Table Of ContentFORMS IN PLATO'S LATER DIALOGUES
FORMS IN PLATO'S LATER
DIALOGUES
by
EDITH WATSON SCHIPPER
University 01 Miami
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.
1965
ISBN 978-94-017-5790-4 ISBN 978-94-017-6209-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6209-0
Copyright 1965 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands in 1965
AH rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
CONTENTS
Preface VII
I. INTRODUCTION: FORMS IN THE EARLIER DIALOGUES I
The Unitary Forms 2
Sensed Things and Their Relation to Forms 5
II. THE PROBLEM: FORMS IN THE PARMENIDES II
Criticism of the Relation of Forms to Things 12
The Problem 16
III. FORMS IN THE THEAETETUS 20
Perception, Knowledge, and the Forms 21
Error, Logos, and the Forms 25
IV. FORMS IN THE SOPHIST 31
The Interrelated Forms 31
The Interrelated Things 35
False Logos, Doxa, and Phantasia 38
V. FORMS IN THE PHILEBUS 43
The One Form and the Many Things 44
The Mixture 51
VI. FORMS AND ATOMS IN THE TIMAEUS 57
The Changing Things and their Formal Pattern 58
Necessity, Atoms, and the Forms 63
CONCLUSION 71
Bibliography 78
PREFACE
This little book is concerned with one problem, that of whether
and in what respects Plato continued to hold his earlier theory
of forms of the Phaedo and Republic in his later dialogues. The
earlier theory is first considered; since those who deny that
Plato continued to hold his theory base their contention on an
interpretation of it which is inadequate to explain even the
arguments of the earlier dialogues. The later dialogues are then
examined, in an attempt to show that the earlier theory is
continually assumed, in all its essentials; although it is developed
and modified to make it more consistent and adequate to ex
perience. Special attention is given to Plato's treatment of the
problem of the relation of the forms to the perceived things,
left unexplained in the earlier dialogues, but clearly recognized
and wrestled with in the later ones. This problem is the perennial
one of how the objects of intellectual argument and explanation
are related to the things of experience. A solution to that problem
is brought out in Plato's reconsideration of his theory of forms.
Plato's modified view of forms and their relation to experience
is fragrnentarily and briefly indicated, often in easily overlooked
details, which have been obscured in translation. However, the
different dialogues together throw light on each other, and on an
underlying metaphysical and epistemological view. That view
is assumed to be consistently maintained throughout the later
dialogues, when discrepancies have been explained. This assump
tion of the consistency of the later dialogues with each other has
usually been made by Platonic scholars, and has proved fruitful
in expounding Plato's thoughts. Moreover, Plato's view is
presupposed to be a significant one, having something to say to
philosophers concerned with the same problems, today. As
VIII PREFACE
Socrates says of Protagoras in the Theaetetus, "it is likely that
a wise man is not talking nonsense."
In attempting to formulate Plato's view, I rely entirely on the
evidence of the dialogues, following them as closely as possible,
so that he may speak for himself. Hence, at least initially, the
references of Aristotle to the Platonic theory are not considered.
Later, in connection with the Philebus and Timaeus, they are
taken up and compared with what the dialogues reveal. But, at
least, they would seem to constitute no objection to, but rather to
reinforce, the view that Plato continued to hold his theory of
forms throughout the dialogues.
Since F. M. Cornford's commentaries and translations of the
Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Timaeus are widely known,
I have thought it necessary to justify divergencies of my inter
pretation from his. However, notwithstanding my frequent
exceptions to his commentaries, lowe a great debt to his careful
analyses of Plato's often intricate arguments.
The bibliography does not pretend to be a complete list of
works on Plato's later dialogues. It includes those books and
articles which have contributed to the "question and answer"
resulting in this little book. Since the bibliography gives the
dates and publishers of the books referred to, their titles, only,
are designated in the footnotes.
Burnet's text, in Platonis Opera, Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is
used. The translations are mine, although I have compared them
with the standard translations.
I wish to thank my colleagues of the philosophy department
of the University of Miami for discussions, especially in the
departmental colloquia, of my interpretations of the Platonic
theory, as they have developed through the years. I am grateful
to my husband, Professor Gerrit Schipper, for reading and
criticising parts of the manuscript.
I wish to thank the editors of Phronesis for permission to use,
in the chapter on the Sophist, some material from my article,
The Meaning of Existence in Plato's SOPHIST, which appeared
in vol. ix, no. I, 1964.
EDITH WATSON SCHIPPER
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: FORMS IN THE EARLIER
DIALOGUES
Of the twenty-five or six genuine dialogues of Plato that have
come down to us, not one can be definitely dated; though they
have been variously arranged as earlier or later. The dialogue
about whose date there seems to be the greatest unanimity,
with the exception of the Laws upon which Plato was working
at his death in 348 or 7 B.C., is the Theaetetus. That dialogue
contains a reference to a battle whose date has been fixed -
apparently to the satisfaction of most classical scholars - as
369 or 8 B.C. The dialogue was probably written a year or so
afterwards. It, or the Parmenides, which is held to immediately
precede or succeed it, is the earliest of the group of later dialogues,
consisting of the Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Politicus,
Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, and Laws. These dialogues are
separated by a gap, whose duration has been variously estimated
as twenty to less than ten years, from the Republic, probably
the next earlier dialogue except the Phaedrus, which is generally
thought to fall in this interval.
