[597a]
“What of the cabinet-maker? Were you not just now saying that he
does not make the idea or form which we say is the real couch, the couch in
itself,1 but only some particular couch?” “Yes, I
was.” “Then if he does not make that which really is, he
could not be said to make real being but something that resembles real being
but is not that. But if anyone should say that being in the complete
sense2 belongs to the work
of the cabinet-maker or to that of any other handicraftsman, it seems that
he would say what is not true.” “That would be the
view,” he said, “of those who are versed3 in this kind of reasoning.” “We must
not be surprised, then, if this too is only a dim adumbration in comparison
with reality.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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