[991a]
[1]
otherwise what meaning will there be in saying that something exists
beside the particulars, i.e. the unity comprising their
multiplicity?If the
form of the Ideas and of the things which participate in them is the
same, they will have something in common (for why should Duality mean
one and the same thing in the case of perishable "twos"1 and the "twos" which are many but eternal,2
and not in the case of the Idea of Duality and a particular "two"?);
but if the form is not the same, they will simply be homonyms; just as
though one were to call both Callias and a piece of wood "man,"
without remarking any property common to them.3Above
all we might examine the question what on earth the Forms contribute
to sensible things, whether eternal or subject to generation and
decay; for they are not the cause of any motion or change in
them.Again, they
are no help towards the knowledge of other things4(for they are not the substance of things,
otherwise they would be in things), nor to their
existence, since they are not present in the things which partake of
them. If they were, it might perhaps seem that they are causes, in the
sense in which the admixture of white causes a thing to be
white;but this
theory, which was first stated by Anaxagoras5 and later by Eudoxus6 and others, is very readily refutable, for
it is easy to adduce plenty of impossibilities against such a view.
Again, other things are not
[20]
in any accepted sense derived from the Forms.To say that the Forms are
patterns, and that other things participate in them, is to use empty
phrases and poetical metaphors; for what is it that fashions things on
the model of the Ideas7 Besides, anything may
both be and become like something else without being imitated from it;
thus a man may become just like
Socrates whether
Socrates exists or not,and even if
Socrates were eternal, clearly the case would be
the same. Also there will be several "patterns," and hence Forms, of
the same thing; e.g. "animal" and "two-footed" will be patterns of
"man," and so too will the Idea of Man.8Further, the Forms will be
patterns not only of sensible things but of themselves (e.g. genus in
the sense of genus of species), and thus the same thing will be both
pattern and copy.9
1 i.e. pairs of sensible objects.
2 i.e. mathematical 2s.
3 The argument of 7-8 is: Ideas are substances. The common name which an idea shares with its particulars must mean the same of both; otherwise "participation" is merely homonymy. But as applied to Ideas it denotes substance; therefore particulars must be substances.
4 This objection, like the next, is chiefly directed against the transcendence of the Ideas. It is anticipated by Plato in Plat. Parm. 134d.
5 Anaxagoras Fr. 12ad fin.
6 See note on Aristot. Met. 12.8.9. Apparently he was a Platonist who regarded the Ideas as immanent in particulars.
7 Plato says "the Demiurgus"?Plat. Tim. 28c, Plat. Tim. 29a.
8 Why this consequence is objectionable is not quite clear. Perhaps it is on the ground that to "account for appearances" in this way is not economical.
9 The species will be the "pattern" of individuals, and the genus of the species.
Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1933, 1989.
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