## 1. The Background to Plato's Metaphysics




Three predecessors heavily influenced Plato's thoughts on metaphysics
and epistemology, Heraclitus (c. 540 B.C.-480-70),
Parmenides (c.515 B.C.-449-40), and Socrates (470
B.C.-399). Only fragments remain of the writings of Parmenides
and Heraclitus, including some contained in the dialogues of
Plato. Socrates wrote nothing. Plato's depiction of his teacher is our
primary source of evidence for his philosophy. Parmenides argued that
there is and could be only one thing, *Being*. One could not
even think or say what is not. Moreover, since change implies that
something comes to be what it *was not*--I change
from *not being* tan to
*being* tan, nothing can change. Reality is static. The
appearance of change is just that, a deceptive appearance.
Unfortunately, what little we have left of Parmenides does not allow us
to decide whether he argued that there is just one item,
*Being*, in his universe--strict numerical monism--or
whether there is just *one kind* of thing, beings or things that
are. Parmenides' account of Being seems to have contributed to Plato's
doctrine of Forms.




Heraclitus is the apostle of change. For Heraclitus, the ordinary
objects of the physical world seem to be continually changing. The only
constant, the underlying commonality, is the pattern of change itself.
That there are entities that do not change is, for Heraclitus, an
illusion. Heraclitus' notion of 'flux' seems to have
influenced Plato's thinking about ordinary material objects.




In the opinion of most scholars, the seminal influence on all of
Plato's thinking was Socrates. However, it appears from the writings of
Plato, as well as those of the historian Xenophon and the comic poet
Aristophanes, that Socrates was almost exclusively interested in
ethics. This is not to say that metaphysical or epistemological issues
were of no concern to him. Rather, these sources convey the impression
that Socrates was not particularly interested in articulating a
metaphysical or epistemological
 theory (see Vlastos 1991a).
 Rather, concerned with
caring for the soul so that one might live happily (*Apology*
29d-30b), he uses both epistemological and metaphysical theses in
search of answers to his ethical questions. However, it is not easy to
distinguish when one is engaged in metaphysical theorizing from when is
merely using metaphysical notions. The claim that Socrates was not a
metaphysician or epistemologist is particularly hard to evaluate, for
we have basically only Plato's dialogues as evidence. Since Plato uses
Socrates as a mouthpiece in many of his writings, readers are forced to
ask when or whether one is reading the doctrines of Socrates, or Plato,
or neither. This 'Socratic question' is intimately involved
with the question of Plato's development and the chronology of his
dialogues.




In all likelihood, Plato wrote different dialogues at different
times. We typically divide his writings into three periods. In the
early 'Socratic' period, we find *Apology*,
*Crito*, *Euthyphro*, *Charmides*, *Ion*,
*Lysis*, *Laches*, *Hippias Minor*,
*Menexenus*, *Euthydemus* and the *Protagoras*.
The *Hippias Major*, *Gorgias* and perhaps the
*Meno* belong to the end of this period, maybe with the
*Gorgias* and more likely the *Meno* verging into the
middle period. The middle period works include the *Cratylus*,
*Symposium*, *Phaedo*, *Republic* and perhaps the
*Phaedrus*. In the post-*Republic* phase we then find the
*Parmenides*, *Theaetetus*, *Sophist*,
*Politicus*, *Timaeus*, *Philebus* and
*Laws*, along with the
 *Critias*.[1]
 The Socratic dialogues,
so-called because Socrates is always the chief interlocutor, are
thought to present doctrines of Socrates himself. These are dialogues
devoted to ethical inquiries into the virtues, e.g., what is courage,
or what is justice? In contrast, the middle period dialogues are
thought to present the views of Plato, though nonetheless Socrates
remains the speaker. Here for the first time we find remarks about the
immortality of the soul, about special entities called
'Forms' that exist outside of space and time and that are
both the objects of knowledge and somehow the cause of whatever
transpires in the physical world, and the doctrine of recollection, the
thesis that the immortal soul, in a disembodied state prior to its
incarceration in a body, viewed these Forms, knowledge of which is then
recalled by incarcerated souls through a laborious process. Socrates,
in the early *Apology*, is non-committal about the immortality
of the soul. Similarly, in the early dialogues we find that Socrates,
in keeping with the claim that he is neither a metaphysician nor
epistemologist, has nothing to say about recollection and never
explicitly appeals to Forms. It is thus in the middle period works that
one locates *Plato's* first thoughts about epistemological and
metaphysical issues. To those topics we shall turn shortly. But these
are, in the eyes of many, just first thoughts; for the dialogues in the
late period suggest changes to key ethical, epistemological and
metaphysical doctrines found in these middle period works. Over the
course of the last fifty years, scholars have debated whether and to
what extent Plato changed his views. The debate has grown so involved
that it is perhaps best not to worry whether anyone believes the
extreme positions that, on the one hand, Plato conceived of every one
of his major doctrines before he ever wrote, or, on the other hand,
that he changed his mind on central theses from one dialogue to the
next. Broadly speaking, those who maintain that Plato keeps to his
central theses from one period to the next are
 Unitarians (see, for instance, Shorey 1903).
 Those who
believe that he changes his views from one period to the next are
 Developmentalists (see, for instance, Owen 1986a).
 The most plausible position, and the perhaps
the dominant position in the contemporary scholarship, is somewhere in
the middle. About some theses, Plato, over the course of his writings,
expands his thoughts, recognizes difficulties, and even changes his
mind. About other theses he stands by his fundamental insights.




A prime example of the interpretative problems facing the student of
Plato is the development of his most distinctive doctrine, the theory
of Forms. Aristotle, in recounting Plato's intellectual development,
reports that "Socrates was the first to seek the universal in
ethical matters but that he did not separate it. Plato, marrying
Socrates' philosophy with that of Heraclitus, separated the universal,
on the grounds that the sensible order, where Socrates had focused, was
in flux." Plato, Aristotle tells us, called these separated
universals 'Forms' (*Metaphysics* 1078b12-34).
Universal is a technical notion in metaphysics: a universal is that
which is predicable of many. It is meant to capture the intuition that
a variety of things can all have the same feature or property. For
instance, a bowling ball, a basketball, and a figure drawn on a
blackboard can all be round. What many things have in common, or a
feature they share, is a universal or, in Plato's terms, a Form. Of
course there seems to be a huge number of properties. Many different
things are white. Many different things are animals. Each (shared)
property is a universal--a 'one over many instances,'
whiteness over the many white things, roundness over the many round
things, and so on. Thus, for Plato, Roundness and Whiteness are
Forms. Following the lead of Aristotle, scholars have focused on
what it means for Plato, in contrast to Socrates, to have separated his
universals, the Forms. The starting point, then, for the study of
Plato's metaphysics, is the Socratic dialogues and Socrates'
investigation into universals of the ethical variety, namely Justice,
Piety, Courage and others.




In the early dialogues, Socrates seeks these ethical universals
through a distinctive mode of inquiry, the
 'elenchus' (see Vlastos 1992; Kraut 1983).
 Elenctic inquiry is fundamentally a form of
cross-examination, where Socrates tries to elicit from others their
beliefs about matters of justice or piety, etc. Typically the result is
that his interlocutors turn out to have an inconsistent set of beliefs
about the virtues. At the heart of the Socratic elenchus is the
'What is *X*' question (where
'*X*' typically names an ethical property). The
answers offered to these questions fail usually because they are too
narrow or too wide. An answer is too narrow if it fails to include all
cases. An answer is too wide if, while it includes all cases of, for
instance, piety, it also includes other things, cases of justice or
impiety. We can infer from these failed definitions a set of conditions
Socrates places on an adequate answer to his 'What is
*X*' questions. He is seeking an answer which picks out a
Socratic Property, e.g., Piety, that is a universal such that: it is
found whenever and wherever there is an instance of Piety; and it
'causes' or 'makes' the instance to be such as
it is. Piety's power to make, e.g., Socrates, pious derives from
Piety's itself being pious. Piety self-predicates: Piety is pious.
Because it is pious, when Piety is present to/in Socrates, Piety causes
Socrates to be pious. In the Socratic dialogues Plato does not
distinguish the (metaphysical) way in which Socrates is pious from the
way in which Piety is pious--in these dialogues there appears to be
just one ontological predication relation. One has knowledge of a
Socratic Property when she can give an account (*logos*) that
says what *X* is, that is, when she can give the definition of
the property under investigation. Treating a definition as a linguistic
item, we can say that the definition specifies or picks out the
*essence* (*ousia*) of the property, and a definitional
statement predicates the essence of the property whose essence it is.
It is unclear from the Socratic dialogues whether any other property is
predicated of a Socratic Property: arguably Piety is pious and only
pious. In contrast, the things that are pious, e.g., Socrates or saying
a prayer, have many properties. From what we can infer from Plato's
remarks in these early dialogues, and from Aristotle's remarks, a
Socratic property is *in* the sensibles--It is an
*immanent* universal. In this respect, the essence of Piety is
also found in Socrates (and thus the linguistic definition of Piety is
also linguistically predicable of Socrates). Plato's distinctive
'separation of the universal' might then be viewed as his
rejection of Socrates' assumption that the universal (and/or its
essence) is in the sensibles, (and accordingly a rejection of Socrates'
assumption that the definition is predicable, or predicable in the same
way, of the sensible instances as well as the universal.) If Aristotle
is right, Plato's problem with sensibles is that they change.


## 2. The Metaphysics of the *Phaedo*




The *Phaedo* is Plato's eulogy to Socrates. It recounts the
last hours of Plato's teacher. Socrates/Plato wants to convince us that
we should care about our souls and that the best way to care for the
soul is to live philosophically. Towards that end we find a series of
arguments whose aim is to prove the immortality of the soul. At least
three of these arguments, the Argument from Recollection and its
prelude (65a-67a and 72e-78b), the Affinity Argument (78b-84b), and the
Final Argument (102a-107a) and its prelude (95a-102a), are crucial for
understanding Plato's initial thoughts on metaphysics and epistemology.
Here Plato draws a contrast between unchanging Forms and changing
material particulars. Unfortunately, neither in the *Phaedo* nor
in any other dialogue do we find Plato giving a detailed description of
the nature of Forms, or particulars, or their interaction. What is
referred to as Plato's theory of Forms is thus a rational
reconstruction of Plato's doctrine. In such a reconstruction scholars
try to determine a set of principles or theses which, taken together,
allow us to show why Plato says what he does about Forms, souls, and
other metaphysical items. In the attempt to make more precise what
Plato is after, one risks attributing to Plato notions that are either
not his or not as well developed in Plato as scholars would hope.
Perhaps the notion of a particular is such a case. Intuitively,
particulars are things like my dog Ajax, Venus, my computer, and so on,
the ordinary material things of the everyday spatio-temporal world.
(But we also speak of particular actions, particular events, particular
souls, and much else.) In a rational reconstruction, *we* can be
more precise by stipulating, for instance, that a particular is that of
which properties are predicated and which is never predicated of
anything (or anything other than itself). This 'stipulated
definition' is nowhere in Plato, though it may well capture his
thinking about ordinary particulars. For the sake of exposition, I will
assume that in the *Phaedo* Plato is appealing to our
naive, intuitive understanding of what it is for something to be a
material particular. In the author's opinion, the metaphysics of the
*Phaedo* and other middle period works is devoted to developing
the account of Forms; perhaps because while most of us think that
included in what there is are the various, e.g., dogs, people,
mountains and trees, few of us ever think about whether there is some
universal/Form, Justice Itself, The Large Itself, and so on, that
exists outside of space and time. (In the late dialogues, especially
the *Timaeus* and *Philebus*, Plato attempts to give a
systematic account of material particulars.)




