It is not only
126 The Greeks : Systematic Period.
126 The Greeks : Systematic Period.
Windelband - History of Philosophy
Plato's first writings were dedicated to an affectionate and in the main, certainly, a faithful presentation of the Socratic doctrine of virtue.
To this he attached a polemic
Chap. 3. § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 117
against the Sophistic doctrines of society and knowledge marked by increasing keenness, but also by an increasing tendency toward establishing his own view upon an independent basis. The Platonic criticism of the Sophistic theories, however, proceeded essentially from the Socratic postulate. It admitted fully, in the spirit of Protagoras, the relativity of all knowledge gained through percep tion, but it found just in this the inadequacy of the Sophistic theory for a true science of ethics. 1 The knowledge which is necessary for virtue cannot consist in opinions as they arise from the changing states of motion in subject and object, nor can it consist of a rational consideration and legitimation of such opinions gained by perception ; * it must have a wholly different source and wholly different objects. Of the corporeal world and its changing states —
Plato held to thh view of Protagoras in its entirety — there is no science, but only perceptions and opinions ; it is accordingly an i*mrporeal world that forms the object of science, and this world most exist side by side with the corporeal world as independently as does knowledge side by side with opinion. 3
Here we have for the first time the claim of an immaterial reality, '•rought forward expressly and with full consciousness, and it is dear that this springs from the ethical need for a knowledge that is raised above all ideas gained by sense-perception. The assump tion of immateriality did not at first have as its aim, for Plato, the explanation of phenomena : its end was rather to assure an object for ethical knowledge. The idealistic metaphysics, therefore, in its first draft * builds entirely upon a new foundation of its own, with out any reference to the work of earlier science that had been directed toward investigating and understanding phenomena; it is aa immaterial Eleatism, which seeks true Being in the Ideas, with out troubling itself about the world of generation and occurrence, *hi'h it leaves to perception and opinion. *
To avoid numerous misunderstandings* we must, nevertheless, expressly point out that the Platonic conception of immateriality (•vwparor) is in nowise coincident with that of the spiritual or
psychical, as might be easily assumed from the modern mode of thinking. For the Platonic conception the particular psychical
1 On thin point, the Thecrtetut brings together the whole criticism of the S"f*. »ulc doctrine.
» Uf» *A*«4t nrrk XA>«*, Thtat. 201 E. (Probably a theory of Antisthenes. ) • Aria*. Met. I. «. 987 a 32 ; XIII. 4, 1078 b 12.
' A* act forth in the dialogues Pheedrut and the Symposium.
' la mitigations aa to theoretical and natural science are first found in the
■teat dialogues.
' To which the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-PIatonic transformation of the
soonna of Ideas gave occasion. Cf. It. II. ch. 2, { 18.
1 18 The Greeks : Systematic Period.
[PahtI.
functions belong to the world of Becoming, precisely as do those of the body and of other corporeal things ; and on the other hand, in the true reality the " forms " or " shapes " of corporeality, the Ideas of sensuous qualities and relations, find a place precisely as do those of the spiritual relations. The identification of spirit or mind and incorporeality, the division of the world into mind and matter, is un- Platonic. The incorporeal world which Plato teaches is not yet the spiritual.
Kather, the Ideas are, for Plato, that incorporeal Being which is known through conceptions. Since, that is, the conceptions in which Socrates found the essence of science are not given as such in the reality that can be perceived, they must form a " second," " other " reality, different from the former, existing by itself, and this imma terial reality is related to the material, as Being to Becoming, as the abiding to the changing, as the simple to the manifold — in short, as the world of Parmenides to that of Heraclitus. The object of ethical knowledge, cognised through general conceptions, is that which " is " in the true sense : the ethical, the logical, and the phys ical ipxi (ground or first principle) are the same. This is the point in which all lines of earlier philosophy converge.
2. If the Ideas are to be " something other " than the percep tible world, knowledge of them through conceptions cannot be found in the content of perception, for they cannot be contained in it. With this turn of thought, which corresponds to the sharper separa tion of the two worlds, the Platonic doctrine of knowledge becomes much more rationalistic than that of Democritus, and goes also decidedly beyond that of Socrates ; for while the latter had devel oped the universal out of the opinions and perceptions of individuals inductively, and had found it as the common content in these opin ions and perceptions, Plato does not conceive of the process of induction in this analytical manner, but sees in perceptions only the suggestions or promptings with the help of which the soul bethinks itself of the conceptions, of the knowledge of the Ideas.
Plato expressed this rationalistic principle in the form that phil osophical knowledge is recollection (Ava/j-v^mt). He showed in the example of the Pythagorean proposition ' that mathematical knowl edge is not extracted from sense-perception, but that sense-percep tion offers only the opportunity on occasion of which the soul recollects the knowledge already present within her, that is, knowl edge that has purely rational validity. He points out that the pure mathematical relations are not present in corporeal reality ; on the
1 Meno, 80 ft. ■•-. .
Cm**. 8, § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 119
contrary, the notion of these relations arises in us when similar figures of perception offer but the occasion therefor, and he extended this observation, which is completely applicable to mathematical knowledge, to the sum total of scientific knowledge.
That this reflection upon what is rationally necessary should be conceived of as recollection is connected with the fact that Plato, is little as any of his predecessors, recognises a creative activity of the consciousness, which produces its content. This is a general limit for all Greek psychology ; the content for ideas must somehow be given to the " soul " ; hence, if the Ideas are not given in perception, and the soul nevertheless finds them in herself on occasion of per ception, she must have already received these Ideas in some way or other. For this act of reception, however, Plato finds only the
mythical representation,1 that before the earthly life the souls have bekeid the pure forms of reality in the incorporeal world itself, that the perception of similar corporeal things calls the remembrance back to those forms forgotten in the corporeal earthly life, and that from this awakes the philosophical impulse, the love of the Ideas
(Igmt), by which the soul becomes raised again to the knowledge of that true reality. Here, too, as in the case of Democritus, it is shown that the entire ancient rationalism could form no idea of the process of thought except after the analogy of sensuous percep tion, particularly that of the sense of sight
What Socrates in his doctrine of the formation of conceptions had designated as induction, became transformed, therefore, for Plato, into an intuition that proceeds by recollecting (owaywyij) , into re flection upon a higher and purer perception (Anschauung). This pare perception, however, yields a plurality of ideas corresponding to the multiplicity of objects which occasion such perceptions, and from this grows the further task for science to know also the rela- Uam» of the Ideas to each other. This is a second step of Plato's
beyond Socrates, and is specially important for the reason that it led shortly to the apprehension of the logical relations between concep tions. It was principally the relations of the subordination and co ordination of concepts to which Plato became attentive. The division of the class-concepts or logical genera into their species phjliil a great part in his teaching. ' The possibility or impossibility of the onion of particular conceptions is brought more exactly into
' r%mdr. 240 B.
* CL Pkileb. 16 C. Yet this dividing process is not any where especially promi- tm in the writings that are certainly Platonic. It is handled with the pedantry U a school in the Sophist and Politicus. Antiquity preserved " definitions " and '• diriaioui " from the Platonic school. In Athtnaus. 1 1. M* C, is an instance of SBOckary, by a comic poet, at this academical concept-splitting.
120 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part 1.
consideration,1 and as a methodical aid he recommended the hypo thetical method of discussion, which aims to examine a tentatively proposed conception by developing all the possible consequences that would follow from the possibility of its union with conceptions already known.
These logical operations taken as a whole, by means of which the Ideas and their relations to one another (KMvwvCa) were to be found, Plato denoted by the name dialectic. What is found in his writings concerning it has throughout a methodological character, but is not properly logical.
3. The doctrine of knowledge as recollection stood, however, in closest connection with Plato's conception of the relation of Ideas to the world ofphenomena. Between the higher world of oicria and the lower world of yciw«, between what is and what is in process of Becoming, he found that relation of similarity which exists between archetypes (impaSiiytiaTa) and their copies or images (<t&uXa) . In this, too, a strong influence of mathematics upon the Platonic philosophy is disclosed : as the Pythagoreans had already designated things as imitations of numbers, so Plato found that individual things always correspond to their class-concepts only to a certain degree, and that the class-concept is a logical ideal which none of its empirical examples comes up to. He expressed this by the conception of
It was thus at the same time established that that second world, that of the incorporeal Ideas, was to be regarded
as the higher, the more valuable, the more primitive world.
Yet this mode of representing the matter gave rather a deter
mination of their respective values than a view that was usable for metaphysical consideration : hence Plato sought for still other desig nations of the relation. The logical side of the matter, according to which the Idea as class-concept or species represents the total uni tary extent or compass, of which the individual things denote but a part, appears in the expression participation (ptOifa), which means that the individual thing but partakes in the universal essence of the Idea; and the changing process of this partaking is emphasised by the conception of presence (jrapowia). The class-concept or species is present in the thing so long as the latter possesses the qualities which dwell in the Idea. The Ideas come and go, and as these now communicate themselves to things and now again withdraw, the qualities in these things which are like the Ideas are successively changed to the eye of perception.
The precise designation of this relation was, for Plato, an object 1 Phcedo, 102 B.
imitation (/u/t>7o-t? ) .
Chap. 3, $ 11. ] S>/ ft em of Idealism: Plato. 121
of only secondary interest, provided only the difference between the world of Ideas and the corporeal world, and the dependence of the latter upon the former, were recognised. 1 Most important and sufficient for him was the conviction that by means of conceptions that knowledge which virtue needs of what truly and really could be won.
A. Peipeis, Oniologia Platonica. Leipe. 1883.
4. But the logico-metaphysical interest which Plato grafted upon the Socratic doctrine of knowledge carried him far beyond the master as regards the contents of this doctrine. The general characteristics which he developed for the essence of the Ideas applied to all class-concepts, and the immaterial world was therefore
peopled with the archetypes of the entire world of experience. So many class-concepts, so many Ideas for Plato, too, there are count- lea "forms. " In so far criticism* was right in saying that Plato's world of Ideas was the world of perception thought over again in conception.
