Form As Standards Block 1957 Phronesis Vol 2

Forms as Standards
Author(s): R. S. Bluck
Source: Phronesis, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1957), pp. 115-127
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4181618
Accessed: 07-02-2017 01:48 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Brill is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Phronesis
This content downloaded from 177.148.141.206 on Tue, 07 Feb 2017 01:48:48 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Forms as Standards
R. S. BLUCK
PLATO called his Forms 7=pxazy,uaToct, and he is taken to mean that

they were patterns or standards of which objects and acts in the
sensible world are copies. But in what sense were they 'standards'?
My purpose is to offer a few remarks on this question.
Wittgenstein once suggested to me 1 that a Form may be to its
homonymous instances as t.he Standard Pound is to a pound weight in a
shop. This interesting analogy brings out clearly the fact that a Form was
not merely what we mean by an attribute, nor merely what we under-
stand by a universal. It also illustrates the way in which a Form gives to
particulars the righ-t to be called after itself, and something of the
substantiality, durability and perfection of a Form. Like most analogies,
of course, it must not be pressed too far. But if certain points are kept
clearly in mind, the suggestion is a valuable one. In particular, it must be
borne in mind that a Form is essentially voyro6v and not alaO'ro6v, and
that this makes it a rather special kind of 'standard'.
In seeking to establish that the use of the terms 'just' and 'good' and so
on was not merely vo,tog, and that these 'things' really existed ypioatL and
could really be known, Plato will have observed not only the constant
change of sensible objects but also the relative 2 nature of things of this
world. He obviously thought it at least as important that moral standards
should be non-relative as it was tlhat they should be exempt from
1 As he did to Mr. P. T. Geach (Philosophical Review lxv [1956] p. 74).

2 By this I mean [I] relative to human judgement or perception - a thing may appear
different to different people, and [II] varying according to situation. The Phaedo (i o2b-d)
teaches that qualities even as they exist 'in us' do not change their nature, but they
manifest themselves only in certain circumstances. Tallness (or beauty) may be manifested
in one situation, but when the person or thing in which this quality resides is in another
situation, the opposite quality may manifest itself instead. One might say, therefore,
that apprehension of a sensible quality is dependent on circumstances, which inevitably
change. Since such qualities necessarily inhere in something, Plato is very often con-
cerned with the indeterminacy of that something, not with the quality itself: it is really
the complex object rather than the quality of beauty that it possesses that is 'in relation
to one thing beautiful, in relation to another ugly', and in this sense 'relative'. But Forms
are not dependent on circumstances in either of these ways. A Form is capable of being
apprehended at any time, and never appears other than it is, and this applies even to
'relational' Forms - i.e. those Forms (such as Master or Equal) of which an instance must
have a correlative; more will be said of these below.
hg5
constant change; and that is why in the Symposium (2 ia) the Form of
the Beautiful is contrasted with that which is 'in one respect beautiful, in
another ugly, or at one time beautiful, at another not, or in relation to
one thing beautiful, in relation to another ugly, so as to be beautiful in
the opinion of some and ugly in the opinion of others'. Indeed Plato's
special use of au'ro and o&uTo xcO' AuTrO 1, to judge from the opposition of
Tz 'v tZv pe0yeOoq and mi.ro$ r'r [?ycOoq at Phaedo 102d, and of ro' v EV
and -'v 'rTjn pu6reL at 103b, probably refers to the Form's independence
of circumstances, time, change and so on. When we consider the
analogy of the Standard Pound, we see a difference. It would be natural
to say that the only way in which pound weights in shops fall short of the
Standard Pound is that they are to a greater or lesser extent not a pound.
