In this paper, I seek to shed light on some main interpretative aspects of George Pachymeres’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. This Commentary –the only Byzantine Commentary on a platonic work ever to have been hitherto discovered– displays a unique specificity, since it marks a decisive turning point in the traditional interpretation of dialogues of Plato as an authority in terms of metaphysics or of philosophy in general. Not only does the Byzantine scholar limit himself to giving a logical exegesis of (...) the arguments of a dialogue which already bears the imprint of the Neoplatonists’ theological interpretations, but he also assumes the role of an active and impartial judge of its logical scope. This innovation, of great historical value, lies in the Aristotelian reading-interpretation of a Platonic dialogue, specifically of Parmenides’ dialectical arguments. Thus, I intend to analyze Pachymeres’ numerous references in specific Aristotelian doctrines that are spread throughout all of Pachymeres’ ad hoc scholia on Parmenides’ arguments and serve as both supplementary and corrective exegetic premises within his analysis, by giving a new perspective through the citation and the transcription of similar commentaries drawn from his edited and his unedited philosophical works, as well as to demonstrate, through a thorough investigation of Pachymeres’ unedited works mainly on Aristotle’s Organon, the key-role that Aristotle’s theory on dialectic plays in Pachymeres’ thought and specifically the dialectical value that the scholiast accords to the Platonic dialogue. My main concern is to prove, in the end, that Pachymeres’ usage of Aristotle for commenting on Plato’s text is a form of exercise, a way to train his students in proper philosophical non-fallacious argumentation. (shrink)

George Pachymeres’ Commentary on the second part of the Platonic dialogue Parmenides is from a codicological point of view a continuation of the lost part of Proclus’ Commentary, but it can be characterized in its essence as an autonomous exegetical effort by the polymath and Aristotelian philosopher that aims to deal with the demanding text of the Parmenidean hypotheses by codifying this argumentative system of Platonic dialectic. The purely logical identity of his interpretation, which is far from being influenced by (...) the Neoplatonists’ metaphysical and theological approaches, is manifest through the logical system of the “24 arguments” that he borrows though from Proclus’ interpretation and tries to apply ad hoc to the Platonic system of hypotheses, following it as closely as he can. This article maps the landscape of Pachymeres’ hermeneutical effort, i.e., it tries to structure in a clear and complete scheme the skeleton of his methodological approach on the whole of Parmenides’ arguments, by seeking to establish the appropriate correspondences with Proclus’ logical system of the “24 dialectical modes” and by following step by step the course of the Byzantine commentator’s reasoning strategy, especially his ingenious adjustments between Plato’s demanding text and Proclus’ schematization-model. To what extent, then, would the skeleton of the system of hypotheses that Pachymeres reconstructs from the Proclean schemes be perfect or sufficiently robust? This problem is the starting point of the present study. (shrink)