Although many commentators take it for granted that Parmenides’ conclusion follows from the principle that divided (or divisible) things automatically lose their unity, this supposition makes little sense in the wake of Socrates’ speech. There Socrates insisted that he himself is one (in being one among many) even though he has many parts (front and back, upper and lower, and so on). So Socrates does not suppose that it is true in general that a thing with parts cannot be one. The hypothesis tha