The argument of the *Phaedo* begins from Plato's assertion
that the soul seeks freedom from the body so that it may best grasp
truth, because the body hinders and distracts it: the soul comes to be
separate (*choris*) from the body, itself by itself ((*aute
kath auten*) (64c5-8)). The senses furnish no truth; those senses
about the body are neither accurate nor clear. The soul reckons best
when it is itself by itself, i.e., not in contact with body (65a-65d3).
At this juncture, Socrates changes course:



> What about these things? Do we say that justice itself is
> something? Of course. And the fair and the good? Surely. Then have you
> ever seen any of these sorts of things with your eyes? In no way. But
> then have you grasped them with any other sense through the body. I am
> talking about all (of them), for instance about size, health, strength,
> in a word about the essence (*ousia*) of all of them, what each
> happens to be. Is it through the body then that what is most true of
> these things is contemplated? Or does it hold thus? Whoever of us
> should prepare himself to consider most accurately each thing itself
> about which he inquires, that one would come closest to knowing each
> thing. ... he would do this most cleanly ...who using his
> intellect itself by itself, unmixed would undertake to hunt down each
> of the beings, itself by itself unmixed (65d4-66a3).




This is the first passage in the dialogues widely agreed to
introduce Forms. First, Forms are marked as *auto kath auto*
beings, beings that are what they are *in virtue of themselves*.
In subsequent arguments we learn other features of these Forms. From
the next argument concerning Recollection (see SS11), Forms are said to
be perfect and what particulars strive to be like but fall short of.
Then in the Affinity Argument we discover that Forms are simple or
incomposite, of one form (monoeidetic), whereas particulars are
complex, divisible and of many forms. In the crucial Final Argument,
Plato finally presents the hypothesis of Forms to explain coming into
being and destruction, in general, i.e., change. Once Cebes accepts the
hypothesis, a novel implication is announced (100c3-7):



> Well then, consider what then follows if you also accept my
> hypothesis. For it seems to me that if anything else is beautiful
> besides Beauty Itself, it is beautiful on account of nothing else than
> because it partakes of Beauty Itself. And I speak in the same way about
> everything else. Do you accept this sort of cause or
>  explanation?[2]




In this passage, Plato introduces two predication relations, Being
and Partaking. Understanding how Being and Partaking function to
'tie' together the various subjects and properties
mentioned in his metaphysical discussions is crucial to reconstructing
his metaphysics and epistemology. At first blush, it seems that there
are two *kinds* of subjects of which properties are predicated,
namely Forms and material particulars. (I exempt souls from this list).
Similarly, at first blush it seems that there are Forms for every
property involved in the changes afflicting material
 particulars.[3]
 For instance, since particulars, e.g. Helen
of Troy, change from being not-beautiful to being beautiful, there is
the Form Beauty Itself. In this passage, Plato asserts that particulars
like Helen, because she is not the Form but rather is a material
particular, is related to, or 'tied to' Beauty in virtue of
what he calls 'partaking.' Beauty Itself, on the other
hand, not being something 'other than Beauty', does not
partake of Beauty--it simply is beautiful. Generalizing from what is
said here about Beauty Itself, it seems that Forms inherit from the
Socratic Properties their self-predicational status: Beauty is
beautiful; Justice is just; Equality is equal. Partaking in Beauty
makes Helen beautiful because Beauty Itself is beautiful. Call this way
in which a Form is related to the property it is 'Being'.
Understanding Being, the way in which Beauty is beautiful, that is,
determining what it is for a Form to self-predicate, is central to
understanding Plato's Theory of Forms and his middle period
metaphysics.


## 3. The Nature of Forms: Self-Predication




The debate over self-predication involves both statements and what the
statements are about, i.e., the ontological correlates of those
statements. (Thus at times it may be important to distinguish
linguistic predication from ontological predication.) In investigating
self-predication statements, perhaps it is again easiest to
distinguish three factors, the subject or subject term, 'The
Just', the linking verb, 'is', and the predicate
adjective 'just'. Apparently both the subject and the
predicate adjective, 'The Just' and 'just',
refer to the same thing, namely the Form of Justice. One question then
concerns the copula, or linking verb: in what manner is the predicate
related to the subject, or how is the Form related to itself? There
are three basic approaches to consider. In his seminal discussion of
self-predication, Vlastos maintained that we should understand the
relation between the Form and itself to be the same as that between a
particular and the Form (Vlastos 1981d). This is to say that Justice
is just in the same way as Socrates is just, or that Beauty is
beautiful in the same way as Helen is beautiful, or that the Circle
Itself is circular in the same way as my basketball: both are
round. Let us label this way of understanding the copula in
self-predication statements 'characterization'. Then
Beauty is a beautiful thing, an item to be included in an inventory of
beautiful things right along with Helen.




Some scholars, e.g., John Malcolm (1981), while accepting this
characterizing reading of the 'is', deny that the property
predicated of the Form and the particular are exactly the same.
According to the Approximationist, the Form is the *perfect*
instance of the property it stands for. A particular that participates
in the Form is an imperfect or deficient instance in that it has a
property that *approximates* the perfect nature of the
Form. For instance, the Circle Itself is perfectly circular. A drawn
circle, or a round ball, is deficient in that it is not perfectly
circular, not exactly 360 degrees in circumference. It follows that
the very properties particulars possess will *differ* from the
property 'of the same name' possessed by the Form. If
Beauty Itself is characterized by perfect beauty, then Helen has
imperfect beauty and she does not have perfect beauty. Since nothing
rules out that there are numerous kinds of imperfect beauty, perhaps
as many as there are beautiful participants, it seems either that
there is no one kind of beauty that particulars have in common, or
that there are one or more (commonly shared) imperfect kinds of
beauty. In the former case, there will be no need to posit a
'one' over the many beauties. In the latter case, there is
every reason to posit a Form(s) of Imperfect Beauty in which the
commonly qualified imperfect particulars participate. Neither
alternative is a happy one. While the appeal to the perfection of the
mathematical properties is great, even in these cases it is doubtful
that Plato adopts an approximationist strategy (see Nehamas 1999b;
1999c).




An alternative is to allow that while both Beauty Itself and other
items are characterized by beauty, Beauty Itself is simply and solely
beautiful. This characterizing variant emphasizes the *Phaedo*'s
claims that a Form is *monoeides* and one (*Phaedo*
78b4ff). Beauty is nothing but beautiful and thus is completely
beautiful, differing from other beautiful things in that they are much
else besides beautiful. Helen is a woman and unfaithful and
 beautiful.[4]




According to the second
 approach (see Cherniss 1977a; Allen 1965),
 self-predication
statements assert identity between the Form and its essence. The
'is' is an 'is' of identity. We should not then
understand 'Beauty Itself is beautiful' to assert that (the
Form) Beauty is characterized by beauty. (Indeed, typically backers of
this approach exclude the possibility that a Form is characterized by
the property it is, thus, e.g., eliminating Beauty from a list of
beautiful objects.[5])
 Since Identity accounts treat
self-predications as asserting that a Form and its essence are
identical, with respect to Forms, Being and Identity can be viewed as
the same relation in the middle period
 dialogues.[6]




The third approach, the Predicationalist (see Nehamas 1999c; Code
1986; Silverman 2002), joins with the Identity approach in denying
that self-predication statements signal that the Form is characterized
by the property it constitutes. And while ultimately it allows that a
Form and its essence are identical, it does not regard the
self-predication statement itself as an identity claim (see Code 1986;
Silverman 2002 Ch. 3). Rather, a self-predication claim asserts that
there is a special primitive kind of ontological relation between a
Form (subject) and its essence (predicate). This approach begins from
the two relations of Partaking and Being introduced in the last
argument of the *Phaedo*. An intuitive first approximation of
their respective functions is to treat Partaking as a relation between
material particulars and Forms, the result of which is that the
particular is characterized by the Form of which it partakes. So,
Helen, by partaking of Beauty, is characterized by beauty; Helen, in
virtue of partaking, is (or, as we might say, becomes) beautiful. All
particulars are characterized by the Forms in which each participates,
and *whatever* each is, it is by partaking in the appropriate
Form. On this account, then, there can be Forms for each and every
property had by particulars (*Phaedo* 100-101, esp. 100c6). In
contrast to the characterizing relation of Partaking, the relation of
Being is always non-characterizing. Each Form, *F*, is its
essence (*ousia*), which is to say that the relation of Being
links the essence of beauty to the subject, Beauty
 Itself.[7]
 Being,
then, is a primitive ontological relation designed exclusively to
capture the special tie between that which possesses an essence and the
essence possessed. Put differently, whenever essence is predicated of
something, the relation of Being is at work. (By
'primitive' I do not mean to suggest that Plato does not
study (what) Being (is). Nor do I mean to suggest that everything else
in the metaphysics can somehow be deduced from it. Rather, I mean to
indicate that the relation of Being is not explained by appeal to
another more basic relation or principle. Its nature, and the nature of
other primitives in the theory, such as Participating, is displayed in
the ways in which the theory attempts to save various phenomena.)


## 4. The Simplicity of Forms




Throughout the dialogues, Forms are said to be one, *hen*, or
*monoeides*. (See especially the Affinity Argument in the
*Phaedo*, 78b-84b.) These passages suggest that the
self-predicational nature of Forms implies that the only property
predicable of a Form is itself: i.e., Justice is just and the only
thing Justice is is just. (There are epistemological reasons that
support this reading: See SS11 *infra*.) But other passages
suggest that Forms cannot be simple in this strict sense. From the
*Republic* we know that all Forms are related to the Good. While
it is difficult to be certain, Plato seems committed to the claim that
each Form is good, that is, that each Form is a good thing or is
characterized by
 goodness.[8]




More doubts about the strict simplicity of Forms emerge from
reflection on the nature of definition in Plato's middle period.
Ontologically, all definitions predicate the essence of the Form whose
essence it is. Plato is attempting to discover through scientific
investigation, or (inclusive or) through an analysis of what words
mean, or through any other method, what the nature of, say, Justice 
is--compare the ways in which philosophers and scientists work to
discover what, e.g., gold, or red, or justice, is. Ultimately, then,
the answer to any 'what is *X*?' question will be
some specific formula unearthed at the end of much study. According to
this line of reasoning, the self-predication statements in the texts
are promissory notes, shorthand for what will turn out to be the fully
articulated definition. Plato is thus committed to there being Forms
whose nature or essence will ultimately be discovered. To say that
'Justice is just' is then to stake a claim to the ultimate
discovery of the nature of Justice. The problem is that the fully
articulated linguistic definition, when it is ultimately discovered,
will turn out to be complex. For instance, Heat, one thing, is mean
molecular kinetic energy, a seemingly complex notion. So in Plato we
find (*Republic,* 441d) that Justice is *Doing One's
Own,* that a Name is (*Cratylus,* 388b) *a tool that is
informative and separates nature,* or, though Plato never says it,
that Human is *rational bipedal animal*. Since philosophical and
(scientific progress) is supposed to teach not that Justice is just but
what Justice is, at some level at least Forms cannot be considered to
be utterly and strictly simple. The problem is that given just two
predication relations, it is unclear whether Plato thinks that Forms
partake of the properties to which they are related or whether they are
those properties.


