Parmenides is one of Plato's dialogues. It is widely considered to be one of the most challenging and enigmatic of Plato's dialogues. The Parmenides purports to be an account of a meeting between the two great philosophers of the Eleatic school, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, and a young Socrates. The occasion of the meeting was the reading by Zeno of his treatise defending Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality who asserted that Parmenides' supposition that there is one gives rise to intolerable absurdities and contradictions.

Plato, born around 428/427 BCE and having lived until approximately 348/347 BCE, was an illustrious Greek philosopher, a prolific writer and the founder of the Academy in Athens, one of the earliest institutions of higher learning in the Western world. Plato was a student of Socrates and later the teacher of Aristotle, forming a foundation of what would come to be known as the triumvirate of ancient Greek philosophy. His works have been influential in the development of Western philosophy, religion, and spirituality.

The dialogue 'Parmenides' is one of his metaphysical pieces and part of his middle period works. In this dialogue, Plato probes the theory of forms, a central aspect of his philosophical thought. The work is a dialogue between Socrates, the young Parmenides, and Zeno, wherein Parmenides expounds on the one and the many, leading to profound implications for the nature of reality. Plato's writing style in 'Parmenides' and his other dialogues is characterized by rigorous argumentation, dialectic method, and a search for definitions aimed at uncovering philosophical truths. His dialogues are treasured not only for their philosophical insights but also for their literary craftsmanship and their influence can be felt in a myriad of disciplines beyond philosophy, including political theory, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics.