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Peter Goldsbury · 03-31-2009, 07:32 PM

Quote:

David Henderson wrote:

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your response. I guess my question then would be, accepting your qualifying remarks, is on the unity of forms into some subsuming, unitary reality that transcends form itself -- I think this isn't something Plato professed; does this comport with your understanding?

PAG. Yes, it does. The Timaeus has a cosmology and some readers of Plato profess to see a kind of Hegelian dialectic going on. My French philosophy professor used to argue in this way, or that the Forms are ultimately numbers. However, scholars like the late Gregory Vlastos and Terence Irwin see the Thoery of Forms as very much a part of Plato's middle period. Aristotle, of course, attacked the Theory quite early on. This is partly why I myself do not care to speculate on whether Plato had any overriding aims with his Theory of Forms, such as Steve Earle suggests in his post.

Quote:

David Henderson wrote:

This kind of unity of forms, BTW, isn't the same as the idea of form itself, which conceptually, doesn't necessarily connote transcendence, unification, or "formlessness."

Regards,

cdh

PAG. Yes, of course.

Best wishes,

PAG