Does our analogy, then, leave out of account the other ways in which
Plato apparently regarded phenomena as 'falling short' of Forms? If we
take the examples of Man and Bed, it is obvious that Plato cannothave
thought of a particular man as being in some way less a man than the
Form was, or of the Form of Bed as being superlatively a bed while
particular beds were beds only to a comparative degree. In these
instances we may suppose that the trouble about phenomenal men and
beds is the time factor - they are subject to decay (-ro'r [46uv, to-a a'oVS,
Symp. 21 ia). We must not interpret our analogy too narrowly; in-
spectors of weights and measures no doubt allow that most pound
weights in shops are pounds, and as to the time factor, the Standard
Pound is probably made of a material more durable than at any rate a
number of pound weights. But the fact remains that our Standard Pound
is not eternal, whereas the Forms are. Our analogy is sound enough so
long as we remember that the Standard Pound is itself x1Oa6IO6v, whereas
a Form is not. This difference becomes more important in cases where
other kinds of 'falling short' are in question - in the case of beauty, for
example. No Standard Beauty would satisfy Plato that was not beautiful
in all respects and in all circumstances and in the opinion of everyone -
and no such thing, at least in Plato's view, could be found in the
sensible world; and even if we had an Imperial Standard Beauty Queen
who satisfied all these requirements, she would represent only one kind
of beauty, and we should need others for other kinds. The Form as a
standard in some cases covers a wider range than a sensible standard could,
and it is able to do so precisely because it is voiT6v and not m1a0Oot6v.
1I refer to the use in the Phaedo, Symposium and later works, where we are concerned
with Xoptor&k ctgv .On these expressions see also my Plato's Phaedo p. 82, note i, and
p. i8i, note I.
I i6
This applies, in my submission, to the Form of the Equal. Mr Peter
Geach, following Wittgenstein, says that 'the Imperial Standard Equality,
or Imperial Standard Equals, would naturally consist of a pair of abso-
lutely equal things', and takes auT'r& a to at Phaedo 74b as referring to
the Form.' Though there is only one paradigm of equality, it has to
consist, he thinks, of two equal things. As other examples of a plural
expression used in reference to a single Form, he cites 'oi& 7to?;A at
Parmenides I2gb6-7 and dg (which he takes to be equivalent to the
rnXOoq of d8) and aucxrc t& 6[toLo at I 29b I (which he takes to be
equivalent to the 4LOL6'rj4 of ai and a4). Professor Vlastos2 approves of
this idea, and argues that aut& wrx 'Lca must refer to the Form because of
the sequel in the text: from the premiss that ocu&A t& 'L'am never even
appear unequal, while sensible equal things sometimes do, Plato infers
that these latter and the Equal itself are not the same: therefore ouT-o toc
Loa must be the same as the Equal Itself (the Form). To all this I have
four objections:
(i) So far as this last argument is concerned, Vlastos has not given
the whole of Socrates' premiss. What Socrates says is, 'Have auoc'
xx ao ever seemed to you unequal, or has Equality (La6rq) ever
seemed to be Inequality?' It may well be these last words that constitute
the operative part of the premiss.
(in) If ocUTrOt TX ac is (are) the Form, why does Socrates add these other
words? It can hardly be because Plato wanted to make it plain that he
had referred to the Form: if so, why the'or'?
(III) In the Parmenides Plato does give a hint that he is wondering
whether a Form may not itself be in some sense a 'many', but only as
'embracing' other Forms, not as having parts in the Geach-Vlastos
sense: for even if their (at least) bipartite paradigm is only one paradigm,
it would still have to be composed of constituent parts. Yet a Form must
be incomposite.3 And what on earth (or in the realm of Forms) would
these two (or more) equal 'parts' be?
(iv) Surely phenomenal copies of such a Form as Geach and Vlastos
take the Form of the Equal to be would have always to reproduce
the likeness of the 'things' that they suppose are equal in the Form?
Conversely, we want a Form that will explain and be our 'standard'
for all the many different kinds of equality that we discern in things;
l loc.cit. p. 76.
2 Philosophical Review lxv (19g6) p. 9l.
3 Plato's Form was not merely one, as Geach says (loc. cit. P. 76); it was also, as the
Phaedo shows, incomposite.
I I7
we do not want any particular kind of equal things to be included
in the Form, for that would limit the range of usefulness of the
Form. How should we account for the kinds of equality that
we take to be present when we talk about equal strength, equal
intelligence, taoppotdoc, taovooVAoL? It might of course be argued that al
these kinds may be mentally reduced to the type represented by two
straight lines; but it would be very odd to describe such a Form as the
pattern or standard to which we refer instances of lao6-n that we find in
LcOvo04a or in equally-matched strength.
