Plato's Introduction of Forms (review)
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Russell Dancy's recent book could easily bear the title, 'A Socratic Theory of Definition'. The first two-thirds of the text extract and examine various tenets of a "theory of definition" operative in a variety of Socratic dialogues. The bulk of the theory is captured in three conditions on adequacy for a definition (80–81): (i) the definiens must be substitutable salve veritate for the definiendum; (ii) the definiens must give a paradigm or standard by comparison with which cases of the definiendum may be determined; and (iii) the definiens must explain the application of the definiendum.
According to Dancy, any existential admissions Socrates and his interlocutors might make as they test and reject candidate definitions of individual virtues serve only to fix a topic for discussion; it is not until "stage two" of Plato's theorizing that Socratic definitional presuppositions become invested with metaphysical significance. Still, the initial theory of definition does not develop in a philosophical vacuum. Socrates is concerned most of all with ethical matters. Given his Intellectualist Assumption ("to know that . . . F—, one must be able to say what the F, or F-ness, is"), Socrates believes that definitions of ethical terms are required in order to determine how one ought to live. An account of the pious is required in order to determine whether or not Euthyphro's particular course of action is pious. Socrates' quest for definitions is subordinate to his ethical interests.
Dancy's developmental thesis is that the journey from mere definition to a metaphysics of separate forms travels through, among other places, the Phaedo. Like the early Socrates, the Socrates of the Phaedo requires that someone who knows F be able to define F. According to the dialogue's theory of recollection, definition and knowledge are possible only because human inquirers encounter objects of knowledge before birth. Preexisting, bodiless souls enjoy cognitive access to imperceptible, intelligible forms. Support for the imperceptible status of the objects of definition comes from the "Argument from Relativity." In bare outline (18):
(P1) There is such a thing as the F.
(P2) Any ordinary F is also contrary to F.
(P3) The F is never contrary to F.
(C) Therefore, the F is not the same as any ordinary F.
The Socratic dialogues set the stage for the argument without, in fact, realizing its broadest consequences. According to Dancy, the devices Socrates had
for showing that the beautiful is not a beautiful girl or gold or a long and satisfying life are generalizable to show that the beautiful is nothing on earth. The generalization is the Argument from Relativity and the conclusion of the Argument from Relativity is the Theory of Forms.
(283)
In the Phaedo, Plato proposes that perceptibles suffer flux insofar as each perceptible F is also contrary to F. Every perceptible fails the no-relativity requirement of (P3), so no perceptible [End Page 485] can serve as an object of definition. The thesis that the things about which Socrates has been asking "What is it?" are not perceptible is Plato's stage-two innovation (247).
A brief review cannot do justice to Dancy's detailed argumentation or take up many of the questions his provocative proposals raise. I mention only one issue worth further consideration: the relationship between the theory of definition and metaphysics. Dancy frequently remarks that Socratic dialogues depict "ordinary Greek" language use with no commitments to particular metaphysical theories. Socrates seeks definitions and explanations "by content." But there is a fair bit of space fit for occupation on the spectrum between a fully, explicitly articulated theory of forms (Platonic or otherwise) and bare existential admissions; and it is unclear just how metaphysically neutral Socrates' theory of definition can remain (as perhaps Dancy allows in chapter 7, when the theory is revealed to incorporate some form of self-predication and elements of a transmission theory of causality). The details of the relationships between epistemological and metaphysical commitments become important in coming to understand Plato's reasons for separating his...
