PLATOS REPUBLIC THEORY OF FORMS ftchenmx nthu edu

PLATO’S REPUBLIC THEORY OF FORMS 陳斐婷 清華大學哲學研究所專任助理教授 ftchen@mx. nthu. edu. tw 1

The Argument from Opposites • The Book 5 argument is often called the “Argument from Opposites, ” for the reason that it concerns the application of terms that have opposites, and has no application to terms that don’t have opposites. The terms Plato picks out are just/unjust, pious/impious, beautiful/ugly, double/half, big/small, heavy/light, etc. What shows us that a particular thing or action is only qualified F is precisely the fact that it can also be said to be (from some point of view) not-F. • There is a contrast here with a term like “man, ” since nothing can be, even qualifiedly, both a man and a not-man. • The argument from opposites distinguishes Forms only for terms with opposites, because only they set up the needed contrast between qualifiedly and unqualifiedly being F. So the argument has shown that there are Forms for terms with opposites. 2

Plato’s Theory of Forms • The Republic is often treated as a major source for theory of Forms, but there are only three passages, in addition to the Sun, Line, and Cave, where we find it obviously have Forms in view. • Book 5, 476 d-480 a where Forms are introduced as suitable objects of knowledge because they are what is. Only a Form bears it predicate unqualifiedly, as opposed to particular instances which are not only F but also not-F. Also known as the Argument from Opposites. • Book 7, 521 -525 where Socrates mentions perception plays dirty tricks (523 b). Glaucon thinks that he is referring to perceptual illusions, but Socrates reaffirms that he is talking about standard cases. We get contradictions in perception. • Book 10, 596 a-597 e. Also known as the One over Many Argument. 3

Republic 502 d-524 d and 596 a-597 e 4

The Simile of the Sun • The most important thing (503 e) • “Is there anything even more important than justice and the other virtues we discussed? ” (504 d) • The form of the good (ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα, 505 a). • The offspring of the good. (507 a) • “We speak of beauty itself and good itself (καὶ αὐτὸ δὴ καλὸν καὶ αὐτὸ ἀγαθόν), and so in the case of all the things that we then set down as many, we turn about and set down in accord with a single form of each, believing that there is but one, and call it ‘the being’ (ὃ ἔστιν) of each. ” (507 b) • Sight, colors, light (507 d-e) • The sun (508 a) 5

The Simile of the Sun • “The sun is…the cause of sight. ” (508 b) • “When the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the sun is in the visible realm, in relation to sight and visible things. ” (508 b-c) • Day and night, knowledge and opinions. (508 c-d) • “What gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the good. And though it is the cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object of knowledge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they. In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that they are the sun, so here it is right to think of knowledge and truth as goodlike but wrong to think that either of them is the good. ” (508 e-509 a) 6

The Simile of the Sun • “The sun, I presume you will say, not only provides the visible things with the power to be seen but also with generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation. ” “Of course not. ” “In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power. ” (508 d-509 a) 7

The Simile of the Sun • Visible world • Intelligible world • The Sun • The Good • Source of growth and light • Source of reality and truth • Which gives the visibility to objects of sense perception and the power of seeing to the eye. • Which gives intelligibility to objects of thought and the power of knowing to the mind. • The faculty of knowledge • The faculty of sight 8

The Divided Line • The intelligible realm (τὸ νοητοῦ) The visible realm (τὸ ὁρατοῦ ) • Understanding (νόησις) Thought (διάνοια) Belief (πίστις) Imagination (εἰκασία) • “In one subsection, the soul, using as images the things that were imitated before, is forced to investigate from hypotheses, proceeding not to a first principle but to a conclusion. In the other subsection, however, it makes its way to a first principle that is not a hypothesis, proceeding from a hypothesis but without the images used in the previous subsection, using forms themselves and making its investigations through them. ” (510 b) 9

Thought (διάνοια) • “Students of geometry, calculation, and the like hypothesize the odd and the even, the various figure, the three kinds of angles…as if they knew them. They make these their hypotheses and don’t think it necessary to give any account of them…as if they were clear to everyone. And going from these first principles [sc. hypotheses in fact] through the remaining steps, they arrive in full agreement. ” (510 c) • Footnote by C. D. C Reeve: I. e. , either keeping the conclusion logically consistent with the hypothesis, or agreeing with one another about the validity of the argument and its conclusion. See 533. 10

Understanding (νόησις) • “…by the other subsection of the intelligible, I mean that which reason itself grasps by the power of dialectic. It does not consider these hypotheses as first principles but truly as hypotheses—stepping stones to take off from, enabling it to reach the unhypothetical first principle of everything. Having grasped this principle, it reverses itself and, keeping hold of what follows from it, comes down to a conclusion without making use of anything visible at all, but only of forms themselves, moving on from forms to forms, and ending in forms. ” (511 b) 11