Vlastos, indeed, qualifies his acceptance of Geach's interpretation of
aulr la tcr by supposing that Plato never made explicit (to himself or
anyone else) the idea that Equality consists of two things: had he done
so, says Vlastos, he would have had to say that Three consists of three
things, and Half of the half of something. But I cannot see that there is
any need to regard this idea as even implied: otu tO Scrov is a standard,
but a standard to be apprehended only by the mind; and that being so,
we need not endow it with attributes proper to sensible instances.1
Let us consider whether the xavlo r'a 64Lotoc at Parmenides b I and roe
7to?X& at b6-7 and dg in fact refer to Forms. In this passage of the
Parmenides, after saying that there is ocUTO XOC' ocUO st8 6 rt OLGLO6T-rO
and &?Jxo CrL vccv'tov, a eatIv OcovtLov, and that things become G4LOLaO
or MvO6otcx by partaking of these (Forms) respectively, or both by
partaking of both, Socrates suggests that even if everything partook of
both and was both, that would not be surprising: el pte yap ocut'r 'r&
OFLOLX ML4 TC MVO9LV auve oc y v ' r avo ocx 6.Lo, T?poc XV
%OM 'tq~ m7r s~~t rv Ly ~tevxo'c &1ptv WM ~sol cbtocpvs
MPa= tv, ?L ge TMc TouTwV fLeeT?owV M0yOTrepwV M96T?p&rp XO'c7ogNL
-nC7OVO6TO, oU8eV eOLye, cT. Z4VCOV, &Tt0 oxeZ. Here ocaura t 6otov
are contrasted with those things that partake of both Likeness and
Unlikeness. Those that partake of both will be both, but mx.,t& r& 6`LOLca
can hardly be 06Ic.LOLGc as well as 6vQotm. It should be clear that Plato is
not using the expression with specific reference to the Form, though
that would no doubt be included among those things that are 'simply'
(MuT80) 4totcx. (Similarly I take it that among cx& S-r& Zxaa Plato would
I Vlastos also remarks (lOc. cit. p. 92, with footnote I 2) that 'Greek usage does permit
the use of the plural form of the (neuter) adjective with the article to signify the cor-
responding abstract', and 'the fact that Plato could speak of a singular abstract in the
plural would make it all the easier for him to think of Equality as a pair of two things'.
But Gorgias 4S4e-4gEa, which he cites, is concerned with instances of justice, and though
we might use the abstract term in translation, there is no-evidence here that Plato would
have used the expression r& x &oxoc in reference to 8atoo-av itself, especially after the
latter had become a Xopt=6sv c1o.
I 18
have included both the Form Equality and mathematical 'equals' 1; but
whatever may be said about that, the reference does not appear to be
necessarily confined to the Form.) Socrates continues: oiu8? ye [&O'ro0OV
aoXeLJ Cl V &7rt(VTCX 'TCo(pCLVE TL; 1W pXLV T U T VOU XOCL TOaUTOC TOa
,onXX x(x 7ri X7Oou4 o6 [XrE?ev. 'A?X el a 9ATLV CV, OuTo 'rOUTO roA
Ma i xal oci) & 'zrco?X&a I' ev, rcOo %& Oau p,aop.coL. The first part of
this concerns the possibility of showing that all (complex) things are,
simultaneously, 'v and -to?O'C. In the second part Socrates says that he will
be surprised if anyone shows that the Form One is 7ro?X&O and again that
the rro?X&m are one. Here t& -to?o may refer to the Form Plurality, though
there are, I would suggest, two other possibilities: (i) It could, and
probably does, refer (after the manner of x&r& ta 6[iota and ro& &vo6fLotL
in the parallel passage above) to those things which are simply 7toX -
things that partake of ntXOoq but not of o6 Ev; the reason why this
expression is contrasted with the Form o er`nv E'v instead of with some-
thing parallel to aura o'& 0'wLo and meaning 'things that are simply one'
will be that the Greek language was not capable of saying such a thing,
at least in a neat phrase, and Socrates contents himself with mentioning
the chief member of that class, which is, of course, the Form. But
(II) Socrates has said that it is not surprising if someone shows that all
things are one by partaking of the One and that these same things are
many by partaking of Plurality; he may now be adding that he would
admire anyone who could show that the One itself is many, and again
that the (same) many are one - 'r& 7toXX& referring, like the preceding
itoX?L&, to the many of which the One would consist, if it were divisible.