## 5. The Separation of Forms




The best guide to the separation of Forms is the claim that each
Form is what it is in its own right, each is an *auto kath auto*
being. In asking 'What is (the Form) *F*?', Plato
seeks what *F* *is* in a particular and special way: He
seeks what *F* is independent from any of its material
instances, and in some sense independent of anything else, whether
another Form or the soul. What each Form is, what each Form is in its
own right, it is in virtue of its essence, *ousia*. The
connection between the Form and the essence being predicated of it is
exhibited in the *Republic*'s formula that a given *on*
(being) is completely or perfectly (477ff), as well as the so-called
self-predication statements. According to the predicationalist reading,
the relation connecting an essence with that Form of which it is the
essence is
 Being (see Code 1986, esp. 425-9).
 (I capitalize the 'is' used to
represent the predication relation of Being, e.g., Justice Is just.)
The predicate in such self-predication statements stands for the (real)
definition of the Form, conveniently captured by Nehamas' 'what
it is to be
 *F*'.[9]
 Each Form, then Is
its essence.




The special relationship between a Form and its essence is captured
in two principles


1. Each essence is the essence of exactly one
Form.
2. Each Form has (or is) exactly one
 essence;[10]




II captures the ontological force of the expression that each Form
is *monoeides*: *of one essence*. In light of these
principles, and in keeping with the account of the ontological relation
of Being, it follows that each Form *self-predicates,* in so far
as each Form Is its essence. Self-predication statements are thus
required of Forms, since every Form must Be its respective essence.
*Self-predication, then, is a constitutional principle of the very
theory of Forms*. A Form, then, is what it is in its own right in
that it Is its essence, and since the only thing it Is is its essence,
each Form is *monoeides*, 'of one essence'. In
virtue of Being its essence, each Form Is something regardless of
whether any particular does or even may participate in it. Thus each
Form is *separate* from every particular instance of it.
Moreover, since its essence is predicated of the Form independently
from our knowledge of the Form or from its relation to another Form, a
Form is not dependent on anything else. On this *definitional*
interpretation of separation, an item is separate just in case the
definition (essence) is predicable of it and not of what it is alleged
to be separate from. So, a Form is separate from particulars that
partake of it, or any particular, if the essence is predicable of the
Form and not predicable of the particular/s. Whether or not a Form is
*existentially* separate, i.e., whether it *exists*
separate from everything else, turns on whether one thinks that being
an essence qualifies the Form as existing. To the extent that Plato
recognizes the notion of existence, since being an essence seems, by
Plato's lights, to be the superlative way to be, it is likely that
Forms are both definitionally and existentially separate.


## 6. The Range of Forms




The middle period dialogues contain few arguments whose conclusion
is that such and such a Form therefore exists. Even when
'argument' is given a very broad reading, the dialogues
tend to address themselves to a limited number of Forms. These include
the moral properties familiar from Socrates' ethical inquiries and
properties such as Beauty, Equality, Hot and Cold, or Largeness. While
these are not the only properties mentioned in the course of
discussion, the Argument from Recollection, the arguments about the
objects of knowledge and the 'summoners' from Books V
(477ff) and VII (523ff), respectively, of the *Republic*, as
well as the final ascent to Beauty in the *Symposium* and the
Final Argument of the *Phaedo* all point to a particular kind of
property, what scholars have labeled 'incomplete
 properties' (see Fine 1993; Irwin 1977).
 There is no precise way to specify what
counts as an incomplete property. Roughly, the idea is that an
incomplete property is one which, when serving as a predicate, yields a
statement that cannot be understood on its own, because they must be
added on to, or completed in some sense, typically with a prepositional
phrase. For instance, the predicate 'large', functioning in
a statement such as 'Shaquille O'Neal is large' must be
completed with 'for a human'; for while Shaq is large for a
human he is not large compared with a tree. For some readers, then,
while the Plato of the middle period may believe in a wide range of
properties, he is theoretically committed only to a limited number or
range of Forms, namely Forms of incomplete properties.




Forms are limited to these incomplete properties because, on this
line of reasoning, these properties present special problems when they
are instantiated in particulars. Chief among these problems is
'the compresence of opposites'. This is the phenomenon
where, with respect to any incomplete property, *F*, every
sensible particular that is *F* is, in some sense, also
not-*F*. So, if Elsie the cow is large, she is also not-large;
for Elsie is large in comparison to her calf but not-large in
comparison to Elmer the bull. Thus Elsie is large and not-large. Since,
according to this approach, Plato is seeking a large that is the
unqualified bearer of largeness, and since every particular is
disqualified in light of compresence, Plato postulates a Form,
Largeness Itself, to be the unqualified bearer. By way of contrast,
properties such as being brown or being a cow do not suffer compresence
when instantiated by particulars. That is, Elsie is a cow and is not
not-a-cow; she is brown (imagine she is brown all over) and is not
not-brown. (In the modern parlance, being a cow is classified as an
essential property of Elsie whereas being brown is an accidental
property. Thus the proponent of Forms only for incomplete properties
looks to a special subset of the accidental properties, namely those
where there is no unqualified possessor.)




In order to appreciate fully the rationale for this account, one
needs to consider Plato's account of particulars, for the compresence
of opposites is meant to capture in what sense particulars are
deficient with respect to Forms. Before turning to particulars, note
that it is left open by proponents of this position how we are to think
of the nature of Forms and the self-predication statements involving
Forms, whether, for instance, 'Largeness is Largeness' signals that
Largeness is what it is to be largeness, identical with largeness, or a
large item, maybe the largest thing there is. Rather, we are told that
the key notion is being completely. So, just as Elsie is completely a
cow, so Largeness is completely large: Largeness is a complete bearer
of an incomplete property.


## 7. The Deficiency of Particulars




Metaphors dominate Plato's remarks about the relation of particulars
to Forms. Of special importance are the metaphors of image and
original, copy and model, example and paradigm. The physical world and
all of its constituents are, according to Plato, a copy or image of the
Forms, and since all copies are dependent on the original, the physical
world is dependent on Forms. In so far as Platonic Forms are not
dependent on particulars, i.e., they are not immanent universals, the
dependence is only 'one way'. A second important metaphor
from the *Phaedo* also suggests that particulars are dependent
on Forms whereas Forms are not dependent on them. Particulars
*strive to be such* as the Forms are and thus in comparison to
Forms are imperfect or deficient. Forms, then, are independent, whereas
particulars are dependent on Forms and thus deficient with respect to
them.




The *Phaedo* (especially the Affinity Argument, 78b-84b) also
points up a host of features, usually found in pairs, which
differentiate particulars from Forms. Forms are immaterial, non-spatial
and atemporal. Particulars are material and extended in space and in
time. Forms do not change and may not even be subject to
Cambridge-change, i.e. relational changes involving, for instance, a
soul cognizing them at various moments. Particulars change, may even be
subject to change in *any* respect, and may even be subject to
change in *every respect at any given moment*, i.e., total
Heraclitean flux. Particulars are complex or multi-form
(*polyeidetic*) composites (*suntheton*), whereas Forms
are pure, simple or uniform (*monoeidetic, hen*). Particulars
are the objects of the senses and of belief. Forms are the objects of
knowledge, grasped by the intellect through definitions, dialectic, or
otherwise. Particulars appear, and perhaps are, both *F* and
not-*F* for some property *F*: particulars suffer from
the compresence of opposites. The Form of *F* cannot be
conceived to be not-*F* (and perhaps is never not-*F*).
Hence the Form, The *F* Itself, does not suffer compresence (at
least with respect to being *F*).




Aristotle's account of Plato's reasons for introducing Forms
indicates that change and essence are critical to Plato's thinking
about the deficiency of material particulars. "...Socrates
sought the universal in them and turned to definitions. Plato,
accepting this, thought that this (defining) comes to be about
different things, and not about sensibles. For it is impossible that
the common definition be about any of the sensibles, for these are
always changing." (*Metaphysics* 987b1-7) At the very
beginning, then, the search for knowledge leads to definitions. The
question is where one can find definitions or definables. Aristotle
asserts that Plato thought that definitions could not be found in the
sensibles because they were always changing.




Following Aristotle's lead, a most economical way to account for the
cognitive superiority of Forms and the inferiority of sensibles would
be to allot essences only to the Forms. Since we know from the early
and the middle dialogues that knowledge is of essence, it is tempting
to think that the absence of essence is responsible for the deficiency
of the particulars. Particulars are deficient because they can or do
change. They change because their properties are contingent. Their
properties are contingent because they lack any essences (or any
essential properties). But this is too quick. First, Plato's
particulars may not change with respect to all of their properties.
Perhaps some have essential properties along with a host of contingent
properties. Then Aristotle might be taken to imply that only with
respect to a certain number of contingent properties did Plato posit
definable Forms. Moreover, Aristotle seems to allude only to an
epistemological difficulty arising from changing particulars. It is
possible that this difficulty arises independently of whether some
particulars have essential properties. For instance, particulars might
be epistemologically problematic because they have many properties,
only some of which are changing.




Certain passages (e.g., *Phaedo* 74ff., 78ff.,
*Republic* 476e-479, 523aff) suggest that particulars are
cognitively deficient because they are complex. Suppose that a
particular is *F*. Complexity entails that a particular has at
least two properties, *F* and *G*. Since the *G*
is not-*F*, every complex particular can be said to be
*F* and not-*F*. Our inability to grasp the property
(*F*) in the particular is then grounded not in the compresence
of an *opposite* property, but in the compresence of *another
property*. The inquiring mind is unable to isolate the desired
property from any other. This suggests that a fundamental contrast
between the particulars and the Form *F* is that the latter is
simple, or monoeidetic, in that it possesses just itself--It is just
 *F*.[11]




At other times, the cognitive reliability of the Forms seems grounded
in the analyticity, or logical certainty, or necessity, that holds
between the essence of a Form and various properties
'discernible in its nature.' Looked at in this light, the
factor responsible for the deficiency of sensibles is that their
properties are contingently related to them, in contrast to the Forms
whose properties are necessarily stuck to them with 'logical
glue' (see Vlastos 1969; Code 1993).




If we emphasize the contingency of *all* of its properties, a
particular cannot have any essential properties. On the other hand, if
we emphasize the complexity of the particular, then we are free to
ascribe essences to (some) particulars. Hence, there could be knowledge
of these particulars, i.e., knowledge that Socrates is a man.
Conversely, if complexity is the cause of cognitive deficiency, then
with respect to Forms, the fact that all their properties are necessary
properties would not suffice to render Forms knowable. For *if*
a Form has many properties, then in the broad sense the Form *F*
Itself, since it is *F* and *G*, will be *F* and
not-*F*. Thus Forms, too, might not be knowable.




There is reason to doubt that the compresence of opposites or the mere
complexity of particulars is responsible for their deficiency (but see
Fine 1993, esp. Ch. 4). According to Aristotle, change is critical,
especially in so far as it precludes definability and thus
knowledge. Given that knowledge requires essence, and essence excludes
change (in the case of the essential properties), Aristotle would have
us deny that essence is predicable of particulars for the Plato of the
middle period. Particulars will be epistemologically deficient in that
there can be no knowledge of them, unless we abandon the thesis that
knowledge is of essence. And particulars will be metaphysically
deficient, at least to the extent that possessing an essence is a
better state than lacking one. But more can be said about the peculiar
contingent manner in which particulars have their properties and why
it is that one cannot look to the particular beauties to obtain
knowledge of, e.g., Beauty.




