Abstract

I address two seemingly unrelated topics: the first is the subject and formulation of the hypotheses and the second is the number of hypotheses. On the topic of the subject of the hypotheses, my position is that we are initially given an indefinite monad, a “one”, which is in no case “the one”, “the one itself”, or the form of unity. We are meant to read the hypotheses with the question in mind, “what one is this?” If we do so, we are confronted with strikingly different answers, which, when taken together, point us toward key insights into the nature of intelligibility. On the topic of the number of hypotheses: we are led to expect four, but we are given eight. My position is that we are meant to disarm apparent contradictions between paired hypotheses, especially H1-H2 but also H3-4, 5-6, and 7-8, because doing so will help us further determine the different types of monad Parmenides has in view. In the end, two primary types of monad emerge from the process of disambiguation, namely, form and sensible particular, and we, having differentiated these types of “one”, will have gathered resources for understanding how sensible particulars are grounded in forms.