But at I 29d Socrates says that we may admit that sticks and stones are
both one and mSny, but that he who shows that does not prove To eV
xo?& o t& rt 7roXX& E'v; and this is probably in favour of interpretation
(Q), rather than of (II). But I would not deny that in both these places in
the Parmenides ra 7o?a may refer to the Form Plurality; if it does, the
expression will be comparable to the use of 'ar No, Toa Tptoc and ra&
tr?TIapx in apparent reference to Forms (they are treated as on a par
with h rpL14 and n epuot) at Phaedo io4a-c. But whatever Plato may
1 Viastos (lOc. cit. pp. 90-9I, note 9) refers to my Plato's Phaedo p. 67, note 3, and
remarks: 'He doesn't think these mathematical 'equals" would be intermediate between
Forms and particulars, but neither does he see that the plural "equals" does refer to the
Form, Equality'. The latter statement is correct, the former is not. No doubt they
would be intermediate, but there is no evidence that Plato had as yet consciously worked
out a doctrine of intermediates. Plato is talking generally of things that may be supposed to
manifest t:6rq without any admixture of &vLau6is.
I I9
have thought about Forms of numbers or of Plurality itself, I see no
reason to suppose that he did not regard the Equal and the Like, as also
the Beautiful, as intelligible standards which, simply because they were
not sensible, could be truly single and incomposite and yet in a real sense
standards: while for the same reason they would be non-temporal,
independent of circumstances, and cover a wide generic range.
If Forms can differ in these curious ways from phenomena, what are we
to say about Self-Predication, about the apparent fact that a Form may,
at least in a number of cases, have the quality of which it is the Form
predicated of itself? I may perhaps be excused if I do not present here
all the evidence for Self-Predication, as it is well known and is generally
accepted.' It may be that Plato had not thought out how Self-Predication
would apply to such Forms as Change and Becoming, or to Two, Three
and the rest of the number-series, or to Plurality itself. But it is clear
that he applied it to Forms such as the Large and the Beautiful, and to the
Equal (Phacdo 74d, o&rCoq 'tuos iLvcL crOc=ep oCuTo o eartv aov) ; and if the
Equal can be described as 'aov, can it after all be without parts of the
Geach-Vlastos variety? I think it can, and would suggest that there is
something comparable in the case of the From Master at Parmenides
I 3 3d-e: e rtL t%UoV U 8t6't-% 3 ,% 8otio?,q E,aT-V, o0x aOUro5 3ao-noTou
8'7OU, O zaOt 8eO7UZY7 ?XELVOU 8o0X0< E'TLV, oU8a: CU'TOr aoaou , O ?CTCL
aotAoq, actm6-n%, j c7X' &vOpco7oq uv (6vOpdItou OtypOTepoc -1oci' ra-lv.
I Professor Sellars, indeed, in Philosophical Review lxiv (i9g5) pp. 40o sq., contends
that Plato's doctrine did not involve Self-Predication, and that the first part of the
Parmenides (including the TMA, of which the 'key premise' is Self-Predication) is a
deliberate repudiation on Plato's part of self-predicational interpretations of his Forms.
But this view is convincingly rebutted by Professor Vlastos in the same number of the
same periodical, pp. 444-7; and in Classical Quarterly N.S. vi (1956) pp. 29 sq. I have
argued inter alia that the Self-Predication Assumption does not constitute the substance
of any of the objections brought in the Parmenides against the theory of Forms. To this
I have only one point to add. In summing up the 'upshot' of the first part of the Parmenides,
Sellars says that the temptation to construe the Forms after the manner of the 'seeds' or
'roots' of the Pluralists (so that whole or part of the Form is 'in' things) 'arises from
supposing that in order for the Hot Itself to explain the heat of hot objects, it must itself
be hot, i.e. be the Fire of Empedocles. How, it is thought, can something make things
hot, if it isn't hot itself? But this assumption can be shown to involve a regress (the
Third Man)' (p. 43S). If this were the train of thought, why does not Plato make it
plain? So far from saying that the cause of the largeness of large things need not itself
be large, he suggests that it would be unreasonable to suppose that it was something
smaller than Largeness (13id). Moreover, Plato's examples here are (not the Hot,
but) the Large, the Small and the Equal, examples taken from the Phoedo, and in the
Phoedo the Equal certainly is 'equal' (74d). The sort of link that Sellars finds between
the discussion of participation and the TMA is not to be found in the text.
