This chapter pivots to Parmenides’ poem by examining at a more general level the close intertextual connections with Odyssey 12. I then examine in close detail how the krisis or exclusive, exhaustive disjunction in Parmenides’ Fragment 2 bears a close resemblance to the exclusive, exhaustive disjunction in the hodos that Circe spells out in Odyssey 12; I also detail important differences between Parmenides’ and Homer’s uses of this disjunction. Finally, I explore the importance of this disjunction for Parmenides’ groundbreaking extended deductive argument and, especially, its role in the practice of demonstration.

This appendix addresses Parmenides’ Fragment 5, which has sometimes been taken as a challenge to the linear, hodos-like structure of Parmenides’ argument. I establish the matrix of possible readings this fragment allows and show how this framework can organize different interpretations of it offered by previous scholars. Finally, I make clear that none of these readings of Fragment 5 undermines the argument made in the course of this book.

This chapter is in many ways the culmination of the book. It applies the analysis of chapters 3 and 4 to the structure of Parmenides’ Fragment 8, and shows how Parmenides uses the blueprint of Circe’s hodos in Odyssey 12 to craft what we would call an extended deductive argument; in this, it develops the discussion of Chapter 5. It cashes out the implications of Chapter 1 by showing how Parmenides takes advantage of rut road imagery to articulate what we would call a notion of logical necessity, and by showing how the durative and telic components of the word hodos define the teleological shape of his arguments. Building on Chapter 2, I set out the traditions Parmenides developed by creating a discursive structure that is both systematic and argumentatively rigorous. I also examine how the poem’s complex relationships between story, plot, and the time of narration plays a crucial role in bestowing on Parmenides’ arguments, and on demonstration more generally, an ostensibly timeless quality. Finally, I assess my conclusions about Parmenides’ invention of deductive argumentation in relation to other scholars’ discussions of his arguments, and clarify what my argument does not claim to offer – and what it insists on.

This chapter applies the analysis of the preceding chapter to the hodos that Circe spells out in Odyssey 12, which I argue serves as a discursive template or blueprint for Parmenides in his ‘Route to Truth’. In addition to building on the notions of the rhetorical schema and types of dependence developed in Chapter 3, I extend my analysis of the discursive architecture governed by the hodos to include the krisis or exclusive, exhaustive disjunction which is a central feature of Od. 12.55–126. I also show how the hodos in Odyssey 12 has distinctive features – including the use of modally charged negation and unusually lengthy description sections followed by argumentatively rich units of text – which link it to Parmenides’ poem but differentiate it in crucial ways from other texts and phenomena, including general patterns of Homeric deliberation, polar expressions, the crossroads in Hesiod’s Works and Days, and the so-called Orphic gold tablets.

This chapter comprises two parts. The first addresses the physical natural and social function of archaic and classical Greek roads. Of key importance is the fact that ancient Greek roads were not paved on the surface of the earth but were ruts inscribed into it; when a vehicle set out on such a road, it was thus locked into these ruts as a tramcar is locked onto its tracks. I gesture towards the bearing that this will have on Parmenides’ use of road imagery to develop and articulate a notion of what we would call logical necessity. The second half of this chapter examines the semantics of the word hodos. Notably, the word can signify both an object (especially the rut road just discussed) and an activity. This activity is teleological, a characteristic I explore in terms borrowed from discussions of linguistic aspect and the Kenny–Vendler typology of situations; I conclude that the activity signified by the word hodos is a kind of accomplishment in that it is both durative and telic. Exploiting the two meanings of hodos and harnessing the distinctive features of each, Parmenides imparts a distinctive shape to his ‘Route to Truth’ and endows it with specific qualities characteristic of what we would call an extended deductive argument and a demonstration

The present volume is the ‘successor’ to The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (1996). Over the last twenty-five years, there has been an enormous increase in published work on Plotinus and on late ancient Platonism generally. In addition, many scholars who had not even begun their careers twenty-five years ago are now working intensely in this area. This fact is reflected in the list of authors of this volume, none of whom appeared in the previous work and most of whom had not yet even begun their careers when the original Companion appeared.1

Plotinus places emphasis on the intelligible world since it is the paradigm of truth, beauty, and being. Porphyry even orders the treatises in a way that mirrors the ascent to the intelligible world and beyond to the One. This has created the impression for generations that Plotinus is uninterested in the natural world. This is an oversimplification. Plotinus has a sophisticated natural philosophy but it can be difficult to piece together into a coherent whole because much of his comments occur in polemical contexts where he is arguing against a rival school, and they are spread throughout numerous, seemingly unrelated treatises. This is especially the case for his doctrine on sensible bodies. The departure for Plotinus’ view is Timaeus 49d–50a, where Timaeus claims that only the receptacle can be called a ‘this’ (tode) or a ‘that’ (touto), but a thing that enters and leaves the receptacle, such as a primary body, is a ‘what is such’ (toiouton). Plotinus, however, develops Plato’s view by critically engaging with Aristotle and the Peripatetic tradition and reinterpreting the Platonic view in the scheme of his hierarchical metaphysics.

Self-knowledge for Plotinus concerns the general features of what it is to be a self – a being capable of such self-relations as self-reflexivity and unified consciousness of one’s activities, both mental and bodily. Besides conducting sophisticated discussions on the structural problems of these relations, Plotinus carries on the Socratic interest in care of the self, or in elevation of oneself towards ideal knowledge and virtue – that is, in self-ennobling. In self-improvement, the role of knowledge is central; self-knowledge will reveal the activities typical for different epistemic conditions. Although Plotinus operates with the metaphysical division of soul, body, and the embodied composite he inherited from Classical Greek philosophers, he reshapes the discussion in two important ways: by concentrating on the soul’s power of self-identification – of choosing or attending to itself – and on the way different cognitive activities include a self-reference.

Plotinus focuses on eternity (aiôn) and time (khronos) in treatise 3.7 On Eternity and Time.1 His views are rooted in the earlier tradition and are developed through an interpretation of both Plato (in particular the Timaeus) and Aristotle (in particular Physics 4). Yet Plotinus does not merely resume what had previously been stated by his authorities; his exegetical approach is based on the presentation of distinctive views that are connected to Plotinus’ metaphysical outlook, in particular to his theory of intelligible principles. Plotinus’ discussion of eternity and time is actually centred on (1) the notion of eternity as the lack of duration and extension in time (so Plotinus distinguishes eternity from everlastingness), (2) the idea that time is associated with the activity of the soul rather than with the movement of bodies, (3) the notion of ‘life’ as a mode of being that characterizes, in different ways, both the Intellect and the soul and accounts for the nature of eternity and time as well as for the derivation of time from eternity.

When Plotinus began his teaching career after moving from Alexandria to Rome in 245 ce, he was faced with the task of defending the correctness of his views not only against the teachings of rival philosophical schools, such as those of the Stoics, Peripatetics, and Epicureans but also against the popular religious movements of his day, chief among them Christianity and Gnosticism. We do not know whether his audience, comprised of people from a range of professional backgrounds, such as doctors, literary critics, and aspiring statesmen, would have included any Christians. But in all likelihood, he would have come into contact with proponents of the new faith at some point during his life.1