B ook Reviews

Patricia Curd. The Legacy ofParmenides, Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought. Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 28o. Cloth, $45.oo.

Curd confronts a puzzle in early Greek philosophy. Parmenides' teaching is tradition-

ally u n d e r s t o o d as "numerical monism": "there is only one thing or item in the uni-
verse" (66). But his successors, though accepting his key claims that "what-is-not" is n o t
to be thought and becoming must therefore be denied, begin straightaway, without
argument, from a plurality of ultimate entities--Anaxagoras from the chremata, Empedo-
cles from his four roots and Love and Strife, Leucippus a n d Democritus from atoms
and the void. Did they peremptorily reject Parmenides' monism? Did they simply fail to
u n d e r s t a n d it? Curd proposes, instead, that Parmenides was n o t a "numerical monist"
in the first place. Recasting Mourelatos' notion of speculative predication, she offers
accounts of the Aletheia- and the Doxa-sections of the p o e m in which Parmenides
emerges as a "predicational monist." I n the Aletheia, Curd's Parmenides subjects to
critique the predications by which inquiry arrives at the "nature" of something; the
"signs" of B8 are the criteria that, in accord with his rejection of negative predications
as uninformative, each "nature" must meet. It is not the "universe" but rather each
"nature" by itself that must be "a whole of a single kind" (B8.3), "all together one,
cohesive" (B8.5-6), and "not divisible" (B8.22)--how m a n y such "natures" a theory
may posit is simply not at issue. I n the Doxa, Curd's Parmenides has a twofold purpose:
by the "deceptive order of [the goddess'] words" Parmenides poses a test, challenging
his hearers to recognize that since "Light" a n d "Night" a r e " e n a n t i o m o r p h i c opposites"
with each in its very "nature" not the other, they fail to meet the criteria of B8; at the
same time, he provides a model that we can use to assess or construct cosmological
theories. By this interpretation of Parmenides Curd clears the g r o u n d for her account
of his "legacy." I n her final chapters she offers pointed readings of Anaxagoras, Empe-
docles, the Atomists, Philolaus, Diogenes of Apollonia, a n d early Plato, arguing that
each adopts Parmenides' "predicational monism," affirming the indivisibly one a n d
u n c h a n g i n g character of each of the "natures" f u n d a m e n t a l to the sensible world.
This major new proposal will be of compelling interest to all scholars of the
presocratics. Some possible limitations and basic questions to consider:
(1) T h e r e are significant regions of the proem, of presocratic thought, a n d of mod-
ern commentary yet to be examined. B9, crucial to interpreting the error of mortals at
B8.53-54, and the orienting symbolism in the proem are only cursorily treated. Hesiod
gets barely a m e n t i o n in Curd's otherwise valuable survey of the appeals to opposites in
p r e - P a r m e n i d e a n thought. I n taking the early Owen's existential reading of Par-