In fact, according to the first draft of the Platonic philosophy, tbere are Ideas of everything possible, of things, qualities, and relations of the good and the beautiful as well as of the bad and the ugly. Since the Idea defined methodologically, in purely formal way, as class-concept, every class-concept whatever belongs to the higher world of pure forms and in the dialogue Parmenides* mA only was Plato's attention called by a man schooled in the Eleatie Sophistic doctrine to all kinds of dialectical difficulties which inhere in the logical relation of the one Idea to its many copies, bat he was also rallied, spitefully enough, with the thought of all the foul companions that would be met in his world of pure
conceptual forms.
Plato's philosophy had no principle that could serve as weapon
against such an objection, nor there in the dialogues any intima tion that he had attempted to announce definite criterion for the mrl~iio* of those class-concepts that were to be regarded as Ideas, a* f-onstituents of the higher incorporeal world. Nor do the ex amples which he adduces permit such principle to be recognised we can only say that seems as in course of time he continually emphasised more strongly the attributes expressing worth (as the
irood and the beautiful), the mathematical relations (greatness and Ruallness, numerical determinations, etc. ), and the types of species m the organic world, while, on the contrary, he no longer reckoned
Fkmdo, 100 D. Arlst. Met. 990 Parm. 130 C.
'
*
9,
a
a
b 1.
>
it
is
I. ;
if
;
;
a
a
is,
is
;
122 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part L
among the Ideas mere concepts of relation, especially negative notions and things made by human art. 1
5. Our knowledge of the systematic connection and order which Plato intended to affirm in the realm of Ideas remains ultimately as obscure as that in regard to the preceding point. Urgent as he was to establish co-ordination and subordination among the conceptions, the thought of a logically arranged pyramid of conceptions which must culminate in the conception that was most general and poorest in content seems not to have been carried out. A very problematical attempt to set up a limited number (five) of most general concep tions1 is presented in the Sophist (254 ff. ). But these attempts, which tend toward the Aristotelian doctrine of the categories, are not to be traced back with certainty to Plato himself.
With him we find, rather, only the doctrine presented in the Philebus, as well as in the Republic, that the Idea of the Good is the highest, embracing, ruling, and realising all others. Plato defines this Idea as regards its content as little as did Socrates; he de termined it only by means of the relation, that it should represent in its content the highest absolute end of all reality, of the incor poreal as of the corporeal. The subordination of the other Ideas to this highest Idea is accordingly not the logical subordination of a particular under the general, but the teleological of the means to the end.
In the latest period of his philosophising, concerning which we have only intimations in the Laws and in critical, notices of Aris totle,3 and in the teachings of his nearest successors, the imperfec tion of this solution of the logical problem seems to have led Plato to the unfortunate thought of developing the system of Ideas ac cording to the method of the Pythagorean number-theory. The
also, to be sure, had the purpose of attaching the abiding arrangements of things symbolically to the development of the number series. But that was only a makeshift, because they had as yet no idea of the logical arrangement of conceptions : hence, when Plato, in connection with his other thoughts, fell back upon this makeshift, designated the Idea of the Good as the h, the One, and attempted to derive from it the duality (Sww) of the Infinite or Indefinite, and the Measure (awnpov and ripas, = even and odd ; cf. § 4, 11), and from this, further, the other Ideas in such a way as to present a series of the conditioning and the conditioned, neither
' Cf. also Arist. 3tet. XII. 3, 1070 c 18.
3 Being, rest, motion, sameness (raArtmii) and otherness (b-cpirtit), i. e. the
division of Being into the resting (ofio-Io), ever the same with itself, and the moved (yirtett), in process of constant change.
Pythagoreans
8 Cf. A Trendelenburg, Platonis de Ideis et Xnmeris Doctrina (Leips. 1826).
CuAf. 3, | ll. ] System of Idealism: Plato. 123
this deplorable construction nor the fact that men like Speusippus, Xenocrates, Philippus, and Archytas undertook to carry it out in detail, would be worth more particular mention, were not this just the point to which the speculation of the Neo- Pythagoreans and the Xeo-Platonists became attached. For by this gradation which Plato thus began within the oiWu the world of true reality, the division i"» the conception of reality, which had developed out of the opposi tion between perception and thought, became multiplied, and thus
ualism was again abolished. For when to the One, or the Idea of the Good, was ascribed the highest absolute reality, and to the vari ous strata of the world of Ideas, a reality of constantly decreasing worth in proportion as they were removed from the One in the system in numbers, there arose from this a scale of realities which extended from the One down to the lowest reality, — that of the corporeal world. Fantastic as this thought may be, it yet evinced its force and influence in the development of thought, even to the threshold of modern philosophy. Its power, however, lies doubtless u> all cases in its amalgamation of attributes of worth with these
rarious grades of reality.
6. While as metaphysics, the doctrine of Ideas fell into such seri
ous difficulties, it was carried out in an extremely happy, simple, and transparent manner in that domain which formed its proper home, — that of ethics. For the systematic elaboration of this, however, Plato needed a psychology, and that, too, of another sort than the psychology which had arisen in previous science, out of the presup- positions of natural philosophy, and with the aid of individual per ceptions or opinions. When, in contrast with this, he developed his psychology from the postulates of the doctrine of Ideas, the result was of course a purely metaphysical theory which stood and fell with its postulate, yet it was at the same time, by reason of the import of the doctrine of Ideas, a first attempt to understand the psychical life from within, and in accordance with its internal char acter and articulation.
The conception of the soul or mind was in itself a difficulty ' in the dualism of the doctrine of Ideas. For Plato, also, "soul" was cm the one hand the living element, that which is moved of itself and moves other things, and on the other hand, that which perceives, knows, and wills. As principle of life and of motion, the soul
tvrlongs. therefore, to the lower world of Becoming, and in this it remains when it perceives and directs its desires toward objects of the senses. But this same soul, nevertheless, by its true knowledge
• Pkttdo, 76 ff. , 106, Pkttdr. 246, Laws, X. 896.
124 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I-
of the Ideas, becomes partaker in the higher reality of abiding Being. Hence it must be assigned a position between the two worlds — not the timeless, unchanged essence of the Ideas, but a vitality which. survives change ; i. e. immortality. Here, for the first time, personal immortality is brought forward by Plato as a part of philosophic teaching. Of the proofs which the Phcedo adduces for this, those are most in accord with the spirit of the system which reason from the soul's knowledge of Ideas to its relationship with eternity ; in correspondence with the form of the system is the dialectic false conclusion that the soul cannot be or become dead, because its essential characteristic is life ; the most tenable of the arguments is the reference to the unity and substantiality which the soul evinces in ruling the body.
In consequence of this intermediate position the soul must bear in itself the traits of both worlds ; there must be in its essence some thing which corresponds to the world of Ideas, and something which corresponds to the world of perception. The former is the rational nature (Aoyio-TiKoV or vovs), the seat of knowledge and of the virtue which corresponds to it ; in the latter, the irrational nature, Plato made a further distinction of two elements, — the nobler, which inclines towards the Reason, and the lower, which resists it. The nobler he found in the ardent, spirited Will (Spirit, Ov(uk), the lower in the sensuous desire (Appetite, imOvixui) . Thus Reason, Spirit, and Appetite are the three forms of activity of the soul, the classes or species (tlS-q) of its states.
These fundamental psychological conceptions which had thus grown out of considerations of ethical worth are employed by Plato to set forth the moral destiny of the individual. The fettering of the soul to the body is at once a consequence and a punishment of the sensuous appetite. Plato extends the immortal existence of the soul equally beyond the two boundaries of the earthly life. The sin for the sake of which the soul is ensnared in the world of sense is to be sought in a pre-existent state ; ' its destiny in the hereafter ' will depend upon how far it has freed itself in the earthly life from the sensuous appetite, and turned to its higher vocation — knowledge of the Ideas. But inasmuch as the ultimate goal of the soul appears to be to strip off the sensuous nature, the three forms of activity are designated also as parts of the soul. In the Timaeus Plato even portrays the process of the formation of the soul out of these parts, and retains immortality for the rational part only.
1 These doctrines are depicted in the form of mythical allegories which make use of motives from the popular faith and from the Mystery-cults. V. Phcedr. 846 ff. ; Oorgias, 623 ff. ; Rep. 614 ff. ; Phcedo. 107 ff.
C«ap. 3, 5 11. ] Syttem of Idealism: Plato. 126
It is already clear from these changing determinations that the relation of these three fundamental forms of the psychical life to the none too strongly emphasised unity of the soul's nature was not dearly thought out ; nor is it possible to give to these conceptions formed from the ethical need the significance of purely psychologi cal distinctions, such as hare since been made. 1
7. But at all events there followed in this way, from the doctrine of the two worlds, a negative morals that would fly from the world, iml in which the withdrawal from the world of sense and the spir- ttiuhsation of life were praised as ideals of wisdom.
the Phacrto that breathes this earnest disposition in its portrayal of the death of Socrates ; the same ethical theory prevails in such dia-
1'Vues as the Gorgias, the Theostetus, and, in part, the Republic. Bnt in Plato's own nature the heavy blood of the thinker was associated with the light heart-beat of the artist, and thus while his philosophy lured him into the realm of bodiless forms, the whole charm of Hellenic beauty was living and active within him. Strongly as he therefore combated root and branch the theory of Aristippns, which would fain regard man's strivings as satisfied with sensuous pleasure, it was nevertheless his opinion that the Idea of the Good becomes realised even in the world of sense. Joy in the beautiful, pleasure in the sensuous imitation of the Idea, painless because free from the element of wishing, the development of knowledge and practical artistic skill, the intelligent understand ing of the mathematical relations which measure empirical reality, and the appropriate ordering of the individual life, — all these were mined by him as at least preparatory stages and participations in that highest good which consists in knowledge of the Ideas, and of
the highest among them, the Idea of the Good. In the Symposium and in the Philebus he has given expression to this his estimate of the goods of life.
This same thought, that ethical values and standards must illu mine the whole circuit of human life, was used in another form by Hato in that presentation of the system of the virtues which he <W*lop*»d in the Republic. Here he showed that each part of the soul has a definite task to fulfil, and so a perfection of its own to reach : the rational part, in wisdom (o-o^ta), the spirited ($vfu*t&is) in energy of will (courage, dVSpia), the appetitive (ImbvuijTiKw) in
1 That the question here (or Plato was essentially that of the gradation of the j»> chteal from the point of view of relative worth, is shown not only in the •■njiorment made of these distinctions in ethics and politics, but also in such -mark* as those which designated this triple division as characteristic for the ■liflrreot organic beings (plant, animal, man), or for the different peoples. ahabitanu of southern countries, of northern countries, and the Greeks.
