This is an extract from
J.G. Frazer and The Platonic Theory of Being, published April 4, 2016. The extract is presented here without footnotes.
Section Fourteen
14.1. So far, this essay has consisted of the argument that
both the Frazerian account of Plato's theory of Being and the Frazerian theory
of Magic were developed in the light of the idea that man has progressed from
an initial set of mistaken notions of the world, and that this was only
possible by Frazer misreading key sources of evidence. Misrepresentation of the
evidence by Frazer has not been a mainstay of my case thus far: however, the
next section concerns a curious exclusion of materials relevant to his enquiry.
14.2. In Frazer's early essay, Plato's Parmenides is
scarcely discussed at all. This is particularly surprising, for the Parmenides contains
criticism of Plato's doctrine by Plato himself; criticisms not adequately
answered either in that dialogue or elsewhere in the canon. The chronological
position of this dialogue is thus immensely important if we consider the work
of Plato as a development. Of it he says*[103] "the contents of
the Parmenides, especially its searching criticism of the Ideal
theory, makes the lateness of its composition almost unquestionable". But
in discussing the relative priority of the Theaetetus and the Parmenides he
says that the question of the date "...is after all unimportant"*[104] .
On p93 he says that he fully agrees with Strumpell that "the Parmenides was
composed at a time of Plato's life when he had become sensible of the
difficulties and contradictions attaching to his doctrine of self-existent
Forms or Ideas, and when he was looking about for some way of extrication from
them". In discussing the relative order of the late dialogues on p104 he
then argues that "there are in the Parmenides, Sophist and Philebus very
similar passages on the popular difficulties about One and Many... but since
these passages probably refer directly to the discussions of the day, nothing
can be inferred from them as to the respective dates of the dialogues in which
they occur".
14.3. Clearly there is a problem with the Parmenides and
its significance which should be attended to. Yet Frazer merely describes the
dialogue and declines to discuss the second of its two parts on the grounds
that he had "not studied it sufficiently (having read it only once and
that some years ago) to be able to pronounce an opinion upon it".
14.4. This is at best a puzzling dereliction by Frazer.
The Parmenides must be the most important of all the Platonic
dialogues for an argument of this kind. Yet Frazer writes off the second part
of the dialogue (with some visible unease) saying that he "formerly
concurred" with Grote that there was "no other purpose in these
demonstrations [dialectical deductions from the proposition "the One
is"] than that of dialectical exercise"*[105] . "...but a
better acquaintance with Plato leads me now to doubt seriously of its
truth"*[106] . Surely then the second part should be considered? But
he writes that he intends to confine himself "to the first part of the
dialogue, the exposition and criticism of the Ideal theory"*[107]
14.5. The Parmenides contains a powerful
and destructive criticism of Plato's theory of Being, and considers the
possibility that the nature of Reality does not arise from the assumptions
which our epistemology might suggest; rather that it might be altogether beyond
a discursive understanding. It is not disputed to be by Plato. And, given that
it destroys what has been traditionally understood to be the
Platonic Theory of Being, it might be that it is rather a pointer to a wholly
different ontology; an indicator that the essentially negative result of the
dialectical exercises of some of the dialogues did not represent the collapse
of a philosophical model of reality, but the attainment of its goal. Perhaps at
some level Frazer suspected something of the kind, and decided to give the text
as wide a berth as possible in the circumstances.
