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Single Idea 16122

[from 'The Sophist' by Plato, in 8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / a. Platonic Forms ]

Full Idea

It takes dialectic to divide things by kinds...such a person can discriminate a single form spread through a lot of separate things…and forms included in a single outside form…or a form connected as a unit through many wholes.

Gist of Idea

Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form

Source

Plato (The Sophist [c.359 BCE], 253d)

Book Reference

Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.276


A Reaction

[compressed] This is very helpful in indicating the complex structure of the Forms that Plato envisages. If you talk of the meanings of words (other than names), though, it comes to the same thing. Wise people fully understand their language.