Testing the theory of forms › Why Parmenides demands training

After these objections, Parmenides warns against dispensing with Forms altogether. Without a stable object of thought, he says, Socrates would destroy the power of dialectic. He also says Socrates has attempted to define the just, the beautiful and the other Forms before receiving enough training. The response combines criticism with insistence that the inquiry continue (135a–d).

The proposed exercise is systematic. Take a hypothesis and examine the consequences if it holds and if it does not. Consider the subject in relation to itself and to other things, then the others in relation to themselves and to it. The method requires more than collecting objections to a view one dislikes: it also tests what follows from denying it (135d–136c).

Parmenides demonstrates with the one, questioning the young Aristoteles, whom the dialogue identifies as a later member of the Thirty. Socrates does not conduct this extended second part. The topic moves through unity and plurality, relation and difference, motion and rest, and time. The exercise reaches the closing lines without a separate speech telling the reader how every difficulty about Forms has been solved (137a–166c).

A useful modern application is to test both a proposal and the proposed alternative. Suppose a team argues that every exceptional case needs a new rule. That might produce a difficult accumulation of rules. Simply removing rules may produce different difficulties about consistency and discretion. Testing both options helps clarify what must be explained. This is an illustration of the method; it does not make the dialogue an instruction manual for organizational policy.