Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-09T22:48:51.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sensible Particulars in Plato's Ontology*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

F.C. White
F.C. White*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper I wish to argue as follows. Plato held, and stressed very strongly from the start, that the Forms are not subject to change. He seemed to hold that in this lies their main contrast with the sensible world. But at times, particularly in the middle dialogues, he was inclined to argue that the inferiority of the sensible world lies elsewhere; namely, in the fact that its objects are the bearers of opposite (contrary or contradictory) properties. I will argue, first, that this latter claim in its simplest and most direct form is inconsistent with other important claims made by Plato; second, that recent attempts to make the argument tighter and more consistent are unsuccessful. I will end by trying to show that what remains of the ‘argument from opposites’ when a number of necessary qualifications have been made, still leads to a clear and useful distinction between Forms and particulars.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 10 , 1976 , pp. 8 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Numbers in square brackets used in the footnotes refer to the list of references given at the end of the article.

References

[1]Allaire, E.B., ‘Bare Particulars’, Philosophical Studies 14 (1963). (Reprinted in Loux [23], pp. 235-44.)Google Scholar
[2]Allen, R.E., ‘Participation and Predication in Plato's Middle Dialogues’, Philosophical Review 69 (1960), 147–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3]Allen, R.E., ‘The Argument from Opposites in Republic V’, Review of Metaphysics 15(1961), 325–335.Google Scholar
[4]Ackrill, J.L., ‘Symploke Eidon’,BICS 2 (1955), 31–35.Google Scholar
[5]Ackrill, J.L., ‘Plato and the Copula, Sophist 251-9’, JHS 77 (1957), 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6]Bluck, R.S., Plato's Phaedo (London, 1955).Google Scholar
[7]Bluck, R.S., ‘False Statement in the Sophist’, JHS 77 (1957), 181–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8]Chappell, V.C., ‘Particulars Re-Clothed’, Philosophical Studies 15 (1964). (Reprinted in Loux [23], pp. 245-9.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[9]Cornford, F.M., Plato's Theory of Knowledge (London, 1953).Google Scholar
[10]Cresswell, M.J., ‘Essence and Existence in Plato and Aristotle’, Theoria 37 (1971), 91–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[11]Crombie, I.M., An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, Vol. ii (London, 1963).Google Scholar
[12]Cross, R.C.Woozley, A.D., Plato's Republic (London, 1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[13]Fowler, H.N., Plato:Phaedrus (Loeb, ed. 1914).Google Scholar
[14]Friedländer, P., Plato, The Dialogues, Vol. ii (London, 1964).Google Scholar
[15]Frutiger, P., Les Mythes de Platon (Paris, 1930).Google Scholar
[16]Gosling, J.C., ‘Republic, Book V, etc’, Phronesis 5 (1960), 116–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[17]Gulley, N., Plato's Theory of Knowledge (London, 1962).Google Scholar
[18]Guthrie, W.K.C., A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. iii (Cambridge, 1969).Google Scholar
[19]Hackforth, R., Plato's Phaedo (Cambridge, 1955).Google Scholar
[20]Hackforth, R., Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1952).Google Scholar
[21]Hardie, W.F.R., A Study in Plato (Oxford, 1936).Google Scholar
[22]Holland, A.J., ‘An Argument in Plato's Theaetetus: 184-6’, The Philosophical Quarterly 23, no. 91 (1973), 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[23]Loux, M.J., Universal and Particulars (New York, 1970).Google Scholar
[24]Meiland, J.W., ‘Do Relations Individuate?’, Philosophical Studies 17 (1966). (Re-printed in Loux [23], pp. 258-63).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[25]Mills, K.W., ‘Plato's Phaedo, 74 b 7 – c 6, Part 2’, Phronesis 3 (1958), 40–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[26]Murphy, N.R., The Interpretation of Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1951).Google Scholar
[27]Owen, G.E.L., ‘A Proof in the ’, JHS 77 (1957), 103–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[28]Owen, G.E.L., ‘The Place of the Timaeus in Plato's Dialogues’, CQ 3 (1953), 79–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[29]Peck, A.L., ‘Plato and the Meyiara of the Sophist’, CQ 2 (1952), 32–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[30]Peck, A.L., ‘Plato's Sophist’, Phronesis 7 (1962), 46–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[31]Robin, L., Phèdre, Platon, Oeuvres Completes, tome 4, pt.1 (ed. Budé) (Paris, 1960).Google Scholar
[32]Robinson, R., Plato's Earlier Dialectic (Oxford, 1952).Google Scholar
[33]Ross, D., Plato's Theory of Ideas (Oxford, 1951).Google Scholar
[34]Runciman, W.G., Plato's Later Epistemology (Cambridge, 1962).Google Scholar
[35]Sayre, K.M., Plato's Analytic Method (Chicago, 1969).Google Scholar
[36]Taylor, A.E., Plato, The Man & His Work6 (London, 1949).Google Scholar
[37]Vlastos, G., ‘Degrees of Reality in Plato’, New Essays on Plato & Aristotle (ed. Bambrough, ) (London, 1965).Google Scholar
[38]White, F.C., ‘A Passage of Some Elegance in the Theaetetus’, Phronesis 17 (1972), 219–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[39]White, F.C., ‘Protagoras Unbound’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supp. vol. No.1, Part I (1974).Google Scholar