It is not only
126 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
self-catUrol (moderation, <r<a<f>po<ruvT)) ; that, however, in addition to all these, as the virtue of the soul as a whole, there must be the right relation of these parts, complete uprightness (justice, Smaioo-vii) ) .
The true significance, however, of these four cardinal virtues, is first unfolded upon a higher domain, that of politics.
8. The tendency of the doctrine of Ideas, directed as it was toward the general and the universal, exhibited its most perfect operation in the aspect now to be noticed, viz. that the ethical ideal of the Platonic philosophy lay not in the ability and happi ness of the individual, but in the ethical perfection of the species. True to the logical principle of the doctrine of Ideas, that which truly in the ethical sense, not the individual man, but mankind, and the form in which this truly existent humanity appears is the organic union of individuals in the state. The ethical ideal becomes for Plato the political, and in the midst of the time which saw the dissolution of Greek political life, and in opposition to those doc trines which proclaimed only the principle of individual happiness, he raised the conception of the state to an all-controlling height.
He considered the state, however, not from the side of its empiri cal origin, but in reference to its task, viz. that of presenting in large the ideal of humanity, and of educating the citizen to that particular virtue which makes him truly happy. Convinced that his project could be realised, with force necessary, he wove into its fabric not only features which he approved of the then-existing Greek political life, in particular those of the aristocratic Doric constitutions, but also all the ideals for whose fulfilment he hoped from the right formation of public life.
K. F. Hermann, (its. Abhandlunyen, 122 ff. E. Zeller, Vortrage und Ab- handlungen, 62 ff.
If the ideal state to present man in large, must consist of the three parts which correspond to the three parts of the soul, — the teaching class, the warrior class, and the working class. It belongs to the first class alone, that of the cultured (<£iAdo-o<£ot), to guide the state and to rule1 (&p\ovtis), to give laws and to watch over their observance. The virtue proper to this class wisdom, insight into that which for the advantage of the whole, and which demanded by the ethical aim of the whole. To support this class there the second class, that of the public officials (In-ucovpot guardians, <£ij'Auk<s- which has to evince the virtue of the fearless performance of duty
as maintains the order of the state within and without Hence the Xo-ywrocA* called also yycuonicir.
(Av&pia)
1
itis I. is
is
; is it
is ).
is
;
if
»'s
is
Chap. 3, $ 11. ] Syttem of Idealism : Plato. 127
It is, however, obedience which holds the desires in check, self-control {<rw4>poaivrj), that becomes the great mass of the people, the artisans and farmers (ytwpyoi k<u brjiuovpyoi) , who have to care for providing for the external means of the states by their labour and industry. 1
Only when each class thus does its duty and maintains its appro priate virtue does the nature of the state correspond to the ideal of
justice (iuauotrwr)).
The principle of aristocracy in education, which is of decisive im
portance in the Platonic ideal of the state, appears most clearly in the provision that for the great mass of the third class only the ordinary ability of practical life is claimed, and in that this is re garded as sufficient for their purpose, while the education, which the state has the right and duty to take in hand itself in order to train its citizens for its own ends, is given only to the two other classes. By means of a constantly repeated process of selection continued from birth to the late years, the government causes the two upper classes to be continually renewed, strata by strata; and in order that no individual interest may remain to hold back these classes, who are properly the organs of the whole body, in the fulfilment of their task, they are to renounce family life and private property. Their lot is that of education by the state, absence of family relations, community of life and of goods. He who is to live for the ends of the whole, for the ethical education of the people, must not be bound to the individual by any personal interest. To this thought, which found its historic realisation in the sacerdotal state of the mediaeval hierarchy, is limited whatever of communism, community of wives, etc. , men have professed to discover in the Platonic teaching. The great Idealist carries out to its extreme consequences the thought that the end of human life consists in moral education, and that the entire organisation of a community must be arranged for this sole end.
9. With this a new relation between the world of ideas and the world of phenomena was discovered, and one which corresponded most perfectly to the spirit of the Platonic system : the Idea of the Good disclosed itself as the task, as the end (rcXot), which the phenomenon of human life in society has to fulfil. This discovery became of decisive importance for the final form taken by Plato's metaphysical system.
For, as first projected, the doctrine of Ideas had been precisely as incompetent as the Eleatic doctrine of Being to explain empirical reality. The class-concepts were held to give knowledge of the
1 Hence the third put of the soul is called also the ^iXoxfifMar**. . ■
128 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Past i
absolute reality,1 which, purely for itself, simple and changeless, without origin and imperishable, forms a world by itself, and, as in corporeal, is separated from the world where things arise. Hence, as was demonstrated in the dialogue the Sophist,* in a keen polemic against the doctrine of Ideas, this doctrine formed no principle of motion, and therefore no explanation of facts, because it excluded from itself all motion and change.
But however little Plato's interests may have been directed toward this end, the conception of the Idea as true Being ultimately- demanded, nevertheless, that the phenomenon should be regarded, not only as something other, something imitative, something that participated, but also as something dependent. It demanded that
But that which is itself absolutely unchangeable and immovable, and •xcludes every particular function from itself, cannot be a cause in
the Idea be regarded as cause of~OCVurrenee and change (curia) .
the mechanical sense, but only in the sense that it presents the end for the sake of which the occurrence takes place. Here for the first time the relation between the two worlds of Being and Becoming (ovcruz and ycVccnt) is fully defined ; all change and occurrence exists for the sake of the Idea ; 9 the Idea is the final cause of phenomena.
This foundation of teleological metaphysics Plato gives in the Philebus and in the middle books of the Republic, and adds at once a further culminating thought by introducing as the final cause of all occurrence, the world of Ideas as a whole, but in particular the high est Idea, to which all the rest are subordinate in the sense of means to end, — the Idea of the Good. This, referring to Anaxagoras, he designates as the World-reason (wros), or as the deity. *
Side by side with this motif taken from Anaxagoras, another of a Pythagorean nature appears with increasing force in a later form of the doctrine of Ideas, a motif in accordance with which the imperfection of the phenomenon is pointed out as in contrast with the true Being. This inadequacy, however, could not be derived from Being itself, and just as Leucippus, in order to understand plurality and motion, had declared that in addition to the Being of
1 Symp. 211 B, aftri Ka0' avri fuB' airov povotitit itl tv.
2 Page 246 ff. The doctrine there criticised, that of the aaiSiiiora. tfo>, can in accordance with the individual verbal coincidences be only the Platonic ; just this is a factor in the decision against the genuineness of the dialogue. Schleier- macher's hypothesis of a Megarian doctrine of Ideas, thought out to rescue the genuineness, has not shown itself tenable.
» Phileb. 64 C.
* Yet we are not to think in this case of personality, or of a spiritual being, but of the absolute ethical end or purpose of the world, the conception of the d-,aS6v finding an exact definition as little as with Socrates. It is rather presup posed as being the simplest, the most comprehensible in itself.
lmat. 3, 5 11] Syttem of Idealism: Plato. 129
Pinnenides the Not-being was also " real," or "actual," and existent, *> Plato saw himself forced, with like logical consistency, for the purpose of explaining phenomena and the inadequacy which they show with reference to the Ideas, to assume beside the world of being or of cause, i. e. the world of Ideas and the Idea of the Good, i secondary or accessory cause (tvvairiov) in that which has not the attribute of Being. Indeed, the parallelism in the two thinkers jues so far that this secondary cau-e, which is not Being (to /ly ov), a for Plato precisely the same as for Leucippus and Philolaus, viz.
"
»orld of perception was a " mixture " of the " unlimited " (arctoov), Lt. space, and of " limitation " (s-cpas), i. e. the mathematical forms;1 md that the cause of this mixture, the highest, divine world-prin-
•iple, was the Idea of the Good. Space assumes mathematical for mation in order to become like the world of Ideas.
The importance which mathematics had possessed from the outset io the development of Plato's thought finds thus at last its metaphys ical expression. The mathematical structures are the intermediate link, by means of which empty space, which is not, is able to imitate m phenomena the pure "forms" of the world of Ideas. Hence
mathematical knowledge (cWota), as well as purely philosophical knowledge («Vum)Vij), has to do with an abiding essence (owria), ud is therefore comprised together with this, as rational knowledge
{riynt), and set over against knowledge of phenomena (oo£a). But occupying thus an intermediate place, it takes only the position of a list stage in the preparation for the wisdom of the " rulers," as set forth in the system of education in the Republic.
10. The metaphysical preliminaries were now given for what Plato ultimately projected in the Timarus; viz. a sketch or rough drawjkt of the philosophy of Nature, for which, of course, true to his eputemological principle, he could not claim the worth of certainty, bit only that of probability. * Since, that he was not in a position
Under the influence of the Aristotelian terminology, this secondary cause feat been designated as "matter" (v\ti), and " only recently that modern "searches hare made clear that the Platonic matter" simply space. Cf.
'•pry space. 1 " Space was then for Plato the
out of which the world of phenomena is formed for the sake of the Idea of the Good, or of the deity. This process of formation, however, consists in taking on mathematical form; hence Plato taught in the Philebus that the
nothing
Snebeck, L'ntertuehungen t. Philot. Or. Aufl. , Freiburg B. 1889). probable that In this case Plato transposed Uie number* into the world Ideas itself, but looked upon their representation in geometrical structures as
U* ••limitation " added to space.
*Ta« Platonic Physics then hypothetical in like manner with that of
Paraenidea. Here, too, would seem that regard for the demands of his dJav
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130 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
to carry through dialectically, and establish in conceptions this project of explaining occurrence from the world's end or purpose, Plato gave an exposition of his teleologkal view of Nature in mythical form only, — a view intended only as an opinion, and not as science.
This view, nevertheless, takes a position sharply opposed to the mechanical explanation of Nature, and, as this latter is set forth, we can scarcely suppose that Plato had any other doctrine in mind than that of Democritus. In opposition to the theory which makes all kinds of worlds arise here and there from the " accidental " (mean ing " purposeless " or "undesigned") meeting of "that which is in unordered, lawless motion," and perish again, he sets forth his own theory that there is only this one, most perfect and most beauti ful cosmos, unitary in nature and unique as regards its kind, and that its origin can be traced only to a reason acting according to ends.
