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Single Idea 12043

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / a. Platonic Forms ]

Full Idea

Despite a widely misinterpreted passage in the Republic, Plato does not think that there is a Form for every general term; Forms are not what came to be called universals.

Gist of Idea

Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term

Source

report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction Ch.5

Book Ref

Annas,Julia: 'Ancient Philosophy: a very short introduction' [OUP 2000], p.82

A Reaction

Hm. This is a bit of a blow to someone who has catalogued Platonic Forms under 'Universals'. See also Idea 12042, for what Annas thinks Plato may really have had in mind.

Related Idea

Idea 12042 Plato's Forms were seen as part of physics, rather than of metaphysics [Plato, by Annas]

The 26 ideas with the same theme [Plato's separate reality of pure ideas]:

7996 I am all the beauty and goodness of things, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)]
1652 Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle]
16151 Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M]
211 If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato]
210 It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato]
219 If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato]
220 The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato]
228 Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato]
360 We must have a prior knowledge of equality, if we see 'equal' things and realise they fall short of it [Plato]
154 We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato]
5094 Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle]
12043 Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas]
2159 Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato]
16122 Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato]
10422 The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato]
1607 Diotima said the Forms are the objects of desire in philosophical discourse [Plato, by Roochnik]
12042 Plato's Forms were seen as part of physics, rather than of metaphysics [Plato, by Annas]
307 Something will always be well-made if the maker keeps in mind the eternal underlying pattern [Plato]
318 In addition to the underlying unchanging model and a changing copy of it, there must also be a foundation of all change [Plato]
321 For knowledge and true opinion to be different there must be Forms; otherwise we are just stuck with sensations [Plato]
3039 When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius]
17948 Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas]
20906 Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle]
10948 Forms are said to be substances to which nothing is prior [Aristotle]
17945 Forms are not a theory of universals, but an attempt to explain how predication is possible [Nehamas]
4472 Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland]