Importance of founding logical Partition on resemblances perceived by sense.
The reasons given for this preference deserve attention. In these common matters (he tells us) the resemblances upon which Forms are founded are perceived by sense, and can be exhibited to every one, so that the form is readily understood and easily discriminated. The general terms can there be explained by reference to sense. But in regard to incorporeal matters, the higher and grander topics of discussion, there is no corresponding sensible illustration to consult. These objects can be apprehended only by reason, and described only by general terms. By means of these general terms, we must learn to give and receive rational explanations, and to follow by process of reasoning from one form to another. But this is more difficult, and requires a higher order of mind, where there are no resemblances or illustrations exposed to sense. Accordingly, we select the common sensible objects as an easier preparatory mode of a process substantially the same in both.[166]
[166] Plato, Politik. pp. 285 E — 286 A. τοὺς πλείστους λέληθεν ὅτι τοῖς μὲν τῶν ὄντων ῥᾳδίως καταμαθεῖν αἰσθηταί τινες ὁμοιότητες πεφύκασιν, ἃς οὐδὲν χαλεπὸν δηλοῦν, ὅταν αὐτῶν τις βουλήθῃ τῷ λόγον αἰτοῦντι περὶ του, μὴ μετὰ πραγμάτων ἀλλὰ χωρὶς λόγου ῥᾳδίως ἐνδείξασθαι· τοῖς δ’ αὖ μεγίστοις οὖσι καὶ τιμιωτάτοις οὐκ ἔστιν εἴδωλον οὐδὲν πρὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους εἰργασμένον ἐναργῶς, οὗ δειχθέντος, &c.
About the εἴδωλον εἰργασμένον ἐναργῶς, which is affirmed in one of these two cases and denied in the other, compare a striking analogy in the Phædrus, p. 250 A-E.
Province of sensible perception — is not so much narrowed by Plato here as it is in the Theætêtus.
This explanation given by Plato, in itself just, deserves to be compared with his view of sensible objects as knowable, and of sense as a source of knowledge. I noticed in a preceding chapter the position which Sokrates is made to lay down in the Theætêtus,[167] — That (αἴσθησις) sensible perception reaches only to the separate impressions of sense, and does not apprehend the likeness and other relations between them. I have also noticed the contrast which he establishes elsewhere between Esse and Fieri: i.e., between Ens which alone (according to him) is knowable, and the perpetual flux of Fientia which is not knowable at all, but is only matter of opinion or guess-work. Now in the dialogue before us, the Politikus, there is no such marked antithesis between opinion and knowledge. Nor is the province of αἴσθησις so strictly confined: on the contrary, Plato here considers sensible perception as dealing with Entia, and as appreciating resemblances and other relations between them. It is by an attentive study and comparison of these facts of sense that Forms are detected. “When a man (he says) has first perceived by sense the points of communion between the Many, he must not desist from attentive observation until he has discerned in that communion all the differences which reside in Forms: and when he has looked at the multifarious differences which are visible among these Many, he must not rest contented until he has confined all such as are really cognate within one resemblance, tied together by the essence of one common Form.”[168]
[167] Plato, Theæt. pp. 185-186. See above [p. 161].
[168] Plato, Politikus, p. 285 B. δέον, ὅταν μὲν τὴν τῶν πολλῶν τις πρότερον αἴσθηται κοινωνίαν, μὴ προαφίστασθαι πρὶν ἂν ἐν αὐτῇ τὰς διαφορὰς ἴδῃ πάσας ὁπόσαι περ ἐν εἴδεσι κεῖνται· τὰς δὲ αὖ παντοδαπὰς ἀνομοιότητας, ὅταν ἐν πλήθεσιν ὀφθῶσι, μὴ δυνατὸν εἶναι δυσωπούμενον παύεσθαι, πρὶν ἂν ξύμπαντα τὰ οἰκεῖα ἐντὸς μιᾶς ὁμοιότητος ἕρξας γένους τινὸς οὐσίᾳ περιβάληται.
Comparison of the Sophistês with the Phædrus.
These passages may be compared with others of similar import in the Phædrus.[169] Plato here considers the Form, not as an Entity per se separate from and independent of the particulars, but as implicated in and with the particulars: as a result reached by the mind through the attentive observation and comparison of particulars: as corresponding to what is termed in modern language abstraction and generalisation. The self-existent Platonic Ideas do not appear in the Politikus:[170] which approximates rather to the Aristotelian doctrine:— that is, the doctrine of the universal, logically distinguishable from its particulars, but having no reality apart from them (χωριστὰ λόγῳ μόνον). But in other dialogues of Plato, the separation between the two is made as complete as possible, especially in the striking passages of the Republic: wherein we read that the facts of sense are a delusive juggle — that we must turn our back upon them and cease to study them — and that we must face about, away from the sensible world, to contemplate Ideas, the separate and unchangeable furniture of the intelligible world — and that the whole process of acquiring true Cognition, consists in passing from the higher to the lower Forms or Ideas, without any misleading illustrations of sense.[171] Here, in the Sophistês and Politikus, instead of having the Universal behind our backs when the particulars are before our faces, we see it in and amidst particulars: the illustrations of sense, instead of deluding us, being declared to conduce, wherever they can be had, to the clearness and facility of the process.[172] Here, as well as in the Phædrus, we find the process of Dialectic emphatically recommended, but described as consisting mainly in logical classification of particulars, ascending and descending divisions and conjunctions, as Plato calls them[173] — analysis and synthesis. We are enjoined to divide and analyse the larger genera into their component species until we come to the lowest species which can no longer be divided: also, conversely, to conjoin synthetically the subordinate species until the highest genus is attained, but taking care not to omit any of the intermediate species, in their successive gradations.[174] Throughout all this process, as described both in the Phædrus and in the Politikus, the eye is kept fixed upon the constituent individuals. The Form is studied in and among the particulars which it comprehends: the particulars are looked at in groups put together suitably to each comprehending Form. And in both dialogues, marked stress is laid upon the necessity of making the division dichotomous; as well as according to Forms, and not according to fractions which are not legitimate Forms.[175] Any other method, we are told, would be like the wandering of a blind man.