If, then, it is desired to form a theory concerning this origin, the ground of the world of phenomena must be sought in the telic rela tion of this world to the Ideas. This relation Plato expressed by the idea of a "world-forming God" (Sniuovpyos, demiurge)" who formed or shaped out that which is not Being, i. e. space, with regard to the Ideas. " In this connection the Not-being is character ised as the indefinite plasticity which takes up all corporeal forms into itself (St&fwvij), and yet at the same time forms the ground for the fact that the Ideas find no pure representation in it. This counter-working of the accessory cause, or of the individual acces sory causes, Plato designates as meclianical necessity (avayKif). He takes up then the conception of Democritus as a particular moment into his physics, in order to explain by it what cannot be under stood teleologically. Divine activity according to ends and natural necessity are set over against each other as explaining principles, on the one hand for the perfect, and on the other hand for the imper fect in the world of phenomena. Ethical dualism passes over from metaphysics into physical theory.
ciples was united with a polemical purpose. Hence there is found mingled in the TiiiuKus, a dependence upon Democritus and a combating of his views, an attitude like that of Parmenides toward Heraclitus. Yet the distinction is not to be forgotten, that the Eleatic denied the reality of the world of phenomena, while Plato denied only that it could be known scientifically, i. e. through con ceptions. In presenting his view, however, Plato goes into questions of astron omy, mechanics, chemistry, organic life, physiological psychology, finally even into those of medicine. He gives, therefore, a kind of compendious exposi tion of his opinions in matters of natural science, opinions which in detail are extraordinarily fantastic, and as compared with the exact ideas even of his time, inadequate ; and yet taken in their whole connection, in their relation to their central principle, they have exercised an effect extending far beyond the design of their author.
Chap. 3, §U-] System of Idealism . Plato. 131
The characteristic fundamental thought of the Platonic as con trasted with the Atomistic physics is, that while Democritus con ceived of the movements of the whole as mechanical resultants of the original states of motion of the individual atoms, Plato, on the contrary, regarded the ordered motion of the universe as a whole, as the primitive unit, and derived every individual change or occur
rence from this purposively determined whole. From this thought sprang the strange construction of the conception of the world-soul, which Plato characterised as the single principle of all motions, and thus also of all determinations of form, and likewise of all activities of perception and ideation in the world. 1 In fantastic, obscure ex position he brought forward as the mathematical " division " of this world-soul, his astronomical theory, which was in the main closely connected with that of the younger Pythagoreans, but which was
Less advanced than theirs in its assumption that the earth stood ftill. The main criterion in this process of division was the dis tinction between that which remains like itself (tovtov) and that which changes (Oanpov), — a contrast in which we easily recognise the Pythagorean contrast between the perfect stellar world and the imperfect terrestrial world.
A similar continuation of Pythagorean doctrine is contained in the Platonic Timams, with reference also to the purely mathematical construction of the corporeal world. Here, too, the four elements are characterised according to the simple, regular, geometrical solids (ef. p. 46). But it is expressly taught that these consist of triangu lar surfaces, and those, too, of a right-angled sort, which are in part equilateral, in part so formed that the shorter side is half the length '■t the hypothenuse. The limiting surfaces of these solids, — tetrahe dron, cube, etc, — maybe thought of as composed of such right- ugled triangles, and Plato would have the essence of space-filling, ut density or solidity of bodies, regarded as consisting in this com position of these limiting surfaces. By thus conceiving of physical t**hes as purely mathematical structures, the metaphysical thought "f the Phiiebus found expression also in physics, — the thought, namely, that the phenomenal world is a limitation of space formed in imitation of the Ideas. These triangular surfaces, which were, moreover, conceived of as being indivisible, have a suspicious simi larity with the atomic forms ((r^imra) of Democritus.
i la this respect the Timaut, quite a* does Democritus, characterises psychical •kflVreoce* by differences of motion, tracing, for example, right ideation to the ♦»*r«», merely individual perception to the ednpor, etc. "Soul" is for the •>rrelu st the same time principle of motion and of perception, and just that
u**ru*» and air»irr>"«»< Arist. De An. I. 2, 40:» b 25), and even Plato makes the •ft'/nd characteristic dependent upon the first.
132 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
§ 12. The Aristotelian Logic.
The breadth of plan which appeared in the systems of the two great antipodal thinkers, Democritus and Plato, and in accordance with which their doctrines were methodically developed, made it indispensable that there should be not only a division of labour, but a separation of problems. The titles of the writings of Democritus make it probable that he proceeded clearly and definitely in this respect also. Plato, to be sure, conceived his literary activity essen tially from the artist's point of view, but it is evident that in his activity as a teacher he did not fail to make that arrangement of problems for separate treatment which we miss in his dialogues. In his school the division of philosophy into dialectic, physics, and ethics became dominant.
If by dialectic in this connection we are to understand essentially the doctrine of Ideas in its metaphysical development, Aristotle made the great step in advance of prefacing the investigation of the subject-matter in all three departments with a preliminary study of the essential nature of science, a doctrine of the forms and laws of scientific thought. Even with the Sophists and Socrates reflection had begun upon the question, in what scientific activity properly consists, and the sharpened attention given to the inner processes had made it possible for the abstracting thinker to separate the general forms of the thought-process itself from the particular con tents to which this process relates at different times. All these beginnings and attempts — for even with Plato it did not go beyond this — were comprehended by Aristotle in his Logic, and developed into a complete system in which we have before us the ripe self- knowledge of Greek science.
1. The immediate aim of the Aristotelian logic is, according to the express declarations of the philosopher, entirely methodological. The way is to be shown by which the goal of scientific cognition can be reached in all departments of knowledge. As in rhetoric the art of persuasion is taught, so in logic we are to learn the art of scien tific investigation, cognition, and proof. For this reason Aristotle did not reckon logic, which was his greatest creation, among the philosophical disciplines themselves, but treated it in his lectures as a propaedeutic, and for this reason his school regarded this study as the general instrument (Spyavov) for all scientific work.
But this preparatory study itself was made a science by Aristotle. Instead of bringing forward rules of practical value in individual cases, as may well have been the case with the Sophists, instead of the general fixing of a principle which had been the service of
llur. 3, f 12. ] The Aristotelian Logic. 133
Socrates, he offers an examination of the thinking activity on all sides, a comprehensive examination of its regular forms. He fulfils the methodological task by formal logic.
But in so doing it becomes evident that the knowledge of the forms of right thinking can be gained only from understanding the Usk of thought, and that in turn this task can be disclosed only from a definite idea of the general relation of knowledge to its object. Thus the Aristotelian logic is connected in the most intimate manner with the metaphysical presupposition which lie it the basis of his treatment of the other disciplines also. In :ts principle, it is thoroughly epidemiological.
2. As such, however, it has its roots in the Socratic-Platonic doctrine of Ideas. That which truly is, is the general or universal, and knowledge of this is the conception. In this respect Aristotle always remained a Platonist What he combated in the system of his great predecessor ' was only the Eleatic assumption of absence of relation, — absence of relation between general and particular, between Ideas and phenomena, between conceptions and percep tions; an absence of relation which, in spite of all his efforts, Plato had not overcome, even in the later phase of his teaching. Even as the final cause of occurrence the Ideas remained a world
by themselves beside (*api) the phenomena. This tearing apart i p^t£civ) of essence and phenomenon, of Being and Becoming, is. in addition to special dialectical objections,' the object of the chief reproach which Aristotle brings against the doctrine of ideas. Whde Plato had made two different worlds out of the general which is known by the conception, and the particular which is per
ceived, the entire effort of Aristotle is directed toward removing again this division in the conception of reality, and discovering that relation between Idea and phenomenon which shall make concep- tiooal knowledge able to explain what is perceived.
Oat of this grows as the primary task for logic, that of recognis ing the true relation between the general and the particular, and hence this fundamental form of abstract or conceptional thought, which had been already recognised as fundamental by Socrates, stands in the centre of the Aristotelian logic.
> Principally in Met. I. 9, and XIII. 4.
' <Jf these, two are principally worthy of mention in passing. The one ■rfnea, (rum the logical subordination which obtains among the Ideas, that everything that we perceive must be subsumed under a number of Ideas ; the ■she* calls attention to the difficulty that the resemblance, which, according to tha system exists between the Idea and 'he phenomenon, makes necessary stili skigber general above both, etc. , in infinitum (arfpwroi — aisrdvfpwrot — rpfroi
134 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part 1.
The importance of this same relation grows out of still another course of thought. If Aristotle found any previous works that were preparatory for his theory of science, they consisted in the considerations of the Sophists with regard to the art (principally
of proof and refutation. If now Aristotle asked how one can prove anything scientifically, i. e. in a manner universally valid and relating to true knowledge, he found that this could con sist only in the deduction of the particular from the general. To prove scientifically means to state the grounds for the validity of what is asserted, and these are to be found only in the more general under which the particular is subsumed.
From this resulted the peculiar complication which constitutes the Aristotelian conception of science. The general, the Idea, is, as the true Being, the cause of occurrence and change. It is that, therefore, out of which and through which the perceived particular is to be comprehended, conceived, or explained. Science has to set forth how the perceived particular follows from the general which is known in conceptions. On the other hand, the general is in thought the ground by means of which and from which the particular is proved. Accordingly, conceiving or comprehending and proving are the same thing, viz. deduction of the particular from the general.
The scientific theory of Aristotle is accordingly concentrated in the conception of derivation or deduction (&rd&i£tg). Scientific explanation of phenomena from true Being is the same logical process as scientific proof: namely, the deduction or derivation of what is given in perception from its general ground. " Explaining and proving are therefore denoted by the same word, deduction," and the right proof is that which takes as its ground the actual or real general cause of that which is to be proved. 1 It is, therefore, the task of science to exhibit the logical necessity with which the particular insight (of perception) follows from the general insight (of conception), and the particular phenomenon from the general cause.
This characterisation of the task of science, thus developed from metaphysical presuppositions, experienced an essential change in the progress of its author's investigations.
3. The most immediate task of logic, according to this, is to establish more exactly what deduction — i. e. on the one hand, proof,
1 This definition of the conception of scientific proof is obviously directed against the rhetorical proof of the Sophists. In the art of persuasion, ail proofs are welcome, however external they may remain to the true nature of the case, provided only they are formally sufficient to bring the hearer to assent. Scientific proof, however, should proceed from the inner, logical necessity of the case, and should therefore give at the same time insight into the true cause of what is to be proved.
