Classical Philosophy (A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps #1)

by Peter S. Adamson

describe two different ways of seeing one and the same reality. We can grasp that reality by means of transitory, ill-considered beliefs, or with solid, certified knowledge.

So the radical contrast or separation Plato is making is not so much between two realms—one heavenly and immaterial, one shadowy and physical—as between knowledge and mere belief.

A second misconception about the cave allegory is that Plato is endorsing some kind of mysticism. On this interpretation, the philosopher would grasp truth and reality in a kind of flash of insight upon leaving the cave.

But when Plato himself talks about turning away from the shadows, he describes an arduous process of education,

Seeing can be an active, analytical process—more like examining or looking than a flash of insight.

knowledge has a specific kind of structure, according to which first principles guarantee the truth of the rest of the things we know. This is what Plato calls “dialectic.” Dialectic means the process of making hypotheses and then discovering

the principles that would support those hypotheses, as they do in geometry. This doesn’t sound particularly mystical.

what Parmenides will call “the greatest difficulty” for the theory highlights the dangers of making the Forms radically separate from our world.

Plato did reconsider his ideas with a critical eye.

He posits Forms because they are immune from the compresence of opposites, like I just said, but also because the one Form can explain why many things share in some character.

If there are Forms, then how could we possibly determine the range of Forms?

Would each large thing have a piece of the Large itself, so that the Large itself is split up into many pieces

Socrates makes a nifty suggestion, which is that the Form could be present in its participants the way that the same day is present in many places at the same time

Parmenides next raises an objection which Aristotle refers to as the “third man”

argument.

Here’s how it goes. Socrates has said we should posit a Form every time we see many things which share the same character (132a). For instance, we

posit the Form of Largeness to explain the largeness of all the large things. But hang on a minute: isn’t the Form of Largeness itself large? If so, there’s another, slightly more extensive group of large things, namely the large things that partake of the Form plus the Form of Largeness itself. So we should posit another, second Form of Largeness, to explain the fact that all these things—the large items plus the first Form of Largeness—are large (132a–b). And we can keep going, because there’s yet another distinct set of large things, consisting of the large items, the first Form of Largeness, and the second Form of Largeness. This means we’ll need yet another Form of Largeness. And so on:

The problem, I think, is that Socrates has placed so much emphasis on the idea that each Form is one thing that explains many things. The whole point was to posit one thing which explains a shared, common character—

the damage is done because Socrates admits that the Form of Largeness is itself large. If he just denied this, then he’d be

fine. He doesn’t need a second Form of Largeness to explain why both the large things and the first Form are large, if the first Form of Largeness isn’t large after all.

Worse, he is inclined to think that the things that partake of a Form somehow resemble or imitate that Form. If the Form of Largeness isn’t large, then in what sense do other large things resemble it?

we might have good reasons for rejecting the idea that the Form of Largeness is large. If Forms are indeed immaterial, then how could a Form be large?

For instance, large things are like the Form of Largeness. Doesn’t this mean that we need to invoke a second Form—the Form of Similarity—to explain the fact that the large things are similar to the Form of Largeness (132e)? Well, that seems harmless enough. But now a new regress is looming: we’re admitting that each Form has its own character. For

instance, the Form of Largeness is large, and the Form of Similarity is similar. But if the large things and the Form of Largeness are all similar to one another, and if the Form of Similarity is also similar, then all these items—the large things, the Form of Largeness, and the Form of Similarity—share in being similar. Of course we will need a second Form of Similarity to explain this. And so on:

core difficulty of Socrates’ theory: he has failed to explain in any detail how the Form is related to the things that partake of it.

example is that a human master is the master of a human slave, not of the Form of Slavery (133e). Meanwhile the Form of Mastery itself is not master of some particular slave; if it has mastery over anything, it must be another Form, the Form of Slavery. So we have two completely disconnected realms: the Forms and the things that were supposed to participate in them.

if nothing in our world, including us, can relate to the world of the Forms, we can’t know the Forms

Notice also how the series of objections seems to be carefully structured: Parmenides starts by asking what sorts of Forms exist, and then moves on to progressively more crucial issues. The first and second objections focus on how a Form can be one, the third on its real, separate existence outside our minds, the fourth and fifth on the question of how the Forms relate to their participants. So the objections form an implicit road-map, laying out the requirements for a successful theory of Forms: each Form must be one and immaterial, it must be independent of our minds, it must be enough unlike its participants that it is separate, but not so unlike them that the Forms become another world unconnected to ours. All of this suggests that Plato is not rejecting the theory of Forms, but inviting the reader to consider how it might be refined.

threefold project envisioned at the start of the dialogue: to explain the sophist, the statesman, and the philosopher

Why is Socrates being ushered out of the limelight in this way?

I suspect it has more to do with philosophical method. The idea of inquiry through questioning and refutation is, after all, distinctively Socratic. And the Stranger is introduced here in a way that highlights his approach to the conversation. Not only is he called a “god of

refutation,” but Plato draws attention to his un-Socratic lack of a strong preference for discussion over speech-making, and his attitude that the ideal interlocutor is one who will not get in his way.

What, then, is this new method? It is mentioned more briefly in a dialogue which does feature Socrates as its main character, the Phaedrus (265d–266b; more on this dialogue later). There it is called the method of “collection and division.” It’s going to be used extensively here in the Sophist, and again in the Statesman. It works like this. First, you need to gather a lot of things together that share a single kind or character—that’s the “collection” part. Then you find distinctions that allow you to

“divide” this single class into sub-classes.

There could be other ways to divide up that sub-class.

Plato’s method, complains Aristotle, could never yield demonstration, because at each step we simply divide and choose the left- or right-hand path. We don’t give any explanation of why we have gone left or right

The accumulated characteristics at the end of the division—game, physically exerting, ball-involving, etc.—are each of them mere assumptions, and nothing is being proven or explained.