Becoming Socrates: Political Philosophy in Plato鈥檚 Parmenides
In this commentary on the Parmenides, Alex Priou argues that the dialogue is, in actuality, a reflection on politics. Priou begins from the accepted view that the conversation consists of two discrete parts – a critique of the forms, followed by Socrates’ philosophical training – but finds a unity to the dialogue yet to be acknowledged. By paying careful attention to what Parmenides calls the “greatest impasse” facing Socrates’ ontology, Priou reveals a political context to the conversation. The need in society for order and good rule includes the need, at a more fundamental level, for an adequate and efficacious explanation of being. Recounting here how a young Socrates first learned of the primacy of political philosophy, which would become the hallmark of his life, Becoming Socrates shows that political philosophy, and not ontology, is “first philosophy.”