120
Here Self-Predication is involved by the very phrase 8o Eatr 8getrIr4: yet
it seems to be implied that this Form is not an &v"Op&troq. Again I suggest
that we must not expect an intelligible standard to have the charac-
teristics that we should expect to find in a sensible standard. It can still
be a standard without them. Geach 1, commenting on this passage of the
Parmenides, compares the use of the hypostatizing definite article in
English, in (for example) 'the lion has sharp claws', and the comparison
is useful provided that we remember (a) that Plato draws no distinction
between these Forms of natural kinds and Forms described by abstract
nouns or the article with the neuter adjective, which are pure and
perfect instances of a determinate character, and (b) that Plato's Forms
were not mere concepts, at least as we understand them, but 6vt&wq ovTr.
But if Master and Equal are self-predicational, surely, it may still be
objected, they must really be what we call them? And how can the Form
Master be a real master without being a man, or the Equal be really
equal if it is incomposite, of simple nature, and not equal to anything
else? All depends on what is meant by 'real'. For Plato, that is real which-
is not relative to a subject, independent of circumstances, incomposite,
eternal and unchanging. A human master will be a master only so long
as he lives and continues to have servants, and the fact that he cannot be
one for ever (which, for Plato, would make him unsatisfactory as a
'pattern') is a direct consequence of his being a man; furthermore, a man
who is master of some men may himself be a servant of others; and if
Plato chooses to baptize a Form that is not a man 'Master', that, for him,
is the real Master.2 In the Platonic view, man is made in the image of a
Form: it is not the other way about. Hence it is possible for Plato to
regard something incomposite as the paradeigmatic Equal, while ac-
knowledging that its manifestations in sensible objects must always
appear in sets of two or more. In other words, as Cherniss has said 3,
1 Ioc. cit. pp. 74-7.

2 In Classical Quarterly N.S. vI (19i6) p. 32 I have claimed that the objection to the
theory of Forms in which the Master-Slave correlation is discussed (Parm. 133b sq.)
does not result, as Cornford thought, from a confusion of Forms with perfect instances
of those Forms, because Plato is concerned with the Form of Master. cur6q 8eyorrl,
6 lCa-rL 8eaEcr6'vS4, is a Form, and the Form of Master will not be just a perfect instance of
a human master. In fact, it will not be a person at all (for the reason given above). It may
be that we should identify what this expression refers to with what is denoted by x'u
ean&r6eto, but if so we should take the two expressions to refer to a Form which is
(so to speak) 'what it takes to make a master'. That is the real 'master'.
3 Aristotle's~ Criticism of Plato and the Academy vol. I, p. 2 85.
I 2 1
the Form Equal has no correlative, any more than Sameness has.' Some
'relational' Forms 2, such as Master and (presumably) 'r ocuTo8trX'o,
have their being in relation to other Forms, though this does not make
them dependent on circumstances in the same way as phenomenal
relatives are. The Form Master cannot also be a servant, nor can the
auCoTL7rXcLov, like a sensible 'double', be also a half. Other 'relational'
Forms, such as Equal and Same, have no correlative at all. If they had one
within themselves, so to speak - the Equal, for instance, consisting of
two or more things - they would no longer be incomposite; while if
there were two Forms of (for example) Equal, correlative to each
other 3, the rule would be broken that there can only be one paradigm.
But Plato is at liberty to regard the incomposite Equal which has no
correlative as the real Equal, that to which the name really belongs.
What then is the nature of the similarity between Forms and their
particulars - the similarity that justifies us in calling particulars by the
names of Forms? In what way can a Form and its instances have a
common predicate? The Form, we may say, is X because that is how we
have chosen to baptize it 4, while its instances derive their right to be
called X from the fact that they remind us of the Form. (We do not, of
course, abstract our notion of the Form from particulars; our notion of
the nature of particulars is derived from the Form.) Such differences as
we have noted between certain Forms and their instances are simply
part of the 'falling short' of phenomena. But there is a character common
to a Form and its instances. The Republic, indeed, emphasizes the
indeterminacy of phenomena. Doubles, says Socrates (479a sq.), are
1 Cf. (with Cherniss) Soph. 254d-2gSc, 2S6a-b, also Met. loi8a 7-9, 1o02a 8-14;
and Proclus In Parm. v, p. 199 Cousin: kvroraOm i.Ldv yap -r6 6.LOov r7 6tiol O'pLOV,
xaxl 'r6 t(ov ?C6 tercp faov, xod 8No 7rp&ayFrca &carl 'roUMXLarOV T'M 6.LOLa xal 'r& ram &)XX otq
&xet &L 81 [ 6pto6rq xxl u t m a6'r vq xct mrA? kmu'rq o4am x.o oux &?Xou tLv64.
