Philosophy: Ancient: Forms

The Peri ideôn (On Ideas) is the only work in which Aristotle systematically sets out and criticizes arguments for the existence of Platonic forms. Gail Fine presents the first full-length treatment in English of this important but neglected work. She asks how, and how well, Aristotle understands Plato's theory of forms, and why and with what justification he favors an alternative metaphysical scheme. She examines the significance of the Peri ideôn for some central questions about Plato's theory of forms--whether, for example, there are forms corresponding to every property or only to some, and if only to some, then to which ones; whether forms are universals, particulars or both; and whether they are meanings, properties or both. Fine also provides a general discussion of Plato's theory of forms, and of our evidence about the Peri ideôn and its date, scope, and aims. While she pays careful attention to the details of the text, she also relates it to contemporary philosophical concerns. The book will be valuable for anyone interested in metaphysics ancient or modern.
Contents: Text and translation -- Introduction -- Evidence, provenance, and chronology -- Platonic questions -- The arguments from the sciences : forms and knowledge -- Forms of artefacts -- Plato and the arguments from the sciences -- The one over many argument : forms and predication -- The object of thought argument : forms and thought -- The argument from relatives -- Completeness and compresence : Owen on the argument from relatives -- Kath' hauto and pros ti -- Aristotle's objections to the argument from relatives -- The accurate one over many argument -- Third man arguments -- Is Plato vulnerable to the third man argument?

This book is a collection of dovetailing essays which together interpret and assess the chief arguments and texts which make up Plato's cosmology. Arguments in the Timaeus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws X are analyzed with an eye to problems which affect the wider understanding of Plato's metaphysics, theology, epistemology, psychology, and physics. New interpretations are given to Plato's views on the role and characteristics of his craftsman God, the nature and status of Forms, the nature of time and eternity, the status and nature of space and the phenomenal realm, and the nature of and relations between reason, souls, bodies, and motion.