Chap. 3. § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 117
against the Sophistic doctrines of society and knowledge marked by increasing keenness, but also by an increasing tendency toward establishing his own view upon an independent basis. The Platonic criticism of the Sophistic theories, however, proceeded essentially from the Socratic postulate. It admitted fully, in the spirit of Protagoras, the relativity of all knowledge gained through percep tion, but it found just in this the inadequacy of the Sophistic theory for a true science of ethics. 1 The knowledge which is necessary for virtue cannot consist in opinions as they arise from the changing states of motion in subject and object, nor can it consist of a rational consideration and legitimation of such opinions gained by perception ; * it must have a wholly different source and wholly different objects. Of the corporeal world and its changing states —
Plato held to thh view of Protagoras in its entirety — there is no science, but only perceptions and opinions ; it is accordingly an i*mrporeal world that forms the object of science, and this world most exist side by side with the corporeal world as independently as does knowledge side by side with opinion. 3
Here we have for the first time the claim of an immaterial reality, '•rought forward expressly and with full consciousness, and it is dear that this springs from the ethical need for a knowledge that is raised above all ideas gained by sense-perception. The assump tion of immateriality did not at first have as its aim, for Plato, the explanation of phenomena : its end was rather to assure an object for ethical knowledge. The idealistic metaphysics, therefore, in its first draft * builds entirely upon a new foundation of its own, with out any reference to the work of earlier science that had been directed toward investigating and understanding phenomena; it is aa immaterial Eleatism, which seeks true Being in the Ideas, with out troubling itself about the world of generation and occurrence, *hi'h it leaves to perception and opinion. *
To avoid numerous misunderstandings* we must, nevertheless, expressly point out that the Platonic conception of immateriality (•vwparor) is in nowise coincident with that of the spiritual or
psychical, as might be easily assumed from the modern mode of thinking. For the Platonic conception the particular psychical
1 On thin point, the Thecrtetut brings together the whole criticism of the S"f*. »ulc doctrine.
» Uf» *A*«4t nrrk XA>«*, Thtat. 201 E. (Probably a theory of Antisthenes. ) • Aria*. Met. I. «. 987 a 32 ; XIII. 4, 1078 b 12.
' A* act forth in the dialogues Pheedrut and the Symposium.
' la mitigations aa to theoretical and natural science are first found in the
■teat dialogues.
' To which the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-PIatonic transformation of the
soonna of Ideas gave occasion. Cf. It. II. ch. 2, { 18.
1 18 The Greeks : Systematic Period.
[PahtI.
functions belong to the world of Becoming, precisely as do those of the body and of other corporeal things ; and on the other hand, in the true reality the " forms " or " shapes " of corporeality, the Ideas of sensuous qualities and relations, find a place precisely as do those of the spiritual relations. The identification of spirit or mind and incorporeality, the division of the world into mind and matter, is un- Platonic. The incorporeal world which Plato teaches is not yet the spiritual.
Kather, the Ideas are, for Plato, that incorporeal Being which is known through conceptions. Since, that is, the conceptions in which Socrates found the essence of science are not given as such in the reality that can be perceived, they must form a " second," " other " reality, different from the former, existing by itself, and this imma terial reality is related to the material, as Being to Becoming, as the abiding to the changing, as the simple to the manifold — in short, as the world of Parmenides to that of Heraclitus. The object of ethical knowledge, cognised through general conceptions, is that which " is " in the true sense : the ethical, the logical, and the phys ical ipxi (ground or first principle) are the same. This is the point in which all lines of earlier philosophy converge.
2. If the Ideas are to be " something other " than the percep tible world, knowledge of them through conceptions cannot be found in the content of perception, for they cannot be contained in it. With this turn of thought, which corresponds to the sharper separa tion of the two worlds, the Platonic doctrine of knowledge becomes much more rationalistic than that of Democritus, and goes also decidedly beyond that of Socrates ; for while the latter had devel oped the universal out of the opinions and perceptions of individuals inductively, and had found it as the common content in these opin ions and perceptions, Plato does not conceive of the process of induction in this analytical manner, but sees in perceptions only the suggestions or promptings with the help of which the soul bethinks itself of the conceptions, of the knowledge of the Ideas.
Plato expressed this rationalistic principle in the form that phil osophical knowledge is recollection (Ava/j-v^mt). He showed in the example of the Pythagorean proposition ' that mathematical knowl edge is not extracted from sense-perception, but that sense-percep tion offers only the opportunity on occasion of which the soul recollects the knowledge already present within her, that is, knowl edge that has purely rational validity. He points out that the pure mathematical relations are not present in corporeal reality ; on the
1 Meno, 80 ft. ■•-. .
Cm**. 8, § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 119
contrary, the notion of these relations arises in us when similar figures of perception offer but the occasion therefor, and he extended this observation, which is completely applicable to mathematical knowledge, to the sum total of scientific knowledge.
That this reflection upon what is rationally necessary should be conceived of as recollection is connected with the fact that Plato, is little as any of his predecessors, recognises a creative activity of the consciousness, which produces its content. This is a general limit for all Greek psychology ; the content for ideas must somehow be given to the " soul " ; hence, if the Ideas are not given in perception, and the soul nevertheless finds them in herself on occasion of per ception, she must have already received these Ideas in some way or other. For this act of reception, however, Plato finds only the
mythical representation,1 that before the earthly life the souls have bekeid the pure forms of reality in the incorporeal world itself, that the perception of similar corporeal things calls the remembrance back to those forms forgotten in the corporeal earthly life, and that from this awakes the philosophical impulse, the love of the Ideas
(Igmt), by which the soul becomes raised again to the knowledge of that true reality. Here, too, as in the case of Democritus, it is shown that the entire ancient rationalism could form no idea of the process of thought except after the analogy of sensuous percep tion, particularly that of the sense of sight
What Socrates in his doctrine of the formation of conceptions had designated as induction, became transformed, therefore, for Plato, into an intuition that proceeds by recollecting (owaywyij) , into re flection upon a higher and purer perception (Anschauung). This pare perception, however, yields a plurality of ideas corresponding to the multiplicity of objects which occasion such perceptions, and from this grows the further task for science to know also the rela- Uam» of the Ideas to each other. This is a second step of Plato's
beyond Socrates, and is specially important for the reason that it led shortly to the apprehension of the logical relations between concep tions. It was principally the relations of the subordination and co ordination of concepts to which Plato became attentive. The division of the class-concepts or logical genera into their species phjliil a great part in his teaching. ' The possibility or impossibility of the onion of particular conceptions is brought more exactly into
' r%mdr. 240 B.
* CL Pkileb. 16 C. Yet this dividing process is not any where especially promi- tm in the writings that are certainly Platonic. It is handled with the pedantry U a school in the Sophist and Politicus. Antiquity preserved " definitions " and '• diriaioui " from the Platonic school. In Athtnaus. 1 1. M* C, is an instance of SBOckary, by a comic poet, at this academical concept-splitting.
120 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part 1.
consideration,1 and as a methodical aid he recommended the hypo thetical method of discussion, which aims to examine a tentatively proposed conception by developing all the possible consequences that would follow from the possibility of its union with conceptions already known.
These logical operations taken as a whole, by means of which the Ideas and their relations to one another (KMvwvCa) were to be found, Plato denoted by the name dialectic. What is found in his writings concerning it has throughout a methodological character, but is not properly logical.
3. The doctrine of knowledge as recollection stood, however, in closest connection with Plato's conception of the relation of Ideas to the world ofphenomena. Between the higher world of oicria and the lower world of yciw«, between what is and what is in process of Becoming, he found that relation of similarity which exists between archetypes (impaSiiytiaTa) and their copies or images (<t&uXa) . In this, too, a strong influence of mathematics upon the Platonic philosophy is disclosed : as the Pythagoreans had already designated things as imitations of numbers, so Plato found that individual things always correspond to their class-concepts only to a certain degree, and that the class-concept is a logical ideal which none of its empirical examples comes up to. He expressed this by the conception of
It was thus at the same time established that that second world, that of the incorporeal Ideas, was to be regarded
as the higher, the more valuable, the more primitive world.
Yet this mode of representing the matter gave rather a deter
mination of their respective values than a view that was usable for metaphysical consideration : hence Plato sought for still other desig nations of the relation. The logical side of the matter, according to which the Idea as class-concept or species represents the total uni tary extent or compass, of which the individual things denote but a part, appears in the expression participation (ptOifa), which means that the individual thing but partakes in the universal essence of the Idea; and the changing process of this partaking is emphasised by the conception of presence (jrapowia). The class-concept or species is present in the thing so long as the latter possesses the qualities which dwell in the Idea. The Ideas come and go, and as these now communicate themselves to things and now again withdraw, the qualities in these things which are like the Ideas are successively changed to the eye of perception.
The precise designation of this relation was, for Plato, an object 1 Phcedo, 102 B.
imitation (/u/t>7o-t? ) .
Chap. 3, $ 11. ] S>/ ft em of Idealism: Plato. 121
of only secondary interest, provided only the difference between the world of Ideas and the corporeal world, and the dependence of the latter upon the former, were recognised. 1 Most important and sufficient for him was the conviction that by means of conceptions that knowledge which virtue needs of what truly and really could be won.
A. Peipeis, Oniologia Platonica. Leipe. 1883.
4. But the logico-metaphysical interest which Plato grafted upon the Socratic doctrine of knowledge carried him far beyond the master as regards the contents of this doctrine. The general characteristics which he developed for the essence of the Ideas applied to all class-concepts, and the immaterial world was therefore
peopled with the archetypes of the entire world of experience. So many class-concepts, so many Ideas for Plato, too, there are count- lea "forms. " In so far criticism* was right in saying that Plato's world of Ideas was the world of perception thought over again in conception.
In fact, according to the first draft of the Platonic philosophy, tbere are Ideas of everything possible, of things, qualities, and relations of the good and the beautiful as well as of the bad and the ugly. Since the Idea defined methodologically, in purely formal way, as class-concept, every class-concept whatever belongs to the higher world of pure forms and in the dialogue Parmenides* mA only was Plato's attention called by a man schooled in the Eleatie Sophistic doctrine to all kinds of dialectical difficulties which inhere in the logical relation of the one Idea to its many copies, bat he was also rallied, spitefully enough, with the thought of all the foul companions that would be met in his world of pure
conceptual forms.