From the outset of the *Phaedo,* particulars are branded as
material and, as a result, spoken of in the pejorative. Indeed, matter
seems to be at the root of the other features that characterize
particulars. What is extended in space (and through, or in, time) is
body. The composite is also linked with the material. Because a
material particular is composite, it is also multi-form or complex
(*Phaedo* 80b4). Complex material particulars are subject to
change in so far as their composite nature invites dissolution or
construction, or more generally coming-to-be or
 perishing.[12]
 When
taken broadly, as it is at *Phaedo* 100ff (or in the analogies
of the middle books of the *Republic*), generation and
destruction includes the exchange of properties. And since compresence
requires complexity, the material nature of particulars is one of the
roots of each material, sensible particular being both *F* and
not-*F*.




The spatio-temporal, material character of particulars also
contributes directly to the explanation of their suffering, and seeming
to suffer, the compresence of opposites. In the middle period, Plato
seems to accept an account of perception that has as a necessary
component the interaction of material elements. There *may* be
subsequent or simultaneous psychic
 activity,[13]
 the judgment part of
'perceptual judgment', but there is at least some material
intercourse between the body of the perceived object and the sense
faculty whose sensory object it is. The qualifications needed to
account for a particular's being *F* and not-*F* are
temporal, or a function of being comparable to other extended material
objects, or standing in different relations to
 perceivers.[14]
 Since
material extension is a necessary condition for their perceptibility,
no particular could *appear* to have compresent properties
unless it were material.




In virtue of their material nature, particulars are extended,
mutable, and subject to generation and destruction. How then is the
materiality of the particular related to the characterization for which
participation is responsible? What materiality induces is that a
property be manifested in a *specific* way. So, when we consider
a particular stick to ask what is its length, we expect to be told a
specific quantity: the stick is five inches long. The same is true of
its weight: it is six ounces. If we are concerned to explain why the
stick is that long, one answer is that the matter of the particular
compels it to have determinate
 length.[15]
 Only when we shift to
the question 'What is length?', do we begin to reflect upon
the relations between length and the fact that each of these material
particulars has a specific length. In the *Meno* (74ff), Plato
develops the notion of determinable and determinate. There the
properties themselves are determinates falling under a determinable,
e.g., crimson and scarlet under red, red under color. Now, the
properties under consideration are all *generic or
determinable*, but when present in the particular they take on a
specific, determinate character. Consider, for instance, mathematical
figures. The Triangle itself will be a three-sided figure whose lines
lack breadth and whose angles have no determinate degree. But all
particular triangles will have lines with some breadth and angles with
certain
 degrees.[16]
 There is, then, a gap between the
non-specific and non-determinate property and the way it is manifested
in the particular. The immaterial Form of Triangle is abstract and can
have no particular dimension. *The property in the particular*,
on the other hand, must be specific and determinate--the property in
the particular is always a specific, determinate length, or color
(hue), or size, or so on--because the particular is concrete, and
because the property in the particular is itself a particular instance
of the non-determinate property.




The determinacy of the material particular is set against the
non-determinacy of the Form. This determinacy of property is only one
aspect of the difference. A second is the contingent way in which the
particular has this determinate property. The material aspect is, in
the case of particulars, partly responsible for the contingency of its
property possession. Matter is a sufficient condition for contingency
but not necessary, since souls are in many respects contingently what
they are, e.g., desirous of money. (Matter is also a sufficient
condition for complexity, though again not necessary, if souls, or
Forms, can be complex.)


## 8. Being and Partaking




The rigid separation of Forms from sensible particulars, Plato's
idea that there are 'Two Worlds', is embodied in Plato's
isolation of the two ways of being, Being and Partaking. The criteria
and the properties which differentiate Forms and particulars are
related to their respective ways of being, but mutability,
extendedness, etc., are not equivalent to Partaking and they do not
explain it nor are they explained by it. Still, the deficiency of the
sensible is aptly viewed in terms of its way of being, i.e., in virtue
of the fact that every sensible acquires all of its properties through
participation. *The deficiency of the sensible is its deficient way
of being*. Lacking any essence, it can only fail to Be.




This notion of deficiency has a long pedigree. In one sense it is a
new way of cashing out the idea that Forms and particulars are
different kinds or types of
 entities.[17]
 It clearly is not an
Approximation view or a view according to which Forms are treated as
paradigmatic particulars. The very same property, Beauty, is related,
via Being, to the Form Beauty Itself that is related to the sensible
particular via Partaking. The beauty of Helen is not itself deficient,
her way of having it is. And since beauty does not characterize Beauty,
there is no case to be made that Beauty Itself could be a
paradigmatically beautiful object. It would appear, then, that only
Forms are definable, since essence is not predicated of particulars.
But it is not so simple. Based on the *Phaedo's* account of
Being and Participating (cf. Principles I and II, *supra*), we
can conclude that:


1. Each Form, *F*, Is its essence,
*Y*.



and that


2. For all particulars, *P*, and for all properties
*Y*, if *Y* is predicated (able) of *P*, then
*P* Has *Y*.




Furthermore, since the *Phaedo* asserts that particulars are
what they are in virtue of the Form's being what it Is, it follows
that


3. If *P* has *Y*, then *P* has something
which Is *Y*.




The motivation for this claim is our understanding of the thesis at
100c that Beauty Itself alone Is beautiful and that other things
acquire their beauty in virtue of partaking in what Is beautiful. The
traditional and obvious way to parse this claim is to allow that it is
the Form Itself which the particular has, for it seems that only the
Form whose essence is *Y*, Is *Y*. But if this is true,
then if, as the Identity view maintains, the Form and its essence are
identical, *it follows that the essence must also be predicable of
the particular*. In which case it seems that the particulars do
have essences, albeit via Partaking, for they have something which is
identical with an essence.




Form-copies, the-large-in-Socrates, the hot-in-fire, and such,
provide a way out of this predicament. There is no consensus as to
whether they are *bona fide* members of the ontology of the
*Phaedo* (102bff). Many have argued that the so-called
form-copies are nothing more than the Forms conceived of as inherent
in, or immanent in, particulars, the particularization of the Form, or
Forms as they function in the participation
 relation.[18]
 But if Plato wishes to avoid the consequence of predicating Forms and,
thus, essences directly of particulars, then there is a compelling
reason for him to admit form-copies into his ontology. They differ
from their parent Form in that they are singular or unit-properties,
whereas the Form is general and abstract.




The relation of the form-copy to the particular is a real problem.
The crucial issue is whether form-copies are dependent on particulars,
especially whether their claim to be individual or unit-properties is
only as good as the company they keep. Part of the difficulty results
from the metaphor Plato's uses throughout the last stage of the Final
Argument in the *Phaedo*. In anticipation of what will be his
ultimate 'proof' of the immortality of the soul, Plato
contends that when something possessed of an essential property, as for
instance snow possesses cold, is confronted by the
'opposite', heat, then the-cold-in-the snow must withdraw
or perish. (The soul, because it cannot perish, must therefore
withdraw.) Which of the two possibilities developed in the military
metaphor does Plato envisage for form-copies: do they 'withdraw
or perish'? It is a struggle to understand just what the military
metaphors amount to, but if the form-copies perish at the approach of
their opposite, this suggests that form-copies are dependent on the
particulars to which they
 belong.[19]
 Those who deny that form-copies are *bona fide* beings cite
their perishing as a principal reason to take them as nothing more
than a metaphor for the particular's (temporary) participation in the
Form. Conversely, if they are able to withdraw, they are in some sense
independent from the particulars. In this fashion they are akin to
individual souls, since neither souls nor form-copies will be
dependent for their existence on the particular to which they
temporarily belong.




But even if they withdraw and thus exist apart from the particulars,
their individuality seems to be determined by the company they keep,
e.g., Socrates, or this bit of snow.
'Belonging-to-Socrates' is a relational property and seems
to require that there be something, namely Socrates, to which the
form-copy can belong. However, if form-copies are thus dependent on
particulars, there is a problem with respect to the nature of
particulars lurking in the *Phaedo*. For it seems that
particulars have all of their properties in virtue of participating in
the relevant Forms. Particulars, then, are ultimately to be identified
in terms of the properties they have, namely their form-copies. But if
these form-copies, in turn, are themselves individuated by the
particulars whose form-copies they are, we are confronted with a
circle.




Plato may be able to avoid this circle of individuation by not
making form-copies depend on particulars for either their being or
their individuation. If their status as individuals is primitive,
form-copies will not be individuated by the particulars to which they
belong. In this respect they are like the individual souls, which,
since they pre-exist and postdate the particulars they inhabit, are not
and cannot be individuated by them. A form-copy is, in the strict
sense, a simple individual, incapable of possessing anything besides
(the essence of) the Form of which it is a copy. Finally, they are not
dependent on particulars, even for their individuation, because they
can withdraw when necessary and thus continue to be what they are when
the particular has perished. They *can be said* to perish, but
only in the sense that the particular to which they temporarily attach
can itself perish or change. (Were they dependent on the particular,
form-copies would in fact perish.) The reason they survive is that a
form-copy Is what it is. In so far as anything Is what it is, it cannot
cease to be, i.e., cease to be what it Is. In this respect, too, they
are like souls. Both souls and form-copies are then individuals in
their own rights, apart from any particulars in which they inhere.




Form-copies belong to particulars and derive or emanate, to borrow a
neo-Platonic term, from Forms. Form-copies allow Plato to respond to a
threat posed by the metaphysics of Forms: to wit, that particulars
might be indiscernible. If particulars are nothing in their own right,
and in the absence of both matter and form-copies, then particulars are
merely bundles of
 Forms;[20]
 but if they are bundles, then two particulars composed of the same
Forms would be indiscernible and identical. If we admit form-copies,
particulars are not bundles of Forms. Particulars will be bundles of
form-copies. And unlike a Form, which would seem to have to be
numerically the same in each particular, the form-copies will differ
from one another since they are distinct individual
property-instances, not universals. However, while the particulars are
no longer identical, this still allows that two bundles of
form-copies *could* be indiscernible, since the form-copies of
any one Form differ, it seems, *solo numero*. Helen's form-copy
of Beauty cannot differ in quality from Andromache's, but their
form-copies are distinct. If we allow that Helen and Andromache are
presumed to be distinct particulars in virtue of their matter, we can
further distinguish the particulars and the form-copies, i.e.
the-beautiful-in-Helen versus the beautiful-in-Andromache. Here again,
then, the assumption of the material particular is relevant. When
Plato recognizes that he has yet to account for matter, and thus the
individuation of particulars, he has to compose the
*Timaeus*.




Particulars, then, have the properties they have because they have
Form-copies derived from the Forms, which Are those properties. And
when they inhere in the material particular, the particular has a
definite, determinate property instance of Largeness or Beauty. The
particular is assumed to be a combination of matter and form-copies
(and in some cases, soul). All the form-copies can be lost, for the
particular has no essential properties or essence, and so too the soul
can be lost. In fact, since Plato seems to think that the body also
dissipates, the particular can totally disappear. Not so the Form,
which Is what it is, an *auto kath auto* being, precisely in
that its essence is predicated via Being of it, and it is the only Form
of which that essence is predicated.




