L'assenza dei sofisti e la presenza di Parmenide: una strategia esegetica di Plotino?

Surprisingly, in the Enneads there are no references to sophists, neither in the form of criticism, nor as a partial recovery of philosophical doctrines potentially compatible (at least in part) with Plotinian metaphysics. Nevertheless, the parmenidean thought is instead recovered by Plotinus on several occasions (in particular in the tenth Ennead), although Plotinus performs an operation of distor-tion of Parmenides in a functional way to a vision of reality that is articulated by hypostases, attributing the identity of being and thinking (DK28B 3) to the fundamental structure of Nous. The purpose of my contribution is to reflect on the philosophical and argumentative strategies that have led Plotinus to cut off the bridges with sophistics, bringing out an exegetical spirit clearly functional to the development of his metaphysics. In addition, I intend to dwell on the fact that Plotinus seems to completely discard the platonic references to sophists, bringing out a clear exegetical orientation that certainly deserves to be explored.

Keywords: Enneads, Sophists, Parmenides, Nous