The dialogues through the Republic, which I shall call the
earlier dialogues, differ both dramatically and in philological
style from the later. The former were written with all the living
appeal of literary art, and "published" for whoever wished to
read or listen to them. The latter, with their more abstruse and
exacting argumentation, were probably written for more purely
philosophic readers. The former expound a theory of "ideas" or
"forms" which are not considered in the same way in the latter.
Hence arises the wide divergence among Plato scholars about
whether or not Plato continued to hold his theory of forms in the
later dialogues, the writings which are receiving the most
philosophic attention today.
2 INTRODUCTION
In what follows, I should like to take up each of the later
dialogues, with the exception of the Politicus, Critias, and Laws,
as not adding substantially to, though certainly not controverting,
my argument, with a view only to the problem of whether and
how, and with what modifications the forms of the earlier
dialogues are still assumed in the later. I should like to show that
the theory in all essentials is still assumed by, and is even
foundational to, the arguments of the later dialogues, though it is
refined and developed. The greatest development, anticipated in
both the Phaedo (I04a) and Republic (476a), is in the Sophist; and
is that the forms are inherently interconnected. Along with the
relationship of forms to each other, is suggested their relationship
to sensed things, which are consequently radically reconceived.
Yet the theory of forms expounded in the earlier dialogues
retains its basic tenets, usually taken as all too familiar, which
I should like to consider as an introduction to this investigation.
THE UNITARY FORMS
In the Republic (so7b), Socrates introduces the forms, thus:
We say that many beautiful things and many good things each exist
(dVor:L), and we define them in our argument (3LOpE~o!l£V 'l"<I> Abycp). And
we assume the beautiful itself and good itself (or:U'l"O &yor:66v), and so for all
which we formerly assumed as many, considering them again according
to one form (!3tor:v) of each thing, existing as one (C>~ ILlii~ oiSa'lJ~); and we
call each thing what it is (IS i!a'l"Lv) ..• and we say that the former are seen
but are not thought (voe:'La6or:l), and the latter, the forms, are thought
but not seen.
Here we find the fundamentals of the theory of forms, as given
in the early dialogues. They may be listed as follows:
(r) The form is one for many things which have it as the same
characteristic, attribute, class, or (as we see in the Phaedo)
relation, as many beautiful things all have the same characteristic
of beauty, ('t'o xotA6v)' the one form. It is what the things are,
the one common nature of many things. Plato argues in the
Republic (S97c), that there can be only one form which is anyone
character (8 ~O''t'LV) which a thing and other things with the same
character all have (~xeLv). For, if there were two forms, those
forms would themselves have to have the characteristic, which
would then be still a third form, and so on. Harold Cherniss has
called attention to the dependence of the argument on the
INTRODUCTION 3
distinction between being a characteristic and having that
characteristic.! This common characteristic is one as contrasted
to the many things which have it.
(2) These unitary forms are thought, and are the objects of
intelligence, as is reiterated throughout the dialogues. They are
defined in Abyoc" a reasoned examination, argument, or account,
resulting from questioning and answering (Phaedo 78d). Logos,
intellectual argument and examination, defines the forms and is
necessary to knowledge of them. The dialectician is said to be one
who is able to seize upon a logos of the nature (OOo"LCXC,) of each
thing, or the form; and without that ability he cannot have
reason or wisdom (Rep. 53Ie, 534b). Commentators, though they
disagree about the meaning of forms, and whether logos consti
tutes knowledge or not, agree on its indispensability to knowledge,
even in the earlier Plato.2
(3) Since the forms are the objects of knowledge, defined by
logos, they are not sensed, as is reiterated throughout the dia
logues. For forms, being the objects of intelligence and knowledge,
are what is defined and comprehended, only. In the divided line
analogy (Rep. 5IIa) , they are the "realities which can be seen
only by the mind"; and are distinguished both from sensed
things and their sensory images. The Phaedo (65d-e) says that
the form of each thing, what each thing is, is not seen or otherwise
sensed; but is known most closely by one trained to understand
it most accurately, as it is in itself. Later (74d-e), in the doctrine
of recollection, it is emphasized that the form of equality, to
which apparently equal sticks are compared, is not itself given
in sensation. No sensory images of forms may be had. They are
what is defined and comprehended in reasoned argument, only.
(4) Since forms are not given in sensation, knowledge of them
does not arise from and cannot be abstracted from sensation.
Plato rejects a theory where knowledge is abstracted from the
sensations, as bound up with atomism (Phaedo g6b). The doctrine
of anamnesis of the Phaedo and Meno emphasizes negatively
that knowledge of the forms, rather than being derivable from
sensation, is a "recollection" of a previous non-sensible knowledge
of them, of which sensation of things is a "reminder." For,
1 The Relation of the Timaeus to Plato's Later Dialogues, pp. 259-260.
2 Cross, R. C., "Logos and Forms in Plato," Mind, I954, pp. 433-50; Bluck, R. S.,
"Logos and Forms in Plato," Mind, I956, pp. 522-9.
