[Footnote 576: ][ (return) ] Confutation is the greatest and chiefest of purification.--"Sophist," § 34.
[Footnote 577: ][ (return) ] Article "Plato," Encyclopædia Britannica.
By the application of this method, Plato had not only exposed the insufficiency and self-contradiction of all results obtained by a mere à posteriori generalization of the simple facts of experience, but he demonstrated, as a consequence, that we are in possession of some elements of knowledge which have not been derived from sensation; that there are, in all minds, certain notions, principles, or ideas, which have been furnished by a higher faculty than sense; and that these notions, principles, or ideas, transcend the limits of experience, and reveal the knowledge of real being--τὸ ὄντως ὄν--Being in se.
To determine what these principles or ideas are, Plato now addresses himself to the analysis of thought. "It is the glory of Plato to have borne the light of analysis into the most obscure and inmost region; he searched out what, in this totality which forms consciousness, is the province of reason; what comes from it, and not from the imagination and the senses--from within, and not from without." [578] Now to analyze is to decompose, that is, to divide, and to define, in order to see better that which really is. The chief logical instruments of the dialectic method are, therefore, Division and Definition. "The being able to divide according to genera, and not to consider the same species as different, nor a different as the same," [579] and "to see under one aspect, and bring together under one general idea, many things scattered in various places, that, by defining each, a person may make it clear what the subject is," is, according to Plato, "dialectical." [580]
[Footnote 578: ][ (return) ] Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 328.
[Footnote 579: ][ (return) ] "Sophist," § 83.
[Footnote 280: ][ (return) ] "Phædrus," §§ 109, 111.
We have already seen that, in his first efforts at applying reflection to the concrete phenomena of consciousness, Plato had recognized two distinct classes of cognitions, marked by characteristics essentially opposite;--one of "sensible" objects having a definite outline, limit, and figure, and capable of being imaged and represented to the mind in a determinate form--the other of "intelligible" objects, which can not be outlined or represented in the memory or the imagination by any figures or images, and are, therefore, the objects of purely rational conception. He found, also, that we arrive at one class of cognitions "mediately" through images generated in the vital organism, or by some testimony, definition, or explication of others; whilst we arrive at the other class "immediately" by simple intuition, or rational apperception. The mind stands face to face with the object, and gazes directly upon it. The reality of that object is revealed in its own light, and we find it impossible to refuse our assent--that is, it is self-evident. One class consisted of contingent ideas--that is, their objects are conceived as existing, with the possibility, without any contradiction, of conceiving of their non-existence; the other consisted of necessary ideas--their objects are conceived as existing with the absolute impossibility of conceiving of their non-existence. Thus we can conceive of this book, this table, this earth, as not existing, but we can not conceive the non-existence of space. We can conceive of succession in time as not existing, but we can not, in thought, annihilate duration. We can imagine this or that particular thing not to have been, but we can not conceive of the extinction of Being in itself. He further observed, that one class of our cognitions are conditional ideas; the existence of their objects is conceived only on the supposition of some antecedent existence, as for example, the idea of qualities, phenomena, events; whilst the other class of cognitions are unconditional and absolute--we can conceive of their objects as existing independently and unconditionally--existing whether any thing else does or does not exist, as space, duration, the infinite, Being in se. And, finally, whilst some ideas appear in us as particular and individual, determined and modified by our own personality and liberty, there are others which are, in the fullest sense, universal. They are not the creations of our own minds, and they can not be changed by our own volitions. They depend upon neither times, nor places, nor circumstances; they are common to all minds, in all times, and in all places. These ideas are the witnesses in our inmost being that there is something beyond us, and above us; and beyond and above all the contingent and fugitive phenomena around us. Beneath all changes there is a permanent being. Beyond all finite and conditional existance there is something unconditional and absolute. Having determined that there are truths which are independent of our own minds--truths which are not individual, but universal--truths which would be truths even if our minds did not perceive them, we are led onward to a super-sensual and super-natural ground, on which they rest.
To reach this objective reality on which the ideas of reason repose, is the grand effort of Plato's dialectic. He seeks, by a rigid analysis, clearly to separate, and accurately to define the à priori conceptions of reason. And it was only when he had eliminated every element which is particular, contingent, and relative, and had defined the results in precise and accurate language, that he regarded the process as complete. The ideas which are self-evident, universal, and necessary, were then clearly disengaged, and raised to their pure and absolute form. "You call the man dialectical who requires a reason of the essence or being of each thing. As the dialectical man can define the essence of every thing, so can he of the good. He can define the idea of the good, separating it from all others--follow it through all windings, as in a battle, resolved to mark it, not according to opinion, but according to science." [581]
[Footnote 581: ][ (return) ] "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.