The preceding essays rely on a few selected ideas and passages from Plato’s writing to develop a pluralist version of Platonism. My main argument is that the model of Socratic reasoning and the resultant pluralist understanding of Platonic Forms are valid in themselves, whether or not they accurately represent the thought of the person Plato. In the present essay I attempt to show how this interpretation receives much more support from Plato’s writing than one might suspect. I do this by a close reading of some particular passages from Plato’s Republic, passages commonly invoked to show that Plato believed in unchanging Absolute Truths transcending all cultural diversity and historical change. I want to show that this Absolutist interpretation results from taking certain individual statements out of the context of the questions addressed in the Republic, and interpreting them in the context of modern questions about cultural diversity and historical change that played little or no part in Plato’s thought.

I will first present the common Absolutist understanding of Plato’s Forms, give some examples of Plato’s statements apparently supporting this understanding, but then show in detail how this understanding goes contrary to the context in which these statements occur.

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The common understanding of Platonic Forms seems to run roughly as follows:

If we took a broad overview of human cultures, we would see that human communities employ an exceedingly wide variety of concepts to express their moral norms and spiritual ideal. Taking a broad overview of human history, we can see that the concepts so employed have constantly changed, and are still changing.

Standing above and beyond all this constant change and immense diversity stand a much smaller number of Platonic Forms. These do not change at all, and have a status, a universal validity, fundamentally superior to all the particular concepts current in any given culture at any given moment in history. Knowledge of these Forms is also fundamentally superior to all other kinds of knowledge. This Knowledge is a pure seeing of the Forms existing as Unchanging Essences. By comparison, the particular concepts any given culture employs to represent moral norms constitute mere unfounded, culturally conditioned, subjective "opinion." Philosophical Reason is the means by which a person can raise her mind above diverse and changing, culturally conditioned norms, and come to this Knowledge of the Absolute, Unconditioned Truths represented by the Platonic Forms.

Sometimes these Forms are conceived of as thing-like objects existing in a realm invisible to the senses, but visible to the spiritual mind or soul in a kind of mystical vision. Sometimes they are conceived of less literally, more along rational Kantian lines, as Eternal, Necessary Truths, rather than thing-like objects. In the Kantian context, the reason why Knowledge of the Forms is fundamentally different from and superior to ordinary knowledge, is that this is a priori knowledge, Knowledge known by Pure Reason completely independently of the senses. The senses give us knowledge of contingent truths, truths that might be otherwise and are constantly changing (like the current temperature at the North Pole). Pure Reason gives us Knowledge of Truths that are completely necessary and undoubtable, like the truths of mathematics (2+2=4). These Truths are undoubtable, not just to this or that variably "conditioned" human consciousness, but to all possible consciousnesses. Because they are necessary and undoubtable truths, they are known with absolute certainty and are universally valid for all conscious beings whatsoever.

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Plato does say some things that can easily be construed this way. He speaks of the Forms as "always being," and "always being the same." He does say that knowledge of the Forms is a special kind of Knowledge, which he calls episteme. He contrasts episteme with other inferior knowledge which he calls doxa, commonly translated "opinion." He says, in apparent Kantian fashion, that the Forms are Known by a mental faculty (logos, "reason," or noesis, "mental understanding"), operating entirely separately from sense-perception (aisthesis). He speaks of one Form of Beauty understood by the Mind, contrasted with the many beautiful things perceived by the senses. One sentence describes knowledge of the Forms a anamarteton, translated by Paul Storey as "infallible," (Republic 477e) evoking again the Kantian idea that Truths known a priori, like mathematical truths, are known with certainty.

Below I want to discuss one key passage in the Republic and show that the context suggests a translation and understanding of the above kinds of statements very different from this "metaphysical" understanding. There are two main issues,

(1) How to understand the Greek verb einai "to be" and its derivatives, on "being," ousia "essence," etc.

(2) How to understand the contrast Plato describes as the contrast between doxa and episteme (commonly translated, mistranslated I think, as "opinion" and "knowledge").

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The Greek verb einai can be used to assert that something exists. This is the "existential" meaning of enai. But it can also be used to predicate of something that it is a being of a specific kind, as in "This bird is beautiful." This is the "predicative" meaning of einai. English has a separate word "exist" which we can use to make it clear when the "existential" meaning of "being" is intended. Unlike English, classical Greek has no separate word for "exist," so einai has to do double duty for both "X exists" and "X is beautiful."

The metaphysical understanding of Plato’s Form theory typically takes einai in its "existential" meaning. So when Plato speaks of the Form of Beauty as "always being," this is taken as an assertion that this Form "always exists" - - i.e. it exists in a realm beyond all variability in concepts of beauty due to historical change and cultural diversity.

