Plato, Parmenides

Course Information
TitleΠλάτων, "Παρμενίδης" / Plato, Parmenides
CodeΦΚ284
FacultyPhilosophy
SchoolPhilosophy and Education
Cycle / Level1st / Undergraduate, 2nd / Postgraduate
Teaching PeriodWinter
CoordinatorPantelis Golitsis
CommonYes
StatusActive
Course ID600018149

Programme of Study: UPS School of Philosophy and Education (2011-today)

Registered students: 108
OrientationAttendance TypeSemesterYearECTS
CoreMandatory Elective CoursesWinter/Spring-6

Class Information
Academic Year2019 – 2020
Class PeriodWinter
Faculty Instructors
Weekly Hours3
Total Hours39
Class ID
600148884
Course Type 2016-2020
  • Scientific Area
Course Type 2011-2015
Specific Foundation / Core
Mode of Delivery
  • Face to face
Digital Course Content
Erasmus
The course is also offered to exchange programme students.
Language of Instruction
  • Greek (Instruction, Examination)
  • English (Examination)
  • French (Examination)
  • German (Examination)
  • Italian (Examination)
General Competences
  • Be critical and self-critical
  • Advance free, creative and causative thinking
Course Content (Syllabus)
The Parmenides is one of the most difficult but also most fascinating Platonic dialogues. In the first part of the dialogue, the young Socrates discusses with the old Parmenides and the middle-aged Zeno several problems that arise from the Parmenidean teaching about the One (“if things are not one, then insurmountable paradoxes arise”) and from its Zenonian defence ("If things are many, then insurmountable paradoxes arise"), as well as from the (Platonic) theory of Ideas ("things are both one and many, since they participate in different Ideas"). In the second part of the dialogue, Parmenides re-examines his philosophical monism by discussing with the young Aristotle (one of the thirty tyrants) the conclusions that result from different assumptions about the one and the many. The range and depth of the dialogue is such that it has been interpreted quite differently from antiquity up to the present time: a theological dialogue par excellence for the ancient Platonists (the "hypotheses" examined in the second part describe the One and the degrees of Being, which correspond to different divinities), Parmenides is now read mostly as a an aporetic and possibly subversive work, in which Plato realizes and sets forth the problems that arise from his own teaching about the Ideas. The present course privileges a reading that interprets the dialogue as a primarily dialectical exercise, which leads the reader to a better and more secure conception of the Ideas – as is the job of dialectics to do.
Keywords
Plato, Doctrine of Ideas, Dialectics
Educational Material Types
  • Notes
  • Book
Use of Information and Communication Technologies
Use of ICT
  • Use of ICT in Course Teaching
  • Use of ICT in Communication with Students
Course Organization
ActivitiesWorkloadECTSIndividualTeamworkErasmus
Lectures1004
Reading Assigment502
Total1506
Student Assessment
Student Assessment methods
  • Written Exam with Short Answer Questions (Summative)
  • Written Exam with Extended Answer Questions (Summative)
Bibliography
Course Bibliography (Eudoxus)
1) Πλάτων. Παρμενίδης (ή περί ιδεών), Αθήνα: Κάκτος, 1993. 2) Nicholas P. White, Ο Πλάτων για τη γνώση και την πραγματικότητα, Αθήνα: Gutenberg, 2012.
Additional bibliography for study
1) Πλάτων. Λάχης – Μένων – Παρμενίδης, Εισαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια: Β. Τατάκης, Η. Λάγιος, Αθήνα: Δαίδαλος, 1960.
Last Update
27-11-2020