3 i.e. those Forms (such as Master or Equal) of which any phenomenal instance must
have a correlative. Cf. p. II , note 2.
3 Alexander (In Met. ed. Hayduck p. 83, 17 sq.), who thinks that if the absolute Equal
were equal to nothing it would not be equal at all, makes the suggestion that there would
have to be two Forms of Equal a reductio ad absurdum of the idea that there could be
Forms corresponding to relative terms. It seems significant that he never even suggests
the possibility that the Equal might be regarded as composed of two or more parts.
4 Geach (1ic. cit. p. 74) remarks that there is some doubt whether the Standard Pound
may properly be called a pound because you cannot measure or weigh a standard against
itself. Vlastos (loc. cit. p. 88) suggests that it may be so called in a derivative sense, since
it 'has the same weight as that of objects which have been (or, can be) found to weigh
the same as the Standatd Pound'. I would suggest that the Standard Pound may be called
a pound because that is how we have chosen to baptize it.
1 22
just as much halves as they are doubles; but he is thinking, of course, of
the different relationships in which they may stand to different things,
and it is the same thought that leads him to ask, 'Whatever any one of
these many things may be said to be, can you say that it is that any more
than that it is not that?' Against this may be set the passage in the
Phaedo (io2b sq.) which makes it clear that in so far as he partakes of thc
Tall, Simmias is tall: the 'tallness which is in us' is certainly not 'also
short', nor can it be said that it 'is not tall'.' There is no need to suppose
that the Republic supercedes this doctrine.2 The Republic passage is
concerned with the y6koOUrc'4wv's interest in phenomena, regardless of
Forms, and no sensible object or act manifests just one Form in absolute
purity; such objects are always complex, which is one of the reasons
for the indeterminacy of instances of Forms. But there is a 'tallness which
is in us', so that we have a right to be called tall. In the same way there
may really be a 'master (or mastership) wlhich is in us'. In some cases,
such as 'straight' or 'circular', Plato perhaps thought that the Form-copy
which was in things was very imperfect, but even so, a character that was
deficiently F could not be said to be a dffcrent character, F'; because of
its approximation to F, and the fact that it derives its likeness to F from
the Form F, it may reasonably be called F. The character of the Form F
and the character of F particulars are only metaphysically different: they
are not two different characters.3 We are therefore justified in regarding
the Form as the standard to which phenomena may be referred.
1 Phaedo 102d-e. The ontological status of the 'tallness which is in us' is left very uncer-
tain. It may 'depart or perish', and this is a limitation which, one might think, would
make it indeterminate in Plato's eyes. But from what he says about it it is clear that we
are justified in applying the predicate 'tall' to anything in which it is found.
2 See p. I i, note 2.
3 Vlastos (Philosophical Review Ixiv [igSS] p. 444, note 4; cf. Ixiii 119541 PP. 340-3)
thinks that Plato's Separation and Degrees-of-Reality Theory 'imply that the F of the
Form is not the same as the F of its homonymous instances', but Sellars (ib. p. 41 o)
seems to be right in saying that 'these metaphysically different ways of being F are not,
in the usual sense, specific or determinate ways of being F. The subscripts would belong
to the "being" rather than to the 'F" in "being F"'. In fact, I see no reason why the
additional 'Form of Largeness' which, according to the second step of the TMA (I 32a6
sq.), is presupposed by the juxtaposition of the original Form and its instances, should
according to the argument be anything but a twin brother of the original Form. Nothing
in the text suggests that it will be in any way different: it is simply 'another Form of
Largeness, over and above Largeness itself'. Moreover, Vlastos (p. 44o) points out that
the conclusion of the TMA ('And you will no longer have in every case a single Form,
but an indefinite number') is meant to be the contradictory of the initial hypothesis 'that
there is in every case a single Form'. In the case of Largeness, this premise was that
1 23
Finally, if Forms are standards, what of the Third Man Argument
(TMA) in the Parmenides? If, when a Form was grouped with its homo-
nymous particulars, we had to assume a further Form to account for the
similarity between them, the original Form could hardly be regarded as
a standard after all. The answer, in my view 1, is that Plato means us to
infer from the Parmenides that the positing of a further Form is not
necessary. The TMA is a reductio ad absurdtum of false views of the circum-
stances in which a Form must be posited: we do not have to posit a
new one every time we find a group of things that are called by the same
name X, or resemble each other in respect of being X. All that is
necessary is that there should be one Form to be the 'standard', even if
we happen to be treating that Form as (qua an X) a member of the group
of X things (which we may properly do if we wish). In other words,
what Vlastos calls the Non-identity Assumption was not a part of Plato's
theory. This Assumption Vlastos states thus: 'If anything has a certain
character, it cannot be identical with the Form in virtue of which we
apprehend that character. If x is F, x cannot be identical with F-ness
[I would rather say, with the Form F]'. This, in my view, is the fallacy
(intentionally inserted) in the TMA. As the matter is of some importance
to the question whether Forms are standards, I shall conclude with a few
comments on Mr Geach's analysis of the TMA.
