Note 56 — Chapter XXVII · PARMENIDES.
Reading edition
Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. I. pp. 482-485, ed. Stallb.; compare pp. 497-498-788-791, where Proklus is himself copious upon the subject of exercise in dialectic method.
Stallbaum, after reciting many different hypothetical interpretations from those interpreters who had preceded him, says (Prolegg. p. 265), “En lustravimus tandem varias interpretum de hoc libro opiniones. Quid igitur? verusne fui, quum suprà dicerem, tantam fuisse hominum eruditorum in eo explicando fluctuationem atque dissensionem, ut quamvis plurimi de eo disputaverint, tamen ferè alius aliter judicaverit? Nimirum his omnibus cognitis, facilè alicui in mentem veniat Terentianum illud — Fecisti propé, multo sim quam dudum incertior.”
Brandis (Handbuch Gr.-Röm. Phil. s. 105, pp. 257-258) cannot bring himself to believe that dialectical exercise was the only purpose with which Plato composed the Parmenides. He then proceeds to state what Plato’s ulterior purpose was, but in such very vague language, that I hardly understand what he means, much less can I find it in the Antinomies themselves. He has some clearer language, p. 241, where he treats these Antinomies as preparatory ἀπορίαι.