A particular, *x*, is what it is in virtue of Partaking. What
makes *x* beautiful, for instance, is its having something which
Is beautiful. This something can either be a Form or form-copy, for
these alone Are beautiful. It might seem, however, that the qualitative
aspect of property possession is being explained in terms of items that
are not qualified or characterized in the appropriate manner. This
would be the result were Partaking analyzed in terms of, or reduced to,
the relationship of Being. But in the middle period at least, Partaking
is itself a primitive relation alongside Being. Moreover, at this
juncture the participating subject is assumed to be a material
particular, whose material nature goes without analysis. The primitive
relation of Partaking, along with the effects of matter, are thus
responsible for the characterization of the particulars: in virtue of
*having* something, which Is beautiful, Helen is a beautiful
woman. The form-copy is not responsible for the concrete, determinate
character of her beauty. Her being a material object, and her
*having* of the form-copy cause her to be so characterized. That
her determinate character is the character of *Beauty*, on the
other hand, is due to the form-copy that she has, and this form-copy,
in turn, causes her to be beautiful in virtue of being a form-copy of
Beauty Itself. In this respect, Plato sustains the Socratic notion that
Forms are logical causes. The Form, Beauty Itself, makes possible the
fact that Helen is beautiful, in so far as a form-copy of Beauty is
something she has. Since she has all of her properties in this fashion,
and since we seem to be able to identify her, and any particular, only
through descriptions that refer to her properties, form-copies and
their respective Forms are responsible for our epistemic access to
 particulars.[21]


## 9. Introduction to Plato's Epistemology




Epistemology, for Plato, is best thought of as the account of what
knowledge is. A reader who has some familiarity with philosophy since
Descartes may well think that epistemology must address the question
whether there is any knowledge. Plato never considers the global
skeptical challenge. He assumes that there is knowledge, or at least
that it is possible, and he inquires into the conditions that make it
possible. These conditions, broadly conceived, concern, on the one
hand, the rational capacities of humans, or more accurately souls,
and, on the other hand, the objects of knowledge. With respect to
objects, Forms certainly are objects of knowledge. However, there is
much dispute as to whether anything in the material world is a
suitable object. The physical world is an image, an imperfect world of
change. Many passages in the *Phaedo* and, most dramatically,
the *Republic*'s great metaphors of Sun, Line and Cave, imply
that Plato is a skeptic about knowledge of the physical, sensible
world. Humans can have only beliefs about it. But many recoil at the
prospect that Plato is such a skeptic. Citing the thrust of other
discussions, these readers argue that while all knowledge for Plato
must be based, in some sense, on Forms, one who knows Forms can also
acquire knowledge of the physical world (see Fine 1978; 1990).




Concerns about the inherent intelligibility, or lack thereof, of the
physical world, prompt Plato to propose the doctrine of recollection,
i.e., the thesis that our disembodied, immortal souls have seen the
Forms prior to their incarceration in the body. If Forms are the
(basic) objects of knowledge, and Forms are not in the physical world,
then we must have acquired that knowledge at some point prior to our
commerce with that world. But metaphysical issues about the
*simplicity* of Forms also affect how we are to conceive of
knowledge in these middle period works. If Forms are simple, then it
seems that knowledge is intuitive or acquaintance-like: in a
non-propositional manner one somehow sees a Form, itself by itself. The
central books of the *Republic* suggest such a picture. On the
other hand, the many passages in which Plato declares that in order to
know a Form one must be able to give its definition suggest both that
Forms are related to one another, e.g., the Form of Human is related to
the Forms of Rationality, Bipedality, Animality, the 'elements of
its definition, and that knowledge is propositional or akin to
knowledge by description (cf. Gorgias 465a, 501a2-3,
*Republic* 534b). These passages seem to imply that perhaps
knowledge is some form of justified true belief. A critical question
then is how one obtains the appropriate kind of justification to tie
down or convert a belief into knowledge. Plato offers little in the way
of detail on this score, but twice he alludes to a method of
hypothesis, suggesting both in the *Phaedo* and
*Republic* that hypotheses and their ultimately being rendered
'non-hypothetical' is part of the process by which one
comes to know a Form. Thus we have four broad notions to explore in
Plato's middle period epistemology: knowledge, belief, recollection and
the method of hypothesis.


## 10. The *Meno*




The *Meno* is probably a transitional work, bridging the
Socratic and the middle period dialogues. While the first third of the
*Meno* is concerned with ethical questions, what is virtue and
is virtue teachable, the last two-thirds address themselves to
epistemological details generated from the thesis that virtue is
knowledge. Here we find for the first time mention of recollection,
which Socrates proposes as a solution to a paradox of inquiry put
forward by Meno. The paradox is this (80d-e):



> For anything, *F*, either one knows *F* or
> one does not know *F*. 
> 
> 
> 
> If one knows *F*, then one cannot inquire about
> *F*.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If one does not know *F*, then one cannot inquire about
> *F*.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Therefore, for all *F*, one cannot inquire about
> *F*.
> 
> 
> 




Plato resolves the paradox by showing that there are different ways
in which one might be said to 'know' something and that
sometimes having a belief about *F* is adequate to begin an
inquiry into *F*. In his famous question and answer with a slave
about how to find the diagonal of a given square, Socrates argues that
latent within the slave is an understanding of how to determine the
diagonal (81-86b). The slave has various beliefs, some false and some
true, about the way to discover the length of the diagonal. What is
needed is only a set of prompts, here a set of questions, to elicit
from the boy the knowledge that is latent within him. Socrates contends
that he is leading the slave to recollect what he already knows. In the
subsequent stages of the argument, Socrates distinguishes the sense in
which a person can be said to merely have a belief about something
(into which one might inquire), from the sense in which he can be said
to know the same thing (97ff). For instance, suppose that Jones has
looked at a map and determined how to drive from New York City to
Chicago though he has not done so: just get on Interstate 80 and go
west. On the other hand, suppose that Smith has actually driven
numerous times from NYC to Chicago by getting on 80 and heading west.
Both Jones and Smith have the same belief about how to get from NYC to
Chicago and both will get there by acting on their belief. But only
Smith has knowledge of the road, whereas Jones has a true belief. The
truth of the belief is then not at issue. Rather, Smith has something
more, some kind of justification, here based on experience, that
distinguishes her from Jones: Jones has only a true belief about how to
get there; Smith actually knows. Thus in the *Meno*, we have
perhaps the first attempt to offer a justified true belief account of
knowledge: Knowledge is a true belief tied down with an account
(*aitias logismos*, 98a). The *Meno*, then, with its
discussion of recollection, knowledge and belief sets the stage for the
middle Platonic epistemology.


## 11. Recollection in the *Phaedo*




The *Phaedo*'s discussion of recollection begins with a
remark by Cebes in support of the claim that our souls preexist their
incarceration in the body: "Such is also the case if that theory
is true that you are accustomed to mention frequently, that for us
learning is no other than recollection. According to this, we must at
some previous time have learned what we now recollect. This is possible
only if our soul existed somewhere before it took on this human
shape" (72e-73).




Of special importance in this initial description is the 'for
us' and the identification of learning (*mathesis*) with
recollection. There is no way to determine whether 'we'
here are the close, philosophical confidants of Socrates, or the human
race. Part of the solution to the problem of who recollects will hinge
on how we understand the claim that learning is nothing other than
recollection. On the broad reading, recollection concerns the
application of concepts in all thought (see, most recently, Bedu-Addo
1991). That is, since learning is a dynamic process whose termini are
roughly our first thoughts and talk about the world, on the one hand,
and knowledge of Forms on the other, and since in thinking and talking
about the world we must apply concepts, recollection is viewed as a
doctrine of innate ideas whose effects are felt almost immediately in
the conscious mind.




Those who would limit the kind of learning that is recollection
isolate the last stage(s) of learning, namely those concerned with the
move from beliefs about the (properties of) the material world to
knowledge of Forms (see, most recently, Scott 1995; Bobonich 2002,
Ch. 1). Since only philosophers will engage in these late stages, the
'us' for whom learning is recollection are only
philosophers, and what is learned/recollected is just Forms. On this
narrow reading Plato would have to offer an account of ordinary
thought and talk, i.e., an account of concept acquisition and
application, which claims that the concepts so deployed by most of us
are derived from ordinary particulars and acquired through our
conversations with one another and our sense-perceptions and beliefs
about physical objects. In sum, both readings agree that Plato is
concerned to explain the distinctive capacity of humans to classify
sense-perception under universals. According to the broad reading,
Plato thinks that this cannot be done unless one appeals to one's
prior, latent knowledge of the Forms under which one ranges
perceptions. According to the narrow reading, there is no need to
appeal to prior knowledge of Forms to explain the ordinary
classificatory activities of humans. Rather, prior knowledge of Forms
is needed only to explain the philosophical understanding of Forms.
Innate Forms thus need not contribute anything to the formation of
concepts in ordinary thought and talk. Precisely what the relation is
between the concepts garnered from ordinary perception and used in
ordinary thought and talk and the innate Forms or concepts used in
philosophical thinking remains to be determined.




Concepts are, roughly, the units or elements of thoughts. In the
*Theaetetus* (189e), a dialogue written after the
*Republic* and *Phaedo*, Plato contends that thought is
the silent dialogue of the soul with itself. If we can read back from
this dialogue to the epistemology of the middle period, concepts are
conceptual analogues to the subjects and predicates of spoken
statements: corresponding to the predicate 'equal' of a
statement such as 'The sticks are equal' is the concept
[equality]. To debate whether there are ordinary versus philosophical
concepts of [equality] thus invites consideration of how to distinguish
concepts from one another. Basic in the *Phaedo* is that we have
knowledge of Equality; that we perceive sensible equal objects, that we
compare these sensible equals with the Form, and that in order to do
this we must have had prior knowledge of Equality. Now, one question is
whether the same concept applies both to the Form and the particulars.
Whereas we moderns often focus on synonymy to distinguish
co-referential concepts, issues of reference dominate Plato's thoughts.
By the end of the Final Argument, it is clear that in a strict or
primary fashion the concept/term is applied to the Form and in an
indirect manner it is applied to the many instances that fall under the
Form. (Using the language of names, 'equal' is the name of
Equality and the eponym of the many particular equal things. (Cf.
102bff) With respect to the concept of Equality, it is individuated by
its relation to the Form of Equality and, at best, derivatively to the
many
 equals.[22]
 What individuates concepts or names, is
not what is in the head of speakers, but rather just their relation to
Forms.




This privileging of reference over meaning with respect to what a
concept is lends credence to the broad or innatist interpretation of
what it is to acquire or even to have a concept. One has the concept
from birth. One is not aware of having it. As you mature, learn to
speak and make your way in the world, you may and in all likelihood
will associate many beliefs or things with this concept, though still
you might not think of it as a concept. (That is, nothing in Plato's
account suggests that people need be aware of having a concept qua
concept in order to have or even use concepts.) Conversely, lacking the
individuation condition for concepts provided by Forms and Innatism,
the narrow reading must provide an account of how one acquires any
concept. There is little in the primary or secondary literature to
suggest how concepts are acquired. Though it is a controversial
dialogue with respect to doctrine and period, the *Cratylus*'
rejection of the Protagorean/Heraclitean account of names (383-387c,
434e-435d), strongly suggests that Plato thinks that no empiricist or
abstractionist account is workable. One problem, then, with the narrow
interpretation is its picture of (ordinary) concepts and their
contents. Concepts are treated as hollow shells to be filled with
varying beliefs or ideas, contents gleaned from conversations with one
another or contact with the world. Into my concept of beauty goes pale
skinned, into yours bright color, into a third, some other filling. The
problem is that *if* the concept itself is identified with its
contents, then there is no reason to think that any of us have the same
concept. There are just too many different beliefs associated with a
concept by different individuals to think that anyone could ever mean
the same as another. Empiricism with respect to concept acquisition is
liable to lead to private languages at best. Moreover, it would seem
that our concept changes anytime we add or subtract from its
contents.