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The Allegory of Cave • “Imagine (ἰδέ) human beings living in an underground…. They have been there since childhood, fixed in the same place (μένειν τε αὐτοὺς), with their necks and legs fettered (ἐν δεσμοῖς)…” (514 a) • “…carrying all artifacts (σκεύη) that project above it…” (514 c) • “…truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts (τὰς τῶν σκευαστῶν σκιάς). ” (515 c) • “When one of them was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up (ὁπότε τις λυθείη καὶ ἀναγκάζοιτο ἐξαίφνης ἀνίστασθαί)…” (515 c) • “Don’t you think he would be at a loss (οὐκ οἴει αὐτὸν ἀπορεῖν)…? ” (515 d) 13

The Allegory of Cave • “And if someone dragged him away from there by force (ἕλκοι τις αὐτὸν βίᾳ), up the rough, steep path, and didn’t let him go (ἀνείη) until he had dragged him into the sunlight (πρὶν ἐξελκύσειεν εἰς τὸτοῦ ἡλίου φῶς)…” (515 e) • “What about when he reminds himself of his first dwelling place, his fellow prisoners, and what passed for wisdom there? Don’t you think that he’d count himself happy for the change and pity the others? … Wouldn’t he feel that he’d much prefer to…go through any sufferings, rather than their opinions and live as they do? . . . And, as for anyone who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could somehow get their hands on him, would they not kill him (ἀποκτεινύναι ἄν)? ” (516 c-517 a) 14

Imitation • “Could you tell me what imitation in general is? ” (595 c) • “Do you want us to begin our examination, then, by adopting our usual procedure? As you know, we customarily hypothesize a single form (εἶδος…ἓν) in connection with each of the many things (ἕκαστα τὰ πολλά) to which we apply the same name. ” (596 a) • There are many beds and tables. But there are only two forms of such furniture. (596 a-b) • “We get three kinds of beds. The first is in nature a bed (μία μὲν ἡ ἐν τῇ φύσει οὖσα), and I suppose we’d say that a god makes it… The second is the work of a carpenter… And the third is the one the painter makes… The god…the real maker of the truly real bed (μίαν μόνον αὐτὴν ἐκείνην ὃ ἔστιν κλίνη) not just a maker of a bed, he made it to be one in nature. ” (597 b-c) • This will also be true of a tragedian if indeed he is an imitator. (597 e) 15

Plato’s Theory of Forms 16

One over many argument • Participation (μετέχω) / Mimesis (μίμησις) • God/maker/painter • The Form is what the craftsman looks towards and tries to embody in his work when he makes beds, whereas the painter, more superficial, copies only the way particular beds appear. • “Then we must have had knowledge of equality before the time when we first saw equal things and thought, ‘All these things are aiming to (ὀρέγεται: desires for) be like equality but fall short. ’” (74 e-75 a) • Is theory of Forms a theory of universals? The nominalist view vs. the realist view (Plato) 17

Problems • What is in contrast to the Forms? Particulars or types of particulars? • Particulars are named after Forms. (Phaedo 78 e, Timaeus 52 a, Parmenides 130 e, 133 d) • Plato showed himself aware of the issue that arises over calling very different kinds of thing by the same word. (Republic 435 b) • It is odd and unique in Plato for a Form to be made by God; Forms are eternal and uncreated. The language here comes from the nature of the example, which is artifact. The case of painting a cobbler (598 b-c) does not seem to fit. • How can anyone make a bed by looking towards a Form that is utterly distinct from the characteristics that are to be found in any actual beds? 18

Challenges to Plato’s Theory of Forms 19

1. The Compresence of Opposites • Argument from Opposites To prove that little b and big B are not identical: little b can share in opposite properties—both ugliness and beauty— whereas big B cannot. • Challenge to Plato The Form of the Different is the same as itself, and the Form of the Same is different from other Forms. (Plato’s Sophist)

2. Problem of Separation • Separation The Largeness itself (i. e. , the Form of Largeness) exists in the intelligible world. The largeness in us (i. e. , the property of largeness that we possess) exists in the visible world. • Challenge to Plato Is the Largeness itself the same as the largeness in us? Are Forms immanent characters in sensible particulars? “But Socrates did not make the universals or definitions separate; his successors (sc. for instance, Plato), however, did separate them, and beings of this sort they called ‘Forms. ’” (Aristotle’s Metaphysics M 4, 1078 b 30 -32)

3. The Third Man Argument 1. If a number of things, a, b, c, are all F, there must be a single Form F-ness, in virtue of which a, b, c are all F. 2. F-ness is not identical to any of a, b, c. 3. F-ness is F. 4. Therefore, a, b, c, and F-ness are all F. 5. If a, b, c, and F-ness are all F, there must be another Form, F 1 ness, in virtue of which a, b, c, and F-ness are all F. 6. And this goes on forever.