Michalis Tegos How does the Sophist reply to the Parmenides? Or, Why the One is not among the Megista Gene* Michalis Tegos How does the Sophist reply to the Parmenides? Or, Why the One is not among the Megista Gene Abstract. Tis paper explores the relation of the Sophist to the Parmenides: in what ways the Sophist responds to the questions, aporias and demands raised in the Par- menides. It aims to show how the problems encountered in the rst part and the cat- egories used in the second part of the Parmenides, relate to the solutions proposed in the Sophist. Te Parmenides has been interpreted in various ways: as a logical exercise and as a theory about gods, even as an example of perfect symmetry in impossibility. It has been acclaimed as the best collection of antinomies ever produced, but also, as an impossible map sketching how the theory of forms should not be thought. Its pur- pose, a parody, or training, a pedagogic exercise necessary for the proper way to truth. Not, however, in order to discard forms, but, on the contrary, to arm their necessity and to rene them, lest we end up abandoning forms and, with them, the possibility of dialectic and Philosophy. Troughout the Parmenides, the Teaetetus and the Sophist, we are led through a complex argumentative and dramatic strategy to the refutation of the Eleatic doctrine and the mature ontology of the Timaeus. We shall seek to show that the sections on dunamis, the megista gene and the community of forms that follow the Gigantomachia episode about ousia in the Sophist, propose a way out of the apor- ias of participation and the greatest diculty of the Parmenides, a way to salvage the theory of forms, and, with them, the possibility of knowledge, logos and Philosophy altogether. Keywords: the Sophist, the Parmenides, dunamis, megista gene. © M. Tegos (Athens). michalistegos@yahoo.gr. Aristotle University of Tessaloniki. Платоновские исследования / Platonic Investigations 10.2 (2019) DOI: 10.25985/PI.10.2.02 * A shorter version of this paper was presented at the xii Symposium Platonicum in Paris, 16 July 2019. 42