Of course, the fact that there are philosophical objections to the
narrow reading should not dictate that we reject it. The broad reading
may also have problems. Indeed, Plato's account of Recollection,
whatever it is, is liable to suffer difficulties. So what is the
account?




At the outset (73c-74a), Socrates places certain conditions on what
is to count as recollection. If *x* reminds one of *y*,
then


1. one must have known *y* beforehand
2. one must, in having any sense-perception of something (*x*),
recognize *x* and take *y* in mind (think of
*y*)
3. *y* must not be the object of the same knowledge as
*x*.
4. Since recollection can be occasioned by objects that are similar
and by objects that are dissimilar (Simmias and a picture of Simmias
versus Simmias and his lyre), when the recollection is caused by
similar things, one must also of necessity experience this: one must
have in mind whether or not *x* is lacking in some way with
respect to similarity vis a vis *y*.




It is not clear how these conditions can be satisfied. In order to
recollect Simmias upon seeing his picture, (1) I must have known
Simmias beforehand and (2) I must be somehow cognizant of the picture
*and* of Simmias. (3) And were Simmias and his picture not the
objects of different knowledge, that is, were they the object of the
same knowledge, it seems that I would not realize that they are
different objects. The picture would not remind me of Simmias, it would
just be thought of as a picture (or as Simmias). But, recognizing the
picture cannot involve recognizing Simmias, lest we *already* be
thinking of Simmias (*y*) in thinking about the picture
(*x*): that is, we cannot be *reminded* of what we are
*occurrently* thinking about. There must then be a way of
cognizing the picture apart from what it is a picture of. Condition 3
is more transparent when we consider recollection from
*unlikes*: we can recognize a lyre as a lyre or as a musical
instrument, a piece of wood with strings, etc., easily enough without
introducing Simmias in order to think about it. Condition 4 then spells
out the peculiar way in which recollection from *likes* occurs;
e.g., we realize that a picture or image is different from what it is a
picture of: images fall short or are lacking in some respect with
regard to what they are an image of. We recognize this perhaps because
we recognize that it is an image and that images always are deficient
with respect to what they are images of. But we need not be thinking of
the very thing the image is an image of in order to recognize these
facts.




The argument to this point is a preliminary sketch of recollection.
The next stage attempts to prove that one can and must recollect Forms,
since only with that proof will Socrates have demonstrated the
pre-existence of the soul. So Plato turns to showing that we cannot
have acquired knowledge of the Form Equality from perceptual
encounters. But 2, 3 and 4, when applied to the example of the equal
sticks, appear to land the doctrine in difficulties. For it seems that
if, according to 4, we need to be comparing the equal sticks to the
Form of Equality, then we need to be aware of the Form in thinking of
the sticks. But if we must be aware of the Form even to think about the
equal sticks then we must already *have the Form in mind* in
conducting the comparison. We cannot then be in the process of forming
the concept of Equality nor recollecting the Form.




The next stage finds Socrates getting Simmias' rapid agreement that
there is an Equal that they know besides the equal sticks and stones.
(74ab). The question is whence they acquired this knowledge. It cannot
have been from the sticks and stones from which it differs; for they
can sometimes appear equal and sometimes unequal, whereas Equality
Itself, on the other hand, never appears unequal. Socrates concludes
that we cannot have derived our knowledge of Equality from these many
equals because we realize that they are deficient or lacking with
respect to Equality. He does not specify in what way they are lacking,
save for the aforementioned fact that they can and do appear unequal
whereas Equality does not and apparently cannot do so.




Plato provides little guidance in this argument or elsewhere as to why
the Form cannot appear to be unequal (See White 1987; 1992). Perhaps
the easiest way to parse the Form's insusceptibility to appearing
unequal is to treat the claim as implying that the Form cannot appear
other than itself, i.e., equal. This fact, in turn, would then be
explained by citing the Form's incomposite, or simple, nature (See
SS4, *supra*). Equality could then have no other property
(or be no other property). Thus, to be aware of it at all would be to
recognize it as equal. Of course there remains the problem of
distinguishing being aware of the Form from thinking one is aware of
the Form when one is not. In this circumstance, one could perhaps
mistakenly think all sorts of things about the Form. A related but
distinct consideration is to determine whether it is possible in some
sense to have the Form in mind without being aware of it. Certainly
the broad or innatist reading must allow for this possibility, since
Forms are regarded as latent in one's mind.




If Forms are not utterly simple, then this explanation of their
immunity to appearing other than they are is weakened. Suppose that
Equality is also beautiful. Then in some fashion, it would seem that by
attending to its beauty Equality could seem other than Equality and
thus seem unequal. In order to avoid this outcome, while allowing for
some complexity in the Form, those emphasizing the compresence of
opposites can insist that it is the strict opposite, Inequality or
being unequal, that Plato excludes from the Form, not another property,
e.g., beauty, which happens not to be identical with Equality.




Alternatively, the predicationalist (See SS4 *supra*.), who
emphasizes the special relation between a Form and its essence,
maintains that in knowing Equality, one knows what it is, that is, one
knows its essence. This essence is itself simple or a unity, despite
the apparent complexity of the linguistic definition that picks it out.
One is not aware, or at least one is not knowingly aware, of Equality
unless one knows this definition. Whatever else may be predicable of
Equality, one cannot be aware of Equality without realizing that it is
whatever it is, namely this essence. Regardless of how we understand
the difference between the Form and the sticks, Plato seems only to
have shown that the Form and the particulars are not identical. How we
are to conclude that one cannot derive the knowledge of the Form from
the sensibles is not revealed.


## 12. The Epistemology of the *Republic*: The Two Worlds Doctrine




The *Republic* is unquestionably Plato's most elaborate
defense of his central ethical doctrines in the middle period. It
explores the question what is Justice over the course of ten books,
with the aim of demonstrating that the best life for a human is the
life devoted to virtue and knowledge, for such a life will result in
happiness for the individual. The virtuous person will be one who has
all three parts of her soul working in a harmonious fashion, i.e., her
reason, cognizant of the Form of the Good and the other Forms, will
with the support and consent of her appetite and spirit govern all of
her pursuits. The analogue of the virtuous individual with her
tripartite soul is the ideal state, the Republic, with its three parts
or classes, rulers, warriors and laborers, all working in harmony with
one another under the auspices of the ruler, i.e., reason. Having
established that justice is psychic harmony at the end of Book Four,
Plato next turns to show what it is that the philosopher ruler (or
reason in the individual) knows that licenses his claim that they will
rule for the benefit of the respective parts and the whole state or
person




At the end of Book V (474bff), Socrates begins his defense of the
rule of the philosopher by contrasting his epistemological condition
with that of a group of sightlovers. The philosopher, who accepts that
there are Forms, e.g., Beauty Itself, has knowledge. The sightlover,
who denies that there is Beauty Itself but rather insists that there
are just the many (different) beautiful plays, paintings and such,
lacks knowledge. He has only belief. In support of this contention,
Socrates distinguishes three different kinds of mental states or
capacities and three generic 'objects' for these
capacities. Knowledge is set over 'what completely is';
ignorance is set over 'what completely is not'; and,
belief, being intermediate between knowledge and ignorance, is set over
what is intermediate between the other two generic objects, namely
'what is and is not'. Capacities are distinguished,
Socrates contends, by two criteria: 1) difference in objects; and 2)
difference in what they do (with/to their objects). Examples of 1)
include colors and sounds, and of course what completely is and what is
and is not. The second criterion is seemingly satisfied by the
difference between being true versus being true and false. Thus,
knowledge is always true, whereas belief admits of both truth and
falsehood.




Much turns on how one understands the 'is' (*es*)
of 'what completely is' and 'what is and
is-not', and, concomitantly, whether one treats what belief and
knowledge are 'set over' as propositions or objects. Three
different readings of the 'is' seem possible: a) the
existential; b) the veridical; and c) the predicative.




On the existential reading, knowledge is set over what exists; belief
is set over what exists and does not exist. On the predicative
reading, knowledge is set over Forms, what is *F*, for any
property *F* (or some privileged kinds of properties, e.g.
incomplete properties); belief is set over what is *F* and
not-*F*, the material particulars. The existential and
predicative readings typically are committed to objects as what
knowledge and belief are set over. Since it is hard to make sense of
what it could be for an object to exist and not exist, the existential
reading has found little support. (There are other objections to an
existential reading, principally that many think that Plato never
works with an 'is' of existence (see Owen 1986c).




The predicative reading, on the other hand, lends itself to a
defense of the Two Worlds account of Plato's metaphysics. The objects
of belief and knowledge are distinct. Accordingly, one can have only
beliefs about the particulars and about particulars only beliefs, and
only knowledge of Forms and of Forms one can only have knowledge. It
follows that knowledge cannot be any kind of justified true belief, not
even one 'tied down' by the account of the appropriate
cause. (See *Meno* 98a). Moreover, since one can have only
knowledge of Forms, one cannot have any false beliefs about Forms.
Given that in Book I of the *Republic* the interlocutors seem to
have many false beliefs about Justice, e.g., that Justice is returning
what is due, this consequence may be more worrisome than that which
proscribes knowledge of the affairs of actual cities.




According to the veridical reading (see Fine 1978; 1990), the
'objects' of belief and knowledge are best treated as
propositions. Knowledge is set over what is true, i.e., the set of
true propositions; belief is set over what is true and not true, or
false, namely the set of all propositions. The veridical reading
regards the overlap between the objects of the distinct
faculties--the set of true propositions--as a virtue, since
it allows one to give a justified true belief interpretation to
knowledge and allows one to have both beliefs about and knowledge of
Forms and of sensible objects.


## 13. Sun, Line and Cave




The argument at the end of Book Five is a prelude to the argument and
analogies of Sun, Line and Cave in Books Six and Seven. The point of
Sun is to contrast the visible and intelligible realms. The former is
generated, nurtured and governed by the sun, which also provides the
light required by the eye to gain access to the physical world.
Corresponding to the sun in the intelligible realm is the Good:
"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." (508e).
Indeed, the Good is responsible for the very 'being' of
the knowable objects, though Plato never says in what sense the Good
is responsible for the knowability and being of the objects of
knowledge (see Santas 1980).




Line starts from the broad division stipulated by Sun: there is the
intelligible realm and the visible realm. Each of these is again
divided into two (unequal) parts. At the bottom of the visible one
finds images, shadows and such. The ordinary physical objects of which
the images are images occupy the upper portion. Set over the images is
the faculty of *eikasia*, imagination. Set over the physical
world is the faculty of *pistis*, literally faith or conviction,
but generally regarded as belief. Plato next turns to the lower segment
of the intelligible portion of Line:



> In (this) 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
> investigation through them (510b).




The top-most segment of Line is clear enough. The objects are Forms
and the faculty set over Forms is Nous, Knowledge or Understanding.
Included in this group is the Good itself, best regarded as having the
status of first among equals. Precisely what to make of the objects in
the third section, the faculty of *dianoia*, and the nature of
hypotheses are matters of great controversy. Given Plato's examples,
the capacity of *dianoia* seems distinctive of scientific or
mathematical reasoning. (On the question of hypotheses and the
relation of this passage to the hypothetical method of
the *Phaedo*, see SS15 *supra*.) The objects
of *dianoia* are then, roughly, the objects of the
sciences. There appear to be two basic approaches to the
'objects' of *dianoia*, depending on how one
understands the participial phrase "using as images the things
that were imitated before": 1) The objects of this segment are
some kind of 'abstract' image of ordinary material things
- a kind of image different from the kind that are shadows and
reflections; or 2) the objects are either the material objects
themselves though now treated (abverbially, as it were) in a special,
different way, or they are Forms, though treated in a way different
from that way in which *nous* treats Forms (see Burnyeat
1987).




