What is it?
Would you, or would you not say, that absolute knowledge, if there is
such a thing, must be a far more exact knowledge than our knowledge; and
the same of beauty and of the rest?
Yes.
And if there be such a thing as participation in absolute knowledge, no
one is more likely than God to have this most exact knowledge?
Certainly.
But then, will God, having absolute knowledge, have a knowledge of human
things?
Why not?
Because, Socrates, said Parmenides, we have admitted that the ideas are
not valid in relation to human things; nor human things in relation to
them; the relations of either are limited to their respective spheres.
Yes, that has been admitted.
And if God has this perfect authority, and perfect knowledge, his
authority cannot rule us, nor his knowledge know us, or any human thing;
just as our authority does not extend to the gods, nor our knowledge
know anything which is divine, so by parity of reason they, being gods,
are not our masters, neither do they know the things of men.
Yet, surely, said Socrates, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous.
These, Socrates, said Parmenides, are a few, and only a few of the
difficulties in which we are involved if ideas really are and we
determine each one of them to be an absolute unity. He who hears what
may be said against them will deny the very existence of them--and even
if they do exist, he will say that they must of necessity be unknown
to man; and he will seem to have reason on his side, and as we were
remarking just now, will be very difficult to convince; a man must
be gifted with very considerable ability before he can learn that
everything has a class and an absolute essence; and still more
remarkable will he be who discovers all these things for himself, and
having thoroughly investigated them is able to teach them to others.
I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates; and what you say is very
much to my mind.
And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, if a man, fixing his attention on
these and the like difficulties, does away with ideas of things and will
not admit that every individual thing has its own determinate idea which
is always one and the same, he will have nothing on which his mind can
rest; and so he will utterly destroy the power of reasoning, as you seem
to me to have particularly noted.
Very true, he said.
But, then, what is to become of philosophy? Whither shall we turn, if
the ideas are unknown?