Mr Geach remarks that Self-Predication and the Non-identity As-
sumption, both of which are to be found in the TMA, are not only
inconsistent, but formally contradictory (for "no F is identical with
F-ness" is equivalent to "F-ness is no F") and 'such a thorough muddle
is not lightly to be attributed to Plato'. I should have thought that a
moment's reflexion must have made it obvious to Plato himself that the
TMA involves both assumptions. You could not suggest grouping the
Form F with F particulars as having something in common without
seeing that you were suggesting that the Form shared this character with
the particulars; and the moment you go on to suggest that the Form
responsible for this character is to be found outside the group, you are
'Largeness is a single thing', and on my view the conclusion gives us an indefinite number
of (identical) Forms of Largeness; but according to Vlastos (loc. cit.) we end up not
with innumerable 'Largenesses', but with innumerable Forms that differ from each
other determinately and need to be differentiated, in analysis, by numerical subscripts.
I argued for my view of the TMA in Classical Quarterly N.S. vi (1956) pp. 29 sq. At the
same time I criticized Vlastos' view (Philosophical Review lXIII [I 9 S41 pp. 319 sq.). The
discussions by Professor Sellars and Mr. Geach (Philosophical Review lxiv [i9g5J pp. 405
sq.; lxv [I9 561 pp. 72 sq.) appeared after my article had gone to press.
124
very obviously implying that it cannot be the original Form which is in
the group. My conclusion would be that Plato could not have failed to
see this, and that his purpose in setting forth the argument must have
been to see whether his readers could spot the fallacy too: the fallacy
being, not Self-Predication, which Plato seems to have accepted, but the
Nonidentity Assumption. But Geach, although he 'would not lightly
impute' to Plato a muddle from the use of contradictory premisses,
nevertheless includes them both in his own list of 'Plato's implicit
assumptions in the TMA', 1 while looking elsewhere for 'a buried and
unobvious inconsistency of the set'.2
Geach believes, like Vlastos, that the TMA is 'the record of honest
perplexity'. Plato asserts 'p' and then states an argument with 'not-p' as
its conclusion, but was never able to track down or formulate the hiidden
inconsistency in its premises. Geach's list of 'Plato's implicit assumptions
in the TMA' 3 iS so important for the bringing out of my argument that
I must reproduce it:
(i) There is a set consisting just of the many Fs that are not Forns.
(2) If x is a Form by whichy is made to be an F, theny is not a Form
by which x is made to be an F.
(3) If A is a set of several Fs, and x is an F not belonging to A, then
there is a set of Fs containing just the members of A together
with x.
(4a) Some F is a Form by which all other Fs are made to be Fs.
(4b) Any set consisting of several Fs are all of them made to be Fs by
a Form that is itself an F.
From (2), he tells us, there immediately follows: (2a) x is not itself a
Form by which x is made to be an F.
Geach finds that failure to formulate and distinguish (4a) and (4b)
was what made Plato unable to locate the source of the contradiction to
which these premisses lead.4 Using all of them except (3), he deduces
(g) that there is one and only one F that is a Form making all other Es
to be Fs (call it w), but at the same time (7) that there can be no set
of Fs to whiclh w belongs together with other Fs; and this means
dropping (3). In fact, the real answer, according to Geach, had Plato
1 Geach's (4a), 4b) and (2a): Philosophical Review lxv (1956) pp. 77-8.
2 p. 72
3 i.e. those Forms (such as Master or Equal) of which any phenomenal instance must
have a correlative. Cf. p. II5, note 2.
