Note 871 — Chapter VIII · THE YOUNGER ELEATICS

The technical terms used in Plato’s Parmenides seem to be as old as Zeno himself. The ὑπόθεσις is the provisional assumption of the truth of a certain statement, and takes the form εἰ πολλά ἐστι or the like. The word does not mean the assumption of something as a foundation, but the setting before one’s self of a statement as a problem to be solved (Ionic ὑποθέσθαι, Attic προθέσθαι). If the conclusions which necessarily follow from the ὑπόθεσις (τὰ συμβαίνοντα) are impossible, the ὑπόθεσις is “destroyed” (cf. Plato, Rep. 533 c 8, τὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀναιροῦσα). The author of the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς (c 1) knows the word ὑπόθεσις in a similar sense.