Cave, arguably the most famous analogy in the history of philosophy,
reinforces the message of line. Seated prisoners, chained so that they
cannot move their heads, stare at a cave wall on which are projected
images. These images are cast from carved figures illuminated by a fire
and carried by people on a parapet above and behind the prisoners. A
prisoner is loosed from his chains. First he sees the carved images and
the fire. Then he is led out of the cave into 'the real' world.
Blinded by the light of the sun, he cannot look at the trees, rocks and
animals around him, but instead looks at the shadows and reflections
(in water) cast by those objects. As he becomes acclimatized, he turns
his gaze to those objects and finally, fully acclimatized, he looks to
the source of illumination, the sun itself.




In the analogy of Cave, corresponding to the physical objects over
which belief is set are the carved statues in the cave. Corresponding
to the 'using as images what before were imitated' are the
reflections in the pond. If, however, Cave is our guide, these
dematerialized images are generated not from the carved statues but
from the animals, i.e., the Forms themselves.


## 14. The Development of Mind




The Seventh Book continues with the kinds of study conducive to the
education of the philosopher-ruler (521cff). The goal of intellectual
development is knowledge of Forms, ultimately acquired through
dialectic. Dialectic, however, is practiced late in life by a select
few with the requisite memory and quickness of mind, after they have
studied various, essentially mathematical disciplines. The winnowing
process eliminates most people from ever developing the necessities for
philosophical thought. The first steps (523a-525a) in the turn towards
abstract thinking are occasioned by the need for the mind to settle
questions arising from ordinary perception; that is, the mind of
everyman is liable to be summoned to reflect upon the confused, and
confusing, reports of perception. About a host of perceptual qualities,
thick, thin, hard, soft, large and small, the senses report that they
are the same, at least in certain perceptual circumstances. Lumped in
with these properties is also number. The mind is summoned to settle
what is large and what is small, and what is one.




The brief discussion of the summoners raises suspicions about the
faculty psychology presented in the final argument of Book V and in
Line and Cave. It seems at times that Plato thinks that belonging to
each part of the soul are capacities or faculties capable of issuing
judgments (cf. 602c-603a; see Burnyeat 1976). So, for instance, there
are the judgments of sense that can and often do conflict with the
judgments of reason. But taken literally, if each faculty has its own
objects such that no other faculty can be set over them, then there
can be no conflict in judgments. The case of perception poses a
special difficulty. Perception, unlike discursive thought or belief,
is aligned not with the so-called rational part of the soul, but with
the desiderative part. As we saw in the *Phaedo*, as well as in
the passages about the sightlovers and the summoners, the senses are
disparaged as a source of confusion and falsehood. The senses mislead
us. One of Plato's complaints seems to be that people rely on
perception, or belief relying on perception, with the result that they
come to think that what is real is the physical, sensible world. And,
perhaps even worse, they come to think that one can understand (know)
things about the world such as what makes (for example) a temple
beautiful or a stick equal or a person large by appealing to
properties that are perceptual or observational or sensible.




Proponents of the thesis that Plato posits Forms only for incomplete
properties locate the problem for the sensible world not in the
objects themselves, but in the kinds of explanations that sightlovers
and non-philosophers rely on to justify their claim to know
(propositions about) the sensible, material world (see Fine 1978;
1990; Irwin 1977; Gosling 1960). It need not be the case, as the
predicative reading in terms of objects would have it, that a given
temple is and is not- beautiful. In their view, the problem is the
sensible property types cited by the sight-lovers in their accounts of
what makes something beautiful. For example, there is the sensible
property type, bright-color, that allegedly explains why the temple at
Bassae is beautiful. But, bright-color itself, the property type, is
and is not-beautiful, for it accounts for beauty in some things but
accounts for ugliness (not-beauty) in others. The crucial text for
this reading is 479d3-5: "So we have discovered, apparently,
that most people's varying standards (*nomima*) of beauty and
things like that are rattling around somewhere in the middle, between
what is not something and what purely and simply is something"
(Ferrari/Griffith trans.) The veridical reading
translates *nomima* as 'beliefs' and contends that
because most people rely on sensible property types as the
justification for their beliefs, they are condemned to live in the
realm of belief. For, according to this reading, every *sensible
property type* suffers from this compresence of opposites, i.e.,
is *F* and not-*F*. In appealing to such properties in
their accounts, the sight lover can never be justified in any of his
beliefs about the many beautifuls, because their accounts or reasons
for their beliefs about the world must be false. Hence, the sightlover
can have only beliefs about the many beautifuls, or equals, or, for any
incomplete property *F*, the many *f*s. The sight-lover
can never achieve knowledge so long as he relies on sensible
properties in his accounts. And since Plato thinks that there is
knowledge, he infers, says the veridical reading, that there must be
non-sensible objects, or rather there must be accounts or explanations
available which can be phrased in terms of 'non-sensible'
properties, i.e., must appeal to properties which are *not*
both *F* and not-*F*, or more precisely, do not make
some things, say beautiful, and others ugly.




The veridical reading, combined with the account that limits Forms
to incomplete properties (See SS6, *supra*), allows for the
possibility that the philosopher can have knowledge of the visible
realm. This can come about for at least two reasons. On the one hand,
there will be a host of non-sensible properties and propositions about
ordinary particulars and such properties, e.g., 'Socrates is a
man'. Since arguably Plato thinks that Socrates is completely or
essentially a man, and since there is no Form of Man, the philosopher
(and, perhaps, anyone) can know such a proposition. On the other hand,
the philosopher, once he comes to know the Forms of the Incomplete
Properties, can then have knowledge of the external world in any and
all respects. Not misled by the compresent opposite properties, and
able to base all his accounts on the Good and the other Forms, nothing
stands in his way of knowing the material world
 (520c).[23]




The predicative reading of the argument of Book V and the analogies
of the central books does not limit the range of Forms and does not
commit itself to the possibility of knowledge of the external world. If
one treats the physical world as metaphysically defective, as
victimized in any and every respect by its being and not-being, then
that suffices to preclude one from knowing anything about such a world.
The objects of the physical world are simply not the right sorts of
things to qualify as objects of knowledge, regardless of what sorts of
reasons or justifications or explanations one has at her disposal.




Regardless of the epistemic status of the physical world, one task
is to understand how Plato thinks the transition is made from one's
perceptions and beliefs about the physical world to knowledge of the
Forms. In the *Republic*, Socrates says that every human being
is capable of becoming a philosopher and thus able to know the Good and
all the Forms (518c). On the other hand, the *Republic* leaves
little doubt that Plato expects that few will actually achieve the
knowledge each is capable of. Most of us will give in to the ordinary
beliefs generated through our perceptual encounters with the sensible
world, as well as those resulting from the conversations we have with
one another. Most will never even begin, it seems, the course of study
outlined in Book VII, and most of those who begin will not become
dialectically sophisticated so that they can give an account of what
they know that will 'destroy the hypotheses'. But despite
the odds, from the *Phaedo* and *Republic* we can locate
two elements of Plato's epistemological program that can lead to
knowledge if properly exercised, recollection and the method of
hypothesis. The latter is mentioned explicitly in the *Phaedo*
and seems again to be alluded to in Plato's remarks about the
differences between the top two sections of line. Since this method,
assuming that it is the same in both, appears to be deployed as part of
the final stages of the pursuit of knowledge, there is reason to
postpone consideration of the method until after consideration of
perception and belief, i.e., the first two stages of Line.




The *Phaedo*'s discussion of Recollection suggests that there
is something inherently flawed with empiricist or abstractionist
accounts, at least those that attempt to derive any concept from our
contacts, perceptual or linguistic, with the external world. It seems
that Plato thinks that the deficiency of the external, sensible,
material world vitiates all efforts to build or acquire concepts from
it. The deficiency of the sensible material world makes it an
unreliable source of information. Depending on how one accounts for
this deficiency, the trouble for perception, and belief based on
perception, is explained in different ways. Aristotle's account
emphasizes that it is changing. Another source of difficulty is that
the abstract, general Forms are always manifested in a concrete,
determinate fashion (See SS7, *supra*). The Affinity Argument
points to the complexity of material particulars. Rather than present a
single property, as it were, to perception, perception is required to
focus on some aspect of the complex particular. If it is also true that
at least with respect to some properties, namely the incomplete or
relative properties addressed by the Compresence accounts, every object
is both *F* and not-*F*, then no sensible will be an
unqualified bearer of these properties. Perception, considered in its
own right, seems to be unable to explain how any feature of an object
is selected for study. It also seems that Plato thinks that the
psychological faculties of perception, or even belief, are incapable of
processing the information in a reliable manner, or at least in a
manner requisite for knowledge. At times it seems that they distort or
alter perceptions (*Phaedo*, 65ff). At other times, e.g., when
we emphasize the difference between the faculties, it seems that they
are confined to work on whatever they process in such a manner that
they do not pass along anything to the rational faculty, or if they do,
they pass it along to belief. One problem is that whenever one engages
in perception, and belief based on perceptual reports, one can never
overcome the inherently perspectival situation. For instance, no matter
where one is situated, the round penny will appear to the eye, we might
say, somewhat elliptical. Or, to use Plato's example from Book Ten, the
straight stick in water will seem bent (owing to the laws of
refraction), even though an experienced person will believe that it is
straight
 (602c-603a).[24]


## 15. The Method of Hypothesis




However we account for the inadequacy of perception the task remains
to explore how we get from perception, which stimulates the
recollective process, to belief and eventually to recollect or
otherwise know Forms. Plato is less than forthcoming about how one
moves from one stage to the next. The elenctic method probably plays
some role in advancing one's understanding, especially the step from
perception to belief. At a certain point, we naturally begin to offer
reasons for our beliefs. The elenchus questions our reasons, typically
by revealing an inconsistency in our accounts of why we believe what we
do. But we can also place Plato in a tradition that seeks a systematic
explanation of the natural phenomena. One aim of the Presocratics, as
Socrates narrates in the *Phaedo* (95a4ff), is to find a single
explanation, or a single kind of explanation, to save the phenomena.
Socrates complains that the Presocratics had mistakenly looked to
material causes. Such explanations fail to meet minimal standards: the
same explanation (*aitia*) accounts for opposite phenomena,
e.g., 'by a head' explains both why something is tall and
something else is short; or sometimes the same phenomenon is subject to
explanations by opposite causes, being two by 'division and
addition.' However, Socrates reports, Anaxagoras' nod towards
Mind was at least a step in the right direction (though Anaxagoras
failed to follow the path). The best account is teleological in nature,
in terms of the Good. Thus the *Phaedo* gestures at the critical
role assigned to this Form in the *Republic*. In the
*Phaedo* Plato begs off from directly investigating the nature
of the good or teleological explanations. Instead he turns to what he
describes as a method of hypothesis, the first of which is the
hypothesis of Forms as causes (see $sect;2 *supra*), and its
'first corollary', that particulars are/come-to-be what
each is in virtue of partaking in Forms.




