Aristotle
Whether their substantive existence is in and along with the objects
of sense, or apart and separable. Upon this task I shall not enter,
since it is of the greatest depth, and requires another larger
investigation; but shall try at once to show you how the ancients
(especially the Peripatetics), with a view to logical discourse,
dealt with the topics now propounded."[4]
[Footnote 4: Porphyry, Introd. in Categor. init. p. 1, a. 1, Schol.
Br.]
Before Porphyry, all these three problems had been largely debated,
first by Plato, next by Aristotle against Plato, again by the Stoics
against both, and lastly by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists as
conciliators of Plato with Aristotle. After Porphyry, problems the
same, or similar, continued to stand in the foreground of
speculation, until the authority of Aristotle became discredited at
all points by the influences of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. But in order to find the beginning of them, as questions
provoking curiosity and opening dissentient points of view to
inventive dialecticians, we must go back to the age and the dialogues
of Plato.
The real Sokrates (_i.e._ as he is described by Xenophon) inculcated
in his conversation steady reverence for the invisible, as apart from
and overriding the phenomena of sensible experience; but he
interpreted the term in a religious sense, as signifying the agency
of the personal gods, employed to produce effects beneficial or
injurious to mankind.[5] He also puts forth his dialectical acuteness
to prepare consistent and tenable definitions of familiar general
terms (of which instances have already been given), at least so far
as to make others feel, for the first time, that they did not
understand these terms, though they had been always talking like
persons that _did_ understand. But the Platonic Sokrates (_i.e._ as
spokesman in the dialogues of Plato) enlarges both these discussions
materially. Plato recognizes, not simply the invisible persons or
gods, but also a separate world of invisible, impersonal entities or
objects; one of which he postulates as the objective reality, though
only a cogitable reality, correlating with each general term. These
Entia he considers to be not merely distinct realities, but the only
true and knowable realities: they are eternal and unchangeable,
manifested by the fact that particulars partake in them, and
imparting a partial show of stability to the indeterminate flux of
particulars: unless such separate Universal Entia be supposed, there
is nothing whereon cognition can fasten, and consequently there can
be no cognition at all.[6] These are the substantive, self-existent
Ideas, or Forms that Plato first presented to the philosophical
world; sometimes with logical acuteness, oftener still with rich
poetical and imaginative colouring. They constitute the main body and
characteristic of the hypothesis of Realism.
[Footnote 5: Xenophon, Memorab. I. iv. 9-17; IV. iii. 14.]
[Footnote 6: Aristot. Metaphys. A. vi. p. 987, b. 5; M. iv. p. 1078,
b. 15.]
But, though the main hypothesis is the same, the accessories and
manner of presentation differ materially among its different
advocates. In these respects, indeed, Plato differs not only from
others, but also from himself. Systematic teaching or exposition is
not his purpose, nor does he ever give opinions in his own name. We
have from him an aggregate of detached dialogues, in many of which
this same hypothesis is brought under discussion, but in each
dialogue, the spokesmen approach it from a different side; while in
others (distinguished by various critics as the Sokratic dialogues)
it does not come under discussion at all, Plato being content to
remain upon the Sokratic platform, and to debate the meaning of
general terms without postulating in correlation with them an
objective reality, apart from their respective particulars.
At the close of the Platonic dialogue called Kratylus, Sokrates is
introduced as presenting the hypothesis of self-existent, eternal,
unchangeable Ideas (exactly in the way that Aristotle ascribes to
Plato) as the counter-proposition to the theory of universal flux and
change announced by Herakleitus. Particulars are ever changing (it is
here argued) and are thus out of the reach of cognition; but, unless
the Universal Ideas above them, such as the Self-beautiful, the
Self-good, &c., be admitted as unchangeable, objective realities,
there can be nothing either nameable or knowable: cognition becomes
impossible.
In the Timæus, Plato describes the construction of the Kosmos by a
Divine Architect, and the model followed by the latter in his work.
The distinction is here again brought out, and announced as capital,
between the permanent, unalterable Entia, and the transient,
ever-fluctuating Fientia, which come and go, but never really _are_.
Entia are apprehended by the cogitant or intelligent soul of the
Kosmos, Fientia by the sentient or percipient soul; the cosmical
soul as a whole, in order to suffice for both these tasks, is made
up of diverse component elements--Idem, correlating with the first of
the two, Diversum, correlating with the second, and Idem implicated
with Diversum, corresponding to both in conjunction. The Divine
Architect is described as constructing a Kosmos, composed both of
soul and body, upon the pattern of the grand pre-existent
Idea--[Greek: au)tozô=|on] or the Self-Animal; which included in
itself as a genus the four distinct species--celestial (gods, visible
and invisible), terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic.