I will try to show that several features of the passage below point strongly the a "predicative" meaning of einai. So when Plato speaks of the Form of Beauty, for example, as "always being" what he means is that the Form of Beauty always is beautiful. He is not contrasting one "eternally existing" general concept of beauty with other variable and changing general concepts of beauty. He is rather referring to a Form that always and only represents admirable beauty, in contrast to concrete representations of beauty (beautiful bodies, beautiful stage-productions, etc.) which contain some mixture of being-beautiful and being not-beautiful, and which might change from being beautiful to being not-beautiful. Only of the pure Form of Beauty is it correct to say that it fully and without reservation "is beautiful." Beauty can only be fully predicated of the Form of Beauty. As Plato says in one place, concrete examples of beauty "roll around between being and not being" i.e. they do not completely lack the being of Beauty, nor do they completely have this being either.

I want to argue that this predicative meaning of einai also applies to the several derivative grammatical forms of einai:

- esti "[it] is,"

- the participle on, "being" (plural onta, "beings")

- and the noun form ousia "being" or "essence"

The following passage (Republic 504c) seems a particularly clear example of the "predicative" sense of the participle on, "being".

There is a clear implication in this passage that the phrase "what falls short of being" has the same meaning as "imperfect." That is, "being" refers to the Forms that have the full being of virtues, not because they have a higher degree of "existence," but because they represent admirable virtues in their most perfect, i.e. their most admirable, form.

Note here also the clear indication of the function that the Forms need to fulfill, being a "measure" of moral perfection. One can only be assured that attempts to "measure up" to some particular ideal will make one a more admirable person, if this measure itself represents goodness in its most perfect form.

Finally, note here also that Plato criticizes "some people" who settle for ordinary imperfect notions of goodness feeling no need to seek further than ordinary and easily accessible notions, implying that it might be quite difficult to formulate and grasp ideas of perfect goodness.

The interpretation I propose depends on understanding einai and its derivatives in this predicative sense, not the existential sense, wherever they are used in relation to the Forms. Essentially, the Form of Beauty can be called the "being" of beauty because it alone is fully, unqualifiedly, unchangingly, and perfectly admirably-beautiful. The ideal Platonic philosopher is said to always have his eyes on ta onta "the beings," because he keeps his attention focused on this kind of pure and perfect "being" of each of the virtues. This gives him knowledge of the ousia, "being," or "essence" of each virtue.

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Understanding "being" in the sense just described also affects the way we should understand the contrast between doxa and episteme/gnosis. Doxa is usually translated "opinion," which in English gives the impression of unreliable, subjective, unfounded beliefs (as in "that’s only your opinion), in contrast to reliable, well-founded Knowledge (episteme or gnosis). That is, it evokes a context in which there are competing ideas about the nature of true beauty, for example. Some people’s ideas only consist of some unreliable, uncertain, subjective "opinions" about beauty, whereas other people have ideas about beauty that they Know to correspond exactly to the nature of beauty as it is in itself. In the context of the common "metaphysical" Kantian understanding of Plato described above, episteme/gnosis can easily seem to be a reference to pure a priori Philosophical Knowledge of the single universal true Essence of Beauty transcending all the particular, diverse and changing, historically- and culturally-conditioned "opinions" about beauty. This understanding is what makes "Platonism" implacably opposed to any acceptance of legitimate cultural diversity and historical change in people’s concepts of beauty. But taking this view also entails accepting that Plato provides no rational basis whatsoever for this supposed Knowledge of the single Unchanging Essence of Beauty.

But the context of the Plato-passage treated below suggests a very different understanding of the contrast between doxa and episteme. This passage is not describing the contrast between different general concepts or theoretical "opinions" about beauty held by different thinkers. People who love the doxa of beauty are not reflective thinkers at all, but just people who "love the sight" (philo-theamones) of many beautiful concrete things, such as beautiful bodies, or beautiful stage-productions. These concrete visible things roll around between being- beautiful and being not-beautiful. These sight-lovers are described as "doxa-lovers" (philo-doxous), and are contrasted with good Platonic philosophers who have Platonic Knowledge (episteme/gnosis) of, and are in love with, an abstract pure Form of Beauty. Only of such an abstract Form can it be said that it always, only, and completely "is beautiful," not rolling around between being-beautiful and not being-beautiful.

This kind of Platonic episteme/Knowledge is something Plato’s writings provide a rational basis for. That is, as detailed in the previous two chapters, Socratic inquiry can show that all attempts to define beauty in terