ideas generally, without sufficient previous training. I noticed
your deficiency, when I heard you talking here with your friend
Aristoteles, the day before yesterday. The impulse that carries you
towards philosophy is assuredly noble and divine; but there is an
art which is called by the vulgar idle talking, and which is of
imagined to be useless; in that you must train and exercise
yourself, now that you are young, or truth will elude your grasp.
And what is the nature of this exercise, Parmenides, which you would
recommend?
That which you heard Zeno practising; at the same time, I give you
credit for saying to him that you did not care to examine the
perplexity in reference to visible things, or to consider the question
that way; but only in reference to objects of thought, and to what may
be called ideas.
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