Exercise and insight: Gymnastic in Plato's Parmenides

In Plato's Parmenides, the young Socrates is famously unable to defend his notion of forms under the cross-examination of Parmenides. Socrates, however, is offered advice: practice. While practice or exercise [gymnastike] might help a musician get to Carnegie Hall, does it relate to philosophical insight and truth? This dissertation examines Plato's Parmenides as an explicitly pedagogical enterprise, presenting an advanced dialectical training for students. Socrates here is an exemplar of a philosophical student, not yet a mature master. His inability to defend the forms from Parmenides' critique, I argue, cannot be evidence for claiming the dialogue as a self-critical re-assessment of forms, nor can Parmenides' exercise be understood as a dogmatic presentation of Plato's "late" ontology, following a developmental model. I show that Parmenides offers an exercise to Socrates that sustains and advances his initial idea of forms, along with the claim that such an exercise is essential for developing a mature view of what is true. I argue that such an exercise must be understood as a propaedeutic for cultivating the philosopher's understanding. To this end, this research examines the viability, extent, and efficacy of this difficult gymnastic practice, and how it can be seen as an advanced pedagogical practice for students of Plato's Academy, and for contemporary thinkers alike.