[157]
158 JOURNAL o r THE HISTORY o r PHILOSOPHY 3 7 : 1 JANUARY 1 9 9 9

menides' esti an d h e r own notion of the "is" o f "informative i d e n t i ~ T"as the two flmda-
mental alternatives, she leaves undiscussed the so-called "fused" predicative-existential
reading.
(~) H o w narrowly focused does Curd's reading require us to keep Parmenides' est,?
W h e n she discusses BS, she speaks of "what-is" and "what-is-not." But if we approach
B8 in light o f her reading of B2 and read to eon in the context of a speculative predica-
tion of the f o r m "x is F," s h o u ld n ' t we speak of it as "what x i s " - - a n d of the correspond-
ing negation as "what x is not"? Does Curd seek to preserve the veridical-existential
implication of "x is F," namely, that as the nature that defines x, it is F that truly or most
fully exists? Clarification of this issue n e e d not require an either/or choice between
senses of "is." It may well be that to appreciate fully Parmenides' krisis, "is or is not," and
his paradoxical notion of "nothing," we n e e d to recover an interplay between specula-
tive-predicative, existential, and veridical n u a n c e s - - e s p e c i a l l y if, with Curd, we open
ourselves to an u n f o l d i n g history o f perspectives extending all the way to Plato.
(3) T o construe Parmenides as only a "predicational monist" requires that we read
the key ascriptions of unity to "what-is" in B8 with a willful suspension of relational
thinking. Does this seem forced only because we are in the grip of the traditional
interpretation that Curd challenges? In specifying just what it is for which Par-
menides works out criteria in B8, Curd speaks sometimes of "the nature of a thing,"
sometimes o f the "entities" "basic" or "fundamental" to the cosmos. T h e first formula-
tion lets us imagine a host o f separate inquiries--say, a set o f Socratic d i a l o g u e s - -
each o f which explores some distinct "thing" and seeks its peculiar "nature." Curd's
Parmenides, subjecting each o f these "natures" to critical review, would ask w h e t h e r it
is internally one, "single-natured" (B8.4) and "not divisible" (B8.22); the plurality of
these "natures" and the differences a m o n g them would not trouble him. If, however,
we are guided by the second formulation, we are m o r e likely to think of the sort of
investigation of the sensible world as a whole in which the Milesians, Anaxagoras,
Empedocles, the Atomists, and, indeed, the "deceptive" goddess herself in the Doxa
were engaged. Is it plausible that, should such an inquiry arrive at a plurality of
"natures," Parmenides would focus exclusively on the internal unity of each one by
itself, remaining u n c o n c e r n e d with the c o m p l ex whole they constitute? For Curd's
Parmenides to accept, for instance, Empedocles' four roots, he must hold back from
considering them together as an e n s e m b l e - - f o r as an ensemble they would be hetero-
geneous and divisible and this, violating the criterion of internal unity, would force
him to reject them.
(4) Curd's seminal suggestion is that the absence of a r g u m e n t against "numerical
m o n i s m " by Parmenides' successors constitutes grounds for d o u b t i n g that Parmenides
was a "numerical monist." By this reasoning, d o n 't we find analogous g r o u n d s for
doubting what she affirms, that the e r r o r of mortals consists in the positing of
" en an t i o m o rp h i c opposites" as the "basic entities" of cosmological theory? A r e n ' t Love
and Strife, as "constructive" and "destructive," and atoms and the void, as "the full" and
"the empty," e n a n t i o m o r p h i c opposites? If so, did Parmenides' successors peremptorily
reject his proscription of such opposites? Did they simply fail to understand it? Or,
repeating Curd's own reasoning, is their failure explicitly to argue against his proscrip-
 BOOK REVIEWS 159

tion of such pairs grounds for d o u b t i n g that Parmenides made such a proscription in
the first place?
MITCHELL MILLER
Vassar College

M. S. Lane. Method and Politics in Plato's Statesman. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1998. Pp. xiii + 9z 9. Cloth, $59.95.

This rewarding book not only is a n o t h e r sign of growing interest in the Statesman, but
also does much to justify this interest. T h e reasons for the dialogue's relative neglect
until recently are easily stated: readers have been puzzled by the a m o u n t of space
devoted to method in a dialogue ostensibly about politics; furthermore, they have
f o u n d both the method and the politics highly unsatisfactory. Lane addresses each of
these concerns. She continually draws our attention to the unity of method and politics
in the dialogue: the limitations of the Stranger's initial divisions are shown to be equally
methodological and political (44-5); the cosmic story is shown to be flawed by a politi-
cal prejudice (the traditional model of king as shepherd), which turns into a method-
ological prejudice (the telling of a story too long to be profitably used as an example; 9 -
to, 121-3); the capacities ultimately shown to be necessary for a successful inquiry
(division, exemplification, and finding the mean) also prove to be essential require-
ments of political knowledge (143- 4 , 9o2).
Lane's major contribution to our u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the dialogue's method is her
demonstration of the central role played by example (paradeigma). Lane expresses a
c o m m o n objection to the method of division: "But how to choose j u s t which apparently
similar things or names to investigate? Similarities are ubiquitous; there is some respect
in which everything is similar to everything else. What is more, it is usually on the basis
of prejudice and preconceived i d e a s . . , that similarities are distinguished" (75-6).
Lane sees example as the solution, since it is precisely the task of an example to fix on
those similarities relevant to the aim of the inquiry (76 , 86-7).
This is a very appealing solution, b u t one must w o n d e r if it does n o t simply postpone
the problem. To choose the right example, must we n o t make assumptions about which
similarities are relevant to defining the object of inquiry a n d therefore about the nature
of this object? A n d may not these assumptions be no more than prejudices or precon-
ceived ideas? While the Stranger indeed develops his own example of weaving to an
extent unparalleled in other dialogues (93), that there are essential similarities between
statecraft and weaving appears to be more assumed than d e m o n s t r a t e d by the example.
With regard to politics, Lane provides a very illuminating account of the dialogue's
characterization of political expertise as certain knowledge of the good in a temporal
context, or the kairos. She shows in what way this "knowledge of timing" (142) both is
distinct from, and rules over, other contenders for the title of statecraft (such as rheto-
ric a n d strategy).
Since, however, the existence of a statesman possessing such political expertise is,
from the dialogue's perspective, "a logical b u t unlikely possibility" (a 1 a) and, "from a