The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 4 of 5: Translated Into English, With Analyses and Introductions (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 4 of 5: Translated Into English, With Analyses and Introductions

Sophist, and therefore on the Politicus (cp. Theaet. I83 E, Soph. But the objection is in reality fanciful, and rests on the assumption that the doctrine of the Ideas was held by Plato throughout his life in the same form. For the truth is, that the Platonic Ideas were in constant process of growth and trans mutation; sometimes veiled in poetry and mythology, then again emerging as fixed Ideas, in some passages regarded as absolute and eternal, and in others as relative to the human mind, existing in and derived from external objects as well as transcending them. The anammi: of the Ideas is chiefly insisted upon in the mythical portions of the dialogues, and really occupies a very small space in the entire works of Plato. Their transcendental existence is not asserted, and is therefore implicitly denied in the Philebus; difl'erent forms are ascribed to them in the Republic, and they are mentioned in the Theaetetus, the Sophist, the Politicus, and the Laws, much as Universals would be spoken of in modern books. Indeed, there are very faint traces oi' the transcendental doctrine of Ideas, that is, of their existence apart from the mind, in any of Plato's writings, with the exception of the Mona, the Phaedrus, the Phaedo, and in portions of the Republic. The stereotyped form which Aristotle has given to them is not found in Plato (cp. Essay on the Platonic Ideas in the Introduction to the0meno).

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