recommend?

That which you heard Zeno practising; at the same time, I give you credit
for saying to him that you did not care to examine the perplexity in
reference to visible things, or to consider the question that way; but only
in reference to objects of thought, and to what may be called ideas.

Why, yes, he said, there appears to me to be no difficulty in showing by
this method that visible things are like and unlike and may experience
anything.

Quite true, said Parmenides; but I think that you should go a step further,
and consider not only the consequences which flow from a given hypothesis,
but also the consequences which flow from denying the hypothesis; and that
will be still better training for you.

What do you mean? he said.

I mean, for example, that in the case of this very hypothesis of Zeno's
about the many, you should inquire not only what will be the consequences
to the many in relation to themselves and to the one, and to the one in
relation to itself and the many, on the hypothesis of the being of the
many, but also what will be the consequences to the one and the many in
their relation to themselves and to each other, on the opposite hypothesis.
Or, again, if likeness is or is not, what will be the consequences in
either of these cases to the subjects of the hypothesis, and to other
things, in relation both to themselves and to one another, and so of
unlikeness; and the same holds good of motion and rest, of generation and
destruction, and even of being and not-being. In a word, when you suppose
anything to be or not to be, or to be in any way affected, you must look at