Now, regarding the Ideas, we must
first examine the ideal theory itself, not connecting it in any way
with the nature of numbers, but treating it in the form in which it
was originally understood by those who first maintained the
existence of the Ideas. The supporters of the ideal theory were led to
it because on the question about the truth of things they accepted the
Heraclitean sayings which describe all sensible things as ever passing
away, so that if knowledge or thought is to have an object, there must
be some other and permanent entities, apart from those which are
sensible; for there could be no knowledge of things which were in a
state of flux. But when Socrates was occupying himself with the
excellences of character, and in connexion with them became the
first to raise the problem of universal definition (for of the
physicists Democritus only touched on the subject to a small extent,
and defined, after a fashion, the hot and the cold; while the
Pythagoreans had before this treated of a few things, whose
definitions-e.g. those of opportunity, justice, or marriage-they
connected with numbers; but it was natural that Socrates should be
seeking the essence, for he was seeking to syllogize, and 'what a
thing is' is the starting-point of syllogisms; for there was as yet
none of the dialectical power which enables people even without
knowledge of the essence to speculate about contraries and inquire
whether the same science deals with contraries; for two things may
be fairly ascribed to Socrates-inductive arguments and universal
definition, both of which are concerned with the starting-point of
science):-but Socrates did not make the universals or the
definitions exist apart: they, however, gave them separate
existence, and this was the kind of thing they called Ideas.
Pages:
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347