Plato's philosophy had no principle that could serve as weapon
against such an objection, nor there in the dialogues any intima tion that he had attempted to announce definite criterion for the mrl~iio* of those class-concepts that were to be regarded as Ideas, a* f-onstituents of the higher incorporeal world. Nor do the ex amples which he adduces permit such principle to be recognised we can only say that seems as in course of time he continually emphasised more strongly the attributes expressing worth (as the
irood and the beautiful), the mathematical relations (greatness and Ruallness, numerical determinations, etc. ), and the types of species m the organic world, while, on the contrary, he no longer reckoned
Fkmdo, 100 D. Arlst. Met. 990 Parm. 130 C.
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122 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part L
among the Ideas mere concepts of relation, especially negative notions and things made by human art. 1
5. Our knowledge of the systematic connection and order which Plato intended to affirm in the realm of Ideas remains ultimately as obscure as that in regard to the preceding point. Urgent as he was to establish co-ordination and subordination among the conceptions, the thought of a logically arranged pyramid of conceptions which must culminate in the conception that was most general and poorest in content seems not to have been carried out. A very problematical attempt to set up a limited number (five) of most general concep tions1 is presented in the Sophist (254 ff. ). But these attempts, which tend toward the Aristotelian doctrine of the categories, are not to be traced back with certainty to Plato himself.
With him we find, rather, only the doctrine presented in the Philebus, as well as in the Republic, that the Idea of the Good is the highest, embracing, ruling, and realising all others. Plato defines this Idea as regards its content as little as did Socrates; he de termined it only by means of the relation, that it should represent in its content the highest absolute end of all reality, of the incor poreal as of the corporeal. The subordination of the other Ideas to this highest Idea is accordingly not the logical subordination of a particular under the general, but the teleological of the means to the end.
In the latest period of his philosophising, concerning which we have only intimations in the Laws and in critical, notices of Aris totle,3 and in the teachings of his nearest successors, the imperfec tion of this solution of the logical problem seems to have led Plato to the unfortunate thought of developing the system of Ideas ac cording to the method of the Pythagorean number-theory. The
also, to be sure, had the purpose of attaching the abiding arrangements of things symbolically to the development of the number series. But that was only a makeshift, because they had as yet no idea of the logical arrangement of conceptions : hence, when Plato, in connection with his other thoughts, fell back upon this makeshift, designated the Idea of the Good as the h, the One, and attempted to derive from it the duality (Sww) of the Infinite or Indefinite, and the Measure (awnpov and ripas, = even and odd ; cf. § 4, 11), and from this, further, the other Ideas in such a way as to present a series of the conditioning and the conditioned, neither
' Cf. also Arist. 3tet. XII. 3, 1070 c 18.
3 Being, rest, motion, sameness (raArtmii) and otherness (b-cpirtit), i. e. the
division of Being into the resting (ofio-Io), ever the same with itself, and the moved (yirtett), in process of constant change.
Pythagoreans
8 Cf. A Trendelenburg, Platonis de Ideis et Xnmeris Doctrina (Leips. 1826).
CuAf. 3, | ll. ] System of Idealism: Plato. 123
this deplorable construction nor the fact that men like Speusippus, Xenocrates, Philippus, and Archytas undertook to carry it out in detail, would be worth more particular mention, were not this just the point to which the speculation of the Neo- Pythagoreans and the Xeo-Platonists became attached. For by this gradation which Plato thus began within the oiWu the world of true reality, the division i"» the conception of reality, which had developed out of the opposi tion between perception and thought, became multiplied, and thus
ualism was again abolished. For when to the One, or the Idea of the Good, was ascribed the highest absolute reality, and to the vari ous strata of the world of Ideas, a reality of constantly decreasing worth in proportion as they were removed from the One in the system in numbers, there arose from this a scale of realities which extended from the One down to the lowest reality, — that of the corporeal world. Fantastic as this thought may be, it yet evinced its force and influence in the development of thought, even to the threshold of modern philosophy. Its power, however, lies doubtless u> all cases in its amalgamation of attributes of worth with these
rarious grades of reality.
6. While as metaphysics, the doctrine of Ideas fell into such seri
ous difficulties, it was carried out in an extremely happy, simple, and transparent manner in that domain which formed its proper home, — that of ethics. For the systematic elaboration of this, however, Plato needed a psychology, and that, too, of another sort than the psychology which had arisen in previous science, out of the presup- positions of natural philosophy, and with the aid of individual per ceptions or opinions. When, in contrast with this, he developed his psychology from the postulates of the doctrine of Ideas, the result was of course a purely metaphysical theory which stood and fell with its postulate, yet it was at the same time, by reason of the import of the doctrine of Ideas, a first attempt to understand the psychical life from within, and in accordance with its internal char acter and articulation.
The conception of the soul or mind was in itself a difficulty ' in the dualism of the doctrine of Ideas. For Plato, also, "soul" was cm the one hand the living element, that which is moved of itself and moves other things, and on the other hand, that which perceives, knows, and wills. As principle of life and of motion, the soul
tvrlongs. therefore, to the lower world of Becoming, and in this it remains when it perceives and directs its desires toward objects of the senses. But this same soul, nevertheless, by its true knowledge
• Pkttdo, 76 ff. , 106, Pkttdr. 246, Laws, X. 896.
124 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I-
of the Ideas, becomes partaker in the higher reality of abiding Being. Hence it must be assigned a position between the two worlds — not the timeless, unchanged essence of the Ideas, but a vitality which. survives change ; i. e. immortality. Here, for the first time, personal immortality is brought forward by Plato as a part of philosophic teaching. Of the proofs which the Phcedo adduces for this, those are most in accord with the spirit of the system which reason from the soul's knowledge of Ideas to its relationship with eternity ; in correspondence with the form of the system is the dialectic false conclusion that the soul cannot be or become dead, because its essential characteristic is life ; the most tenable of the arguments is the reference to the unity and substantiality which the soul evinces in ruling the body.
In consequence of this intermediate position the soul must bear in itself the traits of both worlds ; there must be in its essence some thing which corresponds to the world of Ideas, and something which corresponds to the world of perception. The former is the rational nature (Aoyio-TiKoV or vovs), the seat of knowledge and of the virtue which corresponds to it ; in the latter, the irrational nature, Plato made a further distinction of two elements, — the nobler, which inclines towards the Reason, and the lower, which resists it. The nobler he found in the ardent, spirited Will (Spirit, Ov(uk), the lower in the sensuous desire (Appetite, imOvixui) . Thus Reason, Spirit, and Appetite are the three forms of activity of the soul, the classes or species (tlS-q) of its states.
These fundamental psychological conceptions which had thus grown out of considerations of ethical worth are employed by Plato to set forth the moral destiny of the individual. The fettering of the soul to the body is at once a consequence and a punishment of the sensuous appetite. Plato extends the immortal existence of the soul equally beyond the two boundaries of the earthly life. The sin for the sake of which the soul is ensnared in the world of sense is to be sought in a pre-existent state ; ' its destiny in the hereafter ' will depend upon how far it has freed itself in the earthly life from the sensuous appetite, and turned to its higher vocation — knowledge of the Ideas. But inasmuch as the ultimate goal of the soul appears to be to strip off the sensuous nature, the three forms of activity are designated also as parts of the soul. In the Timaeus Plato even portrays the process of the formation of the soul out of these parts, and retains immortality for the rational part only.
1 These doctrines are depicted in the form of mythical allegories which make use of motives from the popular faith and from the Mystery-cults. V. Phcedr. 846 ff. ; Oorgias, 623 ff. ; Rep. 614 ff. ; Phcedo. 107 ff.
C«ap. 3, 5 11. ] Syttem of Idealism: Plato. 126
It is already clear from these changing determinations that the relation of these three fundamental forms of the psychical life to the none too strongly emphasised unity of the soul's nature was not dearly thought out ; nor is it possible to give to these conceptions formed from the ethical need the significance of purely psychologi cal distinctions, such as hare since been made. 1
7. But at all events there followed in this way, from the doctrine of the two worlds, a negative morals that would fly from the world, iml in which the withdrawal from the world of sense and the spir- ttiuhsation of life were praised as ideals of wisdom.
the Phacrto that breathes this earnest disposition in its portrayal of the death of Socrates ; the same ethical theory prevails in such dia-
1'Vues as the Gorgias, the Theostetus, and, in part, the Republic. Bnt in Plato's own nature the heavy blood of the thinker was associated with the light heart-beat of the artist, and thus while his philosophy lured him into the realm of bodiless forms, the whole charm of Hellenic beauty was living and active within him. Strongly as he therefore combated root and branch the theory of Aristippns, which would fain regard man's strivings as satisfied with sensuous pleasure, it was nevertheless his opinion that the Idea of the Good becomes realised even in the world of sense. Joy in the beautiful, pleasure in the sensuous imitation of the Idea, painless because free from the element of wishing, the development of knowledge and practical artistic skill, the intelligent understand ing of the mathematical relations which measure empirical reality, and the appropriate ordering of the individual life, — all these were mined by him as at least preparatory stages and participations in that highest good which consists in knowledge of the Ideas, and of
the highest among them, the Idea of the Good. In the Symposium and in the Philebus he has given expression to this his estimate of the goods of life.
This same thought, that ethical values and standards must illu mine the whole circuit of human life, was used in another form by Hato in that presentation of the system of the virtues which he <W*lop*»d in the Republic. Here he showed that each part of the soul has a definite task to fulfil, and so a perfection of its own to reach : the rational part, in wisdom (o-o^ta), the spirited ($vfu*t&is) in energy of will (courage, dVSpia), the appetitive (ImbvuijTiKw) in
1 That the question here (or Plato was essentially that of the gradation of the j»> chteal from the point of view of relative worth, is shown not only in the •■njiorment made of these distinctions in ethics and politics, but also in such -mark* as those which designated this triple division as characteristic for the ■liflrreot organic beings (plant, animal, man), or for the different peoples. ahabitanu of southern countries, of northern countries, and the Greeks.
It is not only
126 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
self-catUrol (moderation, <r<a<f>po<ruvT)) ; that, however, in addition to all these, as the virtue of the soul as a whole, there must be the right relation of these parts, complete uprightness (justice, Smaioo-vii) ) .