The main point that Plato here insists upon is--the eternal and
unchangeable reality of the cogitable objects called Ideas, prior
both in time and in logical order to the transient objects of sight
and touch, and serving as an exemplar to which these latter are made
to approximate imperfectly. He assumes such priority, without proof,
in the case of the Idea of Animal; but, when he touches upon the four
elements--Fire, Air, Water, Earth--he hesitates to make the same
assumption, and thinks himself required to give a reason for it. The
reason that he assigns (announced distinctly as his own) is as
follows: If Intellection (Cogitation, [Greek: Nou=s]) and true
Opinion are two genera distinct from each other, there must clearly
exist Forms or Ideas imperceptible to our senses, and apprehended
only by cogitation or intellection; but if, as some persons think,
true opinion is noway different from intellection, then we must admit
all the objects perceived by our senses as firm realities. Now the
fact is (he proceeds to say) that true opinion is not identical with
intellection, but quite distinct, separate, and unlike to it.
Intellection is communicated by teaching, through true reasoning, and
is unshakeable by persuasion; true opinion is communicated by
persuasion and removed by counter-persuasion, without true reasoning.
True opinion may belong to any man; but intellection is the privilege
only of gods and of a small section of mankind. Accordingly, since
the two are distinct, the objects correlating with each of them must
also be distinct from each other. There must exist, first, primary,
eternal, unchangeable Forms, apprehended by intellect or cogitation,
but imperceptible by sense; and, secondly, resemblances of these
bearing the same name, generated and destroyed each in some place,
and apprehended first by sense, afterwards by opinion. Thirdly, there
must be the place wherein such resemblances are generated; a place
itself imperceptible by sense, yet postulated, as a receptacle
indispensable for them, by a dreamy kind of computation.
We see here that the proof given by Plato, in support of the
existence of Forms as the primary realities, is essentially
psychological: resting upon the fact that there is a distinct mental
energy or faculty called Intellection (apart from Sense and Opinion),
which must have its distinct objective correlate; and upon the
farther fact, that intellection is the high prerogative of the gods,
shared only by a few chosen men. This last point of the case is more
largely and emphatically brought out in the Phædrus, where Sokrates
delivers a highly poetical effusion respecting the partial
intercommunion of the human soul with these eternal intellectual
realities. To contemplate them is the constant privilege of the gods;
to do so is also the aspiration of the immortal soul of man
generally, in the pre-existent state, prior to incorporation with the
human body; though only in a few cases is such aspiration realized.
Even those few human souls, that have succeeded in getting sight of
the intellectual Ideas (essences without colour, figure, or tactile
properties), lose all recollection of them when first entering into
partnership with a human body; but are enabled gradually to recall
them, by combining repeated impressions and experience of their
resemblances in the world of sense. The revival of these divine
elements is an inspiration of the nature of madness; though it is a
variety of madness as much better than uninspired human reason as
other varieties are worse. The soul, becoming insensible to ordinary
pursuits, contracts a passionate devotion to these Universal Ideas,
and to that dialectical communion, especially with some pregnant
youthful mind, that brings them into clear separate contemplation
disengaged from the limits and confusion of sense.
Here philosophy is presented as the special inspiration of a few,
whose souls during the period of pre-existence have sufficiently
caught sight of the Universal Ideas or Essences; so that these last,
though overlaid and buried when the soul is first plunged in a body,
are yet revivable afterwards under favourable circumstances, through
their imperfect copies in the world of sense; especially by the sight
of personal beauty in an ingenuous and aspiring youth, in which case
the visible copy makes nearest approach to the perfection of the
Universal Idea or Type. At the same time, Plato again presents to us
the Cogitable Universals as the only objects of true cognition, the
Sensible Particulars being objects merely of opinion.
In the Phædon, Sokrates advances the same doctrine, that the
**perceptions of sense are full of error and confusion, and can
at best suggest nothing higher than opinion; that true
cogitation can never be attained except when the cogitant mind
disengages itself from the body and comes into direct contemplation
of the Universal Entia, objects eternal and always the same--The
Self-beautiful, Self-good, Self-just, Self-great, Healthy, Strong,
&c., all which objects are invisible, and can be apprehended only by
the cogitation or intellect. It is this Cogitable Universal that is
alone real; Sensible Particulars are not real, nor lasting, nor
trustworthy. None but a few philosophers, however, can attain to such
pure mental energy during this life; nor even they fully and
perfectly. But they will attain it fully after death (their souls
being immortal), if their lives have been passed in sober
philosophical training. And their souls enjoyed it before birth
during the period of pre-existence; having acquired, before junction
with the body, the knowledge of these Universals, which are forgotten
during childhood, but recalled in the way of Reminiscence, by
sensible perceptions that make a distant approach to them. Thus,
according to the Phædon and some other dialogues, all learning is
merely reminiscence; the mind is brought back, by the laws of
association, to the knowledge of Universal Realities that it had
possessed in its state of pre-existence. Particulars of sense
participate in these Universals to a certain extent, or resemble them
imperfectly; and they are therefore called by the same name.
In the Republic, we have a repetition and copious illustration of