Precisely what the connection is between the *Phaedo*'s method
of hypothesis (99eff) and the *Republic*'s remarks on
hypothesis and the ascent to an unhypothetical first principal is a
subject of controversy. Equally controversial is its connection within
the *Phaedo* to the method of recollection and to philosophical
practice in general. In attempting to study what there is
(*onta*), Socrates says that he shrinks from things
(*erga*) to concentrate on propositions/accounts
(*logoi*), which he denies are more images (of what there is)
than the physical things: "I started in this manner: taking as
my hypothesis in each case the theory that seemed to me most
compelling, I would consider as true, about cause and everything else,
whatever agreed with this, and as untrue whatever did not
agree." (99e-100a). Since the hypothesis of Forms is offered
next, with its corollary of participating particulars, it would seem
that the *logoi* are opinions about Forms. These *logoi*
are to be treated as provisional. Socrates' is the
strongest *logos* and the safest, in explicit contrast to the
wise explanations of others. From the examples provided, it seems
that 'agreement' here is not a notion of entailment or
logical consequence. Rather, Plato directs us to posit initially a
general hypothesis and to determine whether there are particular cases
within the target domain--here the cause of generation and
destruction--that are inconsistent with, i.e., not adequately
explained by, it (see Bedu-Addo 1991).




Complicating matters is Plato's additional remark that one needs
also to examine the initial hypothesis to see whether there are
'higher' hypotheses that account for it:



> But you would cling to the safety of your own hypothesis
> and give that answer. If someone then attacked your hypothesis itself,
> you would ignore him and would not answer until you had examined
> whether the consequences that follow from it agree with one another or
> contradict one another. And when you must give an account of your
> hypothesis itself you will proceed in the same way: You assume another
> hypothesis, the one which seems to you best of the higher ones until
> you come to something acceptable. (101d)




Since the initial hypothesis is the theory of Forms, it is uncertain
what Plato has in mind in mentioning hypotheses 'higher'
than the theory or what sort of test he has in mind. The elenctic
practice of Socrates would determine whether other accounts are
consistent with one another. But that still leaves the question of
higher hypotheses unanswered. One temptation here is to think that the
teleological account of the Good is the higher/est hypothesis. While
this may well be so, there are perhaps intermediate accounts between
the full-blown teleology of the Good--an account that Plato
steadfastly throughout his writings refuses to provide--and the
initial statement of the theory of Forms and its corollary of
participation (see Rowe 1993). These intermediate stages might then
be viewed as different accounts of the nature of Forms, the nature of
particulars and of the participation relation itself. For instance,
Aristotle might offer a different account of 'Forms' than
Plato, one that espouses an immanent realism wherein some particulars
might be said to have essential properties. Or, looking to the clever
explanations that follow, where perhaps Forms of Fire and Heat, Cold
and Snow or Three and Odd are linked, one might ponder whether Forms
are indeed utterly simple or monoeidetic, in contrast to an account of
Forms in which they may bear a special relation to their
essence--Three is what it is to be three--and a different
relation to another property, e.g. oddness. Seen in this light, the
Theory of Forms in the *Phaedo* (and *Republic*) is
hypothetical or provisional, awaiting a defense in which the nature of
Forms, the role of the Good and the relations between Forms are
examined.




When one turns from the *Phaedo* to the *Republic*,
the notion of hypothesis appears in the two 'upper'
segments of the line. They are distinguished in part by the fact that
those considering their subject matter dianoetically still make use of
hypotheses, whereas those using *nous* have arrived at an
unhypothetical first principle and descending the line have destroyed
the hypotheses. It seems that the mathematicians, for example, use
discursive thought because they assume the starting points, i.e., the
axioms or definitions, of their sciences. In this respect, they are
like Socrates of the *Phaedo* positing the Forms to explain
generation and corruption. In Plato's hands, scientific inquiry seems
to emerge from reflection on the everyday material world. The step from
conviction to *dianoia*, however, is taken by far fewer
individuals than those who step from *eikasia* to
conviction.




The move from the second to the third level crosses the barrier
between the visible and the intelligible. One derives 'images'
from the objects of *pistis* or considers them differently,
developing different propositions about what one previously took for
granted. Perhaps the scientist describes these images in non-sensible
terms, or perhaps he regards the 'image of triangle' apart
from the particular, determinate angles or lengths that even any image
must have--he abstracts away these features, treating the abstract
image as applying to all triangles. Or, similarly, the objects of
*dianoia* and *nous* may be identical: the philosopher
thinks about them differently from the scientist. If one assumes that
here Forms are first posited, as seems required if we are to understand
the descent from *nous* to secure the Forms, then the objects of
*dianoia* and *pistis* cannot be the same. For the
latter are not Forms but ordinary particulars. We can then explain
'destroying the hypotheses' as similar to what, in the
*Phaedo*, was described as finding the higher *logoi*.
The initial strongest hypothesis, i.e., the Theory of Forms, is then
rendered non-hypothetical when, and only when, the philosopher has
determined which of the many accounts of the *general* nature of
Forms, e.g., immanent vs. transcendent realism, simple versus complex
Forms, the nature of the Good and its relation to others forms, is
best. The same route would secure the hypotheses of the sciences, i.e.,
the various interpretations of the objects of the sciences would be
eliminated leaving only that one justified by the theory of Forms. The
peculiar properties or axioms of the individual sciences would remain
the provenance of the scientists. Dialectic or understanding would
concern how we are to think about the nature of those properties and
the structure of the sciences.


## 16. Conclusion




The images of the central books do not settle the question of
whether or not the objects of the different faculties are the same. In
appealing to a contents analysis, fundamentally an analysis that takes
propositions to be the contents or 'objects' of belief and
knowledge, as opposed to the objects themselves, i.e., material
particulars or Forms, one allows that there is a path from belief to
knowledge. The same proposition can be believed or known, depending on
one's reasons or justification for holding the belief. But a contents
analysis is not committed to a justified true belief account of
*all* knowledge. It is left open that knowledge of Forms is
somehow basic. Descending the line furnishes justification for the
claims of the dianoetic sciences and beliefs about the material world,
including the states of affairs in actual cities. What to do about the
basic knowledge of Forms is a key issue. Sun, Line and Cave suggest to
many readers that knowledge of Forms is intuitive or acquaintance-like.
On the other hand, the refrain that one who knows can give an account
(*logos*) of what he knows suggests knowledge by description or
a propositional analysis. To emphasize relations between Forms,
starting from the relation of the Good to all Forms, lends credence to
the view that Plato is an epistemological holist. Holism is fueled by
the search for definitions, since in order to know what, for instance,
Human is, one must know all the elements of its definition, Animal,
Rationality, Bipedality, and thus the definition of these elements, and
so on. In order to know a given Form, one must know all the Forms, an
extreme version of holism, or at least one must know all the Forms in a
given science. The results of this analysis, the genera and species of
a given science, are then hypostasized as Forms, nodes in a web or the
elements of a field. There is a virtuous circle of justification.




Holist readings can also be combined with the narrow reading of
recollection. The same (token) proposition may well be entertained by
the philosopher as by those who still rely on concepts gleaned from
their everyday encounters. Whether or not one knows or believes that
'The triangle has three sides' depends on what one is doing
with that content or how one is justifying one's belief. The problem is
that if somehow knowing that the triangle has three sides makes
'triangle' in the statement refer to the Form, while
believing that (same?) proposition makes it refer to something else,
then the content of the two states is different, and the content of the
states is different because, it seems, the objects of the two states
are different. Or one can try to save one's holism by allowing that the
different states of mind cause (the contents of) the propositions to be
different. Those who see recollection as an act engaged in only by
philosophers maintain that their concept differs from the empirically
grounded concept of the non-recollector, the occupant apparently of at
least two of the other three stages of Line. But how one gets from the
one concept to the other is unspecified. The concepts are linked by the
'external fact' that the temple, for instance, participates
in Beauty. The holist program seems to entail that one can continue to
add to beliefs about Beauty, where one is deploying the empirical
concept, until one in a proper justificatory exercise acquires
*all* the appropriately related beliefs about properties. Once
that is accomplished, the philosophical concept is recollected. It
remains open on this account, when one has recollected the Form and
then descends, whether the contents of the philosopher's beliefs about
the empirical world use the philosophical or empirical concept.




Those who read Plato as subscribing to different objects for
Knowledge and Belief also need a story about how one gets from one
stage to the next. If we assume that Forms are at work throughout the
learning process, then Plato is best viewed as not identifying the Form
with the propositional contents of his states. The same expression
will, depending on the state of the agent, have different referents:
the images; the material objects; some immaterial, abstract
intermediary, or a mathematical in the case of *dianoia*. On the
objects account, Plato has little to say about the status of the
concepts deployed in thought. The Form of Equality is not the concept.
The concept is present throughout the developmental life of the human.
Because (knowledge of) the Form is latent in the mind, sensation and
everyday talk are capable of 'triggering' the concept. A
select individual will come to disdain the senses and the material
objects of the sensible world and try to explain what accounts for the
similarities present in his experience. The first fundamental moment of
transition seems to be a shift from the many particulars to some
abstract general notion, an inchoate 'one-over-many'. That
she is able to isolate these 'ones' at all is, according to the
broad reading of recollection, due to the unconscious operation or
influence of the Form that allows her to sort the perceptions into
kinds. The ontological status of these kinds is not, as yet, clear to
her. With the further development of her dialectical capacity, the
philosopher-to-be comes to think that there are Forms; that is, comes
to think that there are special entities variously related to
particulars and property-instances. The objects of these beliefs are
still not the Forms themselves, if the state of mind of the scientist
or Phaedan hypothesizer is not yet knowledge. At this stage, or even
earlier, one might even be in possession of the definition of the Form
and still not have knowledge. Exactly why one lacks knowledge is hard
to say. It is not, it seems, because he lacks beliefs about the
relation the Forms bear to other mathematical notions. On the one hand,
it is doubtful that Plato believes that one can know all of mathematics
or that one can know what a triangle is only if one knows every other
shape. On the other hand, the mathematician does seem to know as much
as would be needed to qualify as having knowledge of the mathematical
Forms. The philosopher is not said to know more mathematics than the
mathematician. He secures his knowledge in way the mathematician can't
or doesn't.




If 'more truths' are added to the truths in the
possession of the mathematician, these can only be truths about the
nature of Forms. These higher *logoi* will then be general
metaphysical principles about the role of the Good, the simplicity or
complexity of Forms, the specification of the participation relation
and so on (not a trivial 'and so on'. ) Plato does then
place fantastically high demands on knowledge. The desire to ensure
irrefutability, perhaps the legacy of reflection on the Socratic
elenchus, drives him to the conclusion that one really has recollected
the Form only when one has become a metaphysician. She need (only!)
know the general metaphysical theory.




There is little reason to think that Plato espouses a holism of
knowledge of the sort discussed above. Plato never says that the
mathematician or the philosopher needs to know *all* the truths
of mathematics or ethics to know some Form. Moreover, while Plato does
prescribe a course of study in the *Republic* designed to
promote one's dialectical abilities, and while it is agreed by both
holists and intuitionists, those who allow for atomic or
acquaintance-like knowledge of a Form, that the same Forms are the
basic objects of knowledge, it does not follow that Plato thinks that
there is only one way to secure knowledge of the Forms. If there are
different paths to knowledge, or different ways to know a given Form,
then Plato's epistemology is liable to appear to be both holistic and
acquaintance-like. As for when and where Recollection is operative, or
whether Plato allows that a philosopher (or scientist) can know
anything about the physical world, it is left to each reader of the
dialogues to judge whether Plato is committed to gulfs between both
the ordinary concepts of most humans and the special concepts of the
few philosophers, as well as between the perfect Forms and the
seemingly imperfect physical world. Since a Platonic dialogue is a
dialectical conversation designed to summon the mind of the reader
towards philosophizing, it is appropriate that each reader struggle to
discover for himself What Knowledge Is.