The true significance, however, of these four cardinal virtues, is first unfolded upon a higher domain, that of politics.
8. The tendency of the doctrine of Ideas, directed as it was toward the general and the universal, exhibited its most perfect operation in the aspect now to be noticed, viz. that the ethical ideal of the Platonic philosophy lay not in the ability and happi ness of the individual, but in the ethical perfection of the species. True to the logical principle of the doctrine of Ideas, that which truly in the ethical sense, not the individual man, but mankind, and the form in which this truly existent humanity appears is the organic union of individuals in the state. The ethical ideal becomes for Plato the political, and in the midst of the time which saw the dissolution of Greek political life, and in opposition to those doc trines which proclaimed only the principle of individual happiness, he raised the conception of the state to an all-controlling height.
He considered the state, however, not from the side of its empiri cal origin, but in reference to its task, viz. that of presenting in large the ideal of humanity, and of educating the citizen to that particular virtue which makes him truly happy. Convinced that his project could be realised, with force necessary, he wove into its fabric not only features which he approved of the then-existing Greek political life, in particular those of the aristocratic Doric constitutions, but also all the ideals for whose fulfilment he hoped from the right formation of public life.
K. F. Hermann, (its. Abhandlunyen, 122 ff. E. Zeller, Vortrage und Ab- handlungen, 62 ff.
If the ideal state to present man in large, must consist of the three parts which correspond to the three parts of the soul, — the teaching class, the warrior class, and the working class. It belongs to the first class alone, that of the cultured (<£iAdo-o<£ot), to guide the state and to rule1 (&p\ovtis), to give laws and to watch over their observance. The virtue proper to this class wisdom, insight into that which for the advantage of the whole, and which demanded by the ethical aim of the whole. To support this class there the second class, that of the public officials (In-ucovpot guardians, <£ij'Auk<s- which has to evince the virtue of the fearless performance of duty
as maintains the order of the state within and without Hence the Xo-ywrocA* called also yycuonicir.
(Av&pia)
1
itis I. is
is
; is it
is ).
is
;
if
»'s
is
Chap. 3, $ 11. ] Syttem of Idealism : Plato. 127
It is, however, obedience which holds the desires in check, self-control {<rw4>poaivrj), that becomes the great mass of the people, the artisans and farmers (ytwpyoi k<u brjiuovpyoi) , who have to care for providing for the external means of the states by their labour and industry. 1
Only when each class thus does its duty and maintains its appro priate virtue does the nature of the state correspond to the ideal of
justice (iuauotrwr)).
The principle of aristocracy in education, which is of decisive im
portance in the Platonic ideal of the state, appears most clearly in the provision that for the great mass of the third class only the ordinary ability of practical life is claimed, and in that this is re garded as sufficient for their purpose, while the education, which the state has the right and duty to take in hand itself in order to train its citizens for its own ends, is given only to the two other classes. By means of a constantly repeated process of selection continued from birth to the late years, the government causes the two upper classes to be continually renewed, strata by strata; and in order that no individual interest may remain to hold back these classes, who are properly the organs of the whole body, in the fulfilment of their task, they are to renounce family life and private property. Their lot is that of education by the state, absence of family relations, community of life and of goods. He who is to live for the ends of the whole, for the ethical education of the people, must not be bound to the individual by any personal interest. To this thought, which found its historic realisation in the sacerdotal state of the mediaeval hierarchy, is limited whatever of communism, community of wives, etc. , men have professed to discover in the Platonic teaching. The great Idealist carries out to its extreme consequences the thought that the end of human life consists in moral education, and that the entire organisation of a community must be arranged for this sole end.
9. With this a new relation between the world of ideas and the world of phenomena was discovered, and one which corresponded most perfectly to the spirit of the Platonic system : the Idea of the Good disclosed itself as the task, as the end (rcXot), which the phenomenon of human life in society has to fulfil. This discovery became of decisive importance for the final form taken by Plato's metaphysical system.
For, as first projected, the doctrine of Ideas had been precisely as incompetent as the Eleatic doctrine of Being to explain empirical reality. The class-concepts were held to give knowledge of the
1 Hence the third put of the soul is called also the ^iXoxfifMar**. . ■
128 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Past i
absolute reality,1 which, purely for itself, simple and changeless, without origin and imperishable, forms a world by itself, and, as in corporeal, is separated from the world where things arise. Hence, as was demonstrated in the dialogue the Sophist,* in a keen polemic against the doctrine of Ideas, this doctrine formed no principle of motion, and therefore no explanation of facts, because it excluded from itself all motion and change.
But however little Plato's interests may have been directed toward this end, the conception of the Idea as true Being ultimately- demanded, nevertheless, that the phenomenon should be regarded, not only as something other, something imitative, something that participated, but also as something dependent. It demanded that
But that which is itself absolutely unchangeable and immovable, and •xcludes every particular function from itself, cannot be a cause in
the Idea be regarded as cause of~OCVurrenee and change (curia) .
the mechanical sense, but only in the sense that it presents the end for the sake of which the occurrence takes place. Here for the first time the relation between the two worlds of Being and Becoming (ovcruz and ycVccnt) is fully defined ; all change and occurrence exists for the sake of the Idea ; 9 the Idea is the final cause of phenomena.
This foundation of teleological metaphysics Plato gives in the Philebus and in the middle books of the Republic, and adds at once a further culminating thought by introducing as the final cause of all occurrence, the world of Ideas as a whole, but in particular the high est Idea, to which all the rest are subordinate in the sense of means to end, — the Idea of the Good. This, referring to Anaxagoras, he designates as the World-reason (wros), or as the deity. *
Side by side with this motif taken from Anaxagoras, another of a Pythagorean nature appears with increasing force in a later form of the doctrine of Ideas, a motif in accordance with which the imperfection of the phenomenon is pointed out as in contrast with the true Being. This inadequacy, however, could not be derived from Being itself, and just as Leucippus, in order to understand plurality and motion, had declared that in addition to the Being of
1 Symp. 211 B, aftri Ka0' avri fuB' airov povotitit itl tv.
2 Page 246 ff. The doctrine there criticised, that of the aaiSiiiora. tfo>, can in accordance with the individual verbal coincidences be only the Platonic ; just this is a factor in the decision against the genuineness of the dialogue. Schleier- macher's hypothesis of a Megarian doctrine of Ideas, thought out to rescue the genuineness, has not shown itself tenable.
» Phileb. 64 C.
* Yet we are not to think in this case of personality, or of a spiritual being, but of the absolute ethical end or purpose of the world, the conception of the d-,aS6v finding an exact definition as little as with Socrates. It is rather presup posed as being the simplest, the most comprehensible in itself.
lmat. 3, 5 11] Syttem of Idealism: Plato. 129
Pinnenides the Not-being was also " real," or "actual," and existent, *> Plato saw himself forced, with like logical consistency, for the purpose of explaining phenomena and the inadequacy which they show with reference to the Ideas, to assume beside the world of being or of cause, i. e. the world of Ideas and the Idea of the Good, i secondary or accessory cause (tvvairiov) in that which has not the attribute of Being. Indeed, the parallelism in the two thinkers jues so far that this secondary cau-e, which is not Being (to /ly ov), a for Plato precisely the same as for Leucippus and Philolaus, viz.
"
»orld of perception was a " mixture " of the " unlimited " (arctoov), Lt. space, and of " limitation " (s-cpas), i. e. the mathematical forms;1 md that the cause of this mixture, the highest, divine world-prin-
•iple, was the Idea of the Good. Space assumes mathematical for mation in order to become like the world of Ideas.
The importance which mathematics had possessed from the outset io the development of Plato's thought finds thus at last its metaphys ical expression. The mathematical structures are the intermediate link, by means of which empty space, which is not, is able to imitate m phenomena the pure "forms" of the world of Ideas. Hence
mathematical knowledge (cWota), as well as purely philosophical knowledge («Vum)Vij), has to do with an abiding essence (owria), ud is therefore comprised together with this, as rational knowledge
{riynt), and set over against knowledge of phenomena (oo£a). But occupying thus an intermediate place, it takes only the position of a list stage in the preparation for the wisdom of the " rulers," as set forth in the system of education in the Republic.
10. The metaphysical preliminaries were now given for what Plato ultimately projected in the Timarus; viz. a sketch or rough drawjkt of the philosophy of Nature, for which, of course, true to his eputemological principle, he could not claim the worth of certainty, bit only that of probability. * Since, that he was not in a position
Under the influence of the Aristotelian terminology, this secondary cause feat been designated as "matter" (v\ti), and " only recently that modern "searches hare made clear that the Platonic matter" simply space. Cf.
'•pry space. 1 " Space was then for Plato the
out of which the world of phenomena is formed for the sake of the Idea of the Good, or of the deity. This process of formation, however, consists in taking on mathematical form; hence Plato taught in the Philebus that the
nothing
Snebeck, L'ntertuehungen t. Philot. Or. Aufl. , Freiburg B. 1889). probable that In this case Plato transposed Uie number* into the world Ideas itself, but looked upon their representation in geometrical structures as
U* ••limitation " added to space.
*Ta« Platonic Physics then hypothetical in like manner with that of
Paraenidea. Here, too, would seem that regard for the demands of his dJav
it
it is
*'U 1 It
is
d.
(2
is is,
is 1.
it
130 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
to carry through dialectically, and establish in conceptions this project of explaining occurrence from the world's end or purpose, Plato gave an exposition of his teleologkal view of Nature in mythical form only, — a view intended only as an opinion, and not as science.
This view, nevertheless, takes a position sharply opposed to the mechanical explanation of Nature, and, as this latter is set forth, we can scarcely suppose that Plato had any other doctrine in mind than that of Democritus. In opposition to the theory which makes all kinds of worlds arise here and there from the " accidental " (mean ing " purposeless " or "undesigned") meeting of "that which is in unordered, lawless motion," and perish again, he sets forth his own theory that there is only this one, most perfect and most beauti ful cosmos, unitary in nature and unique as regards its kind, and that its origin can be traced only to a reason acting according to ends.