4 p. 80.
I 25
only realised it, is that the Form F cannot be grouped with F particulars
in one and the same class of Fs.
Vlastos, criticizing this argument, points out that Plato, in treating
Justice as pre-eminently just, certainly leads us to think of it as the out-
standing member of the class of just things; and he further observes that
if there is a world of difference between talking about 'several large
things' and assuming a 'set' of large things, we have no evidence for
believing that Plato assumed either (i) or (3).1 Vlastos also remarks that
since Geach uses both (4a) and (4b) to deduce his (7), which is acceptable
in itself though incompatible with (3), he must really hold that (3) is
'the source of the contradiction'.2 How did it happen, then, that
Geach thought he had found it in the difference between (4a) and (4b)?
Geach says,3 'If we add both of these assumptions [(4a) and (4b)] to
the set (i), (2), (3), we obtain an inconsistent set.. . From (2) and (4a)
we infer:
(5) There is just one F that is a Form by which all other Fs are made
to be Fs...
On the other hand, from (i), (2), (2a), (3), (4b), we infer:
(6b) There is an unending series of Fs, each of which is a Form by
which the Fs that are not Forms are made to be Fs; (6b) there is
no F that is a Form by which all other Fs are made to be Fs.'
Now I should say that it leaps to the eye - and study of his proofs, which
it would be tedious to reproduce here, confirms the impression - that
the real source of the discrepancy is not (4a) or (4b), or even (3), but
(2a), which we were not told was going to be added, and has found its
way in uninvited. When we look back for its credentials, we find that
it was said 4 that it 'immediately follows' from (2). But does it? Surely
there is no conceivable way of deducing (2a) from (2). Certainly it is
one of the tacit assumptions of the TMfA, but it does not 'immediately
follow' from (2), and deserves special attention. So far, however, from
receiving such attention, it is almost a tacit assumption in Geach. Thus
in seeking to 'bring out' the difference between (4a) and (4b), he gives
the following as 'a parallel pair of statements': 5
(I) There is a man from whom all other men are descended.
(II) Any set of several men are all of them descended from some one man.
' ib. pp. 84-7-

2 p. 8 5, note i.
3 pp. 78-9.
4 p. 78.
6 p. 78.
1 26
Needless to say, if (II) is regarded as parallel to (4b), the idea of (2a),
alias the Non-identity Assumption, must somehow have become in-
corporated into (4b); for (4b) by itself does not preclude the possibility
that the F which makes a group of Fs to be F may itself be a member of
the group, whereas in the case of (II) there is no possibility that the man
from whom a group of men are descended should himself be a member
of that group.
Geach's view, then, is an example of what seems to me a general
unwillingness to recognize the Non-identity Assumption as the sole and
obvious fallacy of the TMA as a criticism of Plato's theory. There is no
evidence that this was an assumption that Plato ever made, and no
reason to suppose that a Form could not, in his opinion, be responsible
(under the Good) for its own nature.' And if Plato was aware of the
fallacy of the TMA, having purposely inserted it, and was in fact repudi-
ating the Non-identity Assumption, our remaining possible objection to
regarding Forms as standards is overcome. So long as we remember that
for Plato reality was vomTr6V, and that Platonic standards will be vonTrm
and not incorporate the peculiarities of aca0nra, we may accept the
analogy of the Standard Pound. That analogy is certainly valuable, but
we must be prepared to accept the consequences of the fact that
Platonic Form-standards were supra-sensible.
1 The statement r6, xaB?p mtvTr mT& xcX&X xcBX& (Phaedo l oo d) could of course be taken to
mean that the Form r6 xoc,6v, like all other xmx>&, derives its nature from -r6 xik6v (itself)
But Iwould notsuggest that Plato was consciously implying that when he wrote these
words.
Quecn Mary Collegc, London.
1 27

Form As Standards Block 1957 Phronesis Vol 2

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Form As Standards Block 1957 Phronesis Vol 2

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Forms as Standards

PLATO called his Forms 7=pxazy,uaToct, and he is taken to mean that

1 As he did to Mr. P. T. Geach (Philosophical Review lxv [1956] p. 74).

1 Ioc. cit. pp. 74-7.

' ib. pp. 84-7-

Quecn Mary Collegc, London.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen