FORMS 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.