If, then, it is desired to form a theory concerning this origin, the ground of the world of phenomena must be sought in the telic rela tion of this world to the Ideas. This relation Plato expressed by the idea of a "world-forming God" (Sniuovpyos, demiurge)" who formed or shaped out that which is not Being, i. e. space, with regard to the Ideas. " In this connection the Not-being is character ised as the indefinite plasticity which takes up all corporeal forms into itself (St&fwvij), and yet at the same time forms the ground for the fact that the Ideas find no pure representation in it. This counter-working of the accessory cause, or of the individual acces sory causes, Plato designates as meclianical necessity (avayKif). He takes up then the conception of Democritus as a particular moment into his physics, in order to explain by it what cannot be under stood teleologically. Divine activity according to ends and natural necessity are set over against each other as explaining principles, on the one hand for the perfect, and on the other hand for the imper fect in the world of phenomena. Ethical dualism passes over from metaphysics into physical theory.
ciples was united with a polemical purpose. Hence there is found mingled in the TiiiuKus, a dependence upon Democritus and a combating of his views, an attitude like that of Parmenides toward Heraclitus. Yet the distinction is not to be forgotten, that the Eleatic denied the reality of the world of phenomena, while Plato denied only that it could be known scientifically, i. e. through con ceptions. In presenting his view, however, Plato goes into questions of astron omy, mechanics, chemistry, organic life, physiological psychology, finally even into those of medicine. He gives, therefore, a kind of compendious exposi tion of his opinions in matters of natural science, opinions which in detail are extraordinarily fantastic, and as compared with the exact ideas even of his time, inadequate ; and yet taken in their whole connection, in their relation to their central principle, they have exercised an effect extending far beyond the design of their author.
Chap. 3, §U-] System of Idealism . Plato. 131
The characteristic fundamental thought of the Platonic as con trasted with the Atomistic physics is, that while Democritus con ceived of the movements of the whole as mechanical resultants of the original states of motion of the individual atoms, Plato, on the contrary, regarded the ordered motion of the universe as a whole, as the primitive unit, and derived every individual change or occur
rence from this purposively determined whole. From this thought sprang the strange construction of the conception of the world-soul, which Plato characterised as the single principle of all motions, and thus also of all determinations of form, and likewise of all activities of perception and ideation in the world. 1 In fantastic, obscure ex position he brought forward as the mathematical " division " of this world-soul, his astronomical theory, which was in the main closely connected with that of the younger Pythagoreans, but which was
Less advanced than theirs in its assumption that the earth stood ftill. The main criterion in this process of division was the dis tinction between that which remains like itself (tovtov) and that which changes (Oanpov), — a contrast in which we easily recognise the Pythagorean contrast between the perfect stellar world and the imperfect terrestrial world.
A similar continuation of Pythagorean doctrine is contained in the Platonic Timams, with reference also to the purely mathematical construction of the corporeal world. Here, too, the four elements are characterised according to the simple, regular, geometrical solids (ef. p. 46). But it is expressly taught that these consist of triangu lar surfaces, and those, too, of a right-angled sort, which are in part equilateral, in part so formed that the shorter side is half the length '■t the hypothenuse. The limiting surfaces of these solids, — tetrahe dron, cube, etc, — maybe thought of as composed of such right- ugled triangles, and Plato would have the essence of space-filling, ut density or solidity of bodies, regarded as consisting in this com position of these limiting surfaces. By thus conceiving of physical t**hes as purely mathematical structures, the metaphysical thought "f the Phiiebus found expression also in physics, — the thought, namely, that the phenomenal world is a limitation of space formed in imitation of the Ideas. These triangular surfaces, which were, moreover, conceived of as being indivisible, have a suspicious simi larity with the atomic forms ((r^imra) of Democritus.
i la this respect the Timaut, quite a* does Democritus, characterises psychical •kflVreoce* by differences of motion, tracing, for example, right ideation to the ♦»*r«», merely individual perception to the ednpor, etc. "Soul" is for the •>rrelu st the same time principle of motion and of perception, and just that
u**ru*» and air»irr>"«»< Arist. De An. I. 2, 40:» b 25), and even Plato makes the •ft'/nd characteristic dependent upon the first.
132 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
§ 12. The Aristotelian Logic.
The breadth of plan which appeared in the systems of the two great antipodal thinkers, Democritus and Plato, and in accordance with which their doctrines were methodically developed, made it indispensable that there should be not only a division of labour, but a separation of problems. The titles of the writings of Democritus make it probable that he proceeded clearly and definitely in this respect also. Plato, to be sure, conceived his literary activity essen tially from the artist's point of view, but it is evident that in his activity as a teacher he did not fail to make that arrangement of problems for separate treatment which we miss in his dialogues. In his school the division of philosophy into dialectic, physics, and ethics became dominant.
If by dialectic in this connection we are to understand essentially the doctrine of Ideas in its metaphysical development, Aristotle made the great step in advance of prefacing the investigation of the subject-matter in all three departments with a preliminary study of the essential nature of science, a doctrine of the forms and laws of scientific thought. Even with the Sophists and Socrates reflection had begun upon the question, in what scientific activity properly consists, and the sharpened attention given to the inner processes had made it possible for the abstracting thinker to separate the general forms of the thought-process itself from the particular con tents to which this process relates at different times. All these beginnings and attempts — for even with Plato it did not go beyond this — were comprehended by Aristotle in his Logic, and developed into a complete system in which we have before us the ripe self- knowledge of Greek science.
1. The immediate aim of the Aristotelian logic is, according to the express declarations of the philosopher, entirely methodological. The way is to be shown by which the goal of scientific cognition can be reached in all departments of knowledge. As in rhetoric the art of persuasion is taught, so in logic we are to learn the art of scien tific investigation, cognition, and proof. For this reason Aristotle did not reckon logic, which was his greatest creation, among the philosophical disciplines themselves, but treated it in his lectures as a propaedeutic, and for this reason his school regarded this study as the general instrument (Spyavov) for all scientific work.
But this preparatory study itself was made a science by Aristotle. Instead of bringing forward rules of practical value in individual cases, as may well have been the case with the Sophists, instead of the general fixing of a principle which had been the service of
llur. 3, f 12. ] The Aristotelian Logic. 133
Socrates, he offers an examination of the thinking activity on all sides, a comprehensive examination of its regular forms. He fulfils the methodological task by formal logic.
But in so doing it becomes evident that the knowledge of the forms of right thinking can be gained only from understanding the Usk of thought, and that in turn this task can be disclosed only from a definite idea of the general relation of knowledge to its object. Thus the Aristotelian logic is connected in the most intimate manner with the metaphysical presupposition which lie it the basis of his treatment of the other disciplines also. In :ts principle, it is thoroughly epidemiological.
2. As such, however, it has its roots in the Socratic-Platonic doctrine of Ideas. That which truly is, is the general or universal, and knowledge of this is the conception. In this respect Aristotle always remained a Platonist What he combated in the system of his great predecessor ' was only the Eleatic assumption of absence of relation, — absence of relation between general and particular, between Ideas and phenomena, between conceptions and percep tions; an absence of relation which, in spite of all his efforts, Plato had not overcome, even in the later phase of his teaching. Even as the final cause of occurrence the Ideas remained a world
by themselves beside (*api) the phenomena. This tearing apart i p^t£civ) of essence and phenomenon, of Being and Becoming, is. in addition to special dialectical objections,' the object of the chief reproach which Aristotle brings against the doctrine of ideas. Whde Plato had made two different worlds out of the general which is known by the conception, and the particular which is per
ceived, the entire effort of Aristotle is directed toward removing again this division in the conception of reality, and discovering that relation between Idea and phenomenon which shall make concep- tiooal knowledge able to explain what is perceived.
Oat of this grows as the primary task for logic, that of recognis ing the true relation between the general and the particular, and hence this fundamental form of abstract or conceptional thought, which had been already recognised as fundamental by Socrates, stands in the centre of the Aristotelian logic.
> Principally in Met. I. 9, and XIII. 4.
' <Jf these, two are principally worthy of mention in passing. The one ■rfnea, (rum the logical subordination which obtains among the Ideas, that everything that we perceive must be subsumed under a number of Ideas ; the ■she* calls attention to the difficulty that the resemblance, which, according to tha system exists between the Idea and 'he phenomenon, makes necessary stili skigber general above both, etc. , in infinitum (arfpwroi — aisrdvfpwrot — rpfroi
134 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part 1.
The importance of this same relation grows out of still another course of thought. If Aristotle found any previous works that were preparatory for his theory of science, they consisted in the considerations of the Sophists with regard to the art (principally
of proof and refutation. If now Aristotle asked how one can prove anything scientifically, i. e. in a manner universally valid and relating to true knowledge, he found that this could con sist only in the deduction of the particular from the general. To prove scientifically means to state the grounds for the validity of what is asserted, and these are to be found only in the more general under which the particular is subsumed.
From this resulted the peculiar complication which constitutes the Aristotelian conception of science. The general, the Idea, is, as the true Being, the cause of occurrence and change. It is that, therefore, out of which and through which the perceived particular is to be comprehended, conceived, or explained. Science has to set forth how the perceived particular follows from the general which is known in conceptions. On the other hand, the general is in thought the ground by means of which and from which the particular is proved. Accordingly, conceiving or comprehending and proving are the same thing, viz. deduction of the particular from the general.
The scientific theory of Aristotle is accordingly concentrated in the conception of derivation or deduction (&rd&i£tg). Scientific explanation of phenomena from true Being is the same logical process as scientific proof: namely, the deduction or derivation of what is given in perception from its general ground. " Explaining and proving are therefore denoted by the same word, deduction," and the right proof is that which takes as its ground the actual or real general cause of that which is to be proved. 1 It is, therefore, the task of science to exhibit the logical necessity with which the particular insight (of perception) follows from the general insight (of conception), and the particular phenomenon from the general cause.
This characterisation of the task of science, thus developed from metaphysical presuppositions, experienced an essential change in the progress of its author's investigations.
3. The most immediate task of logic, according to this, is to establish more exactly what deduction — i. e. on the one hand, proof,
1 This definition of the conception of scientific proof is obviously directed against the rhetorical proof of the Sophists. In the art of persuasion, ail proofs are welcome, however external they may remain to the true nature of the case, provided only they are formally sufficient to bring the hearer to assent. Scientific proof, however, should proceed from the inner, logical necessity of the case, and should therefore give at the same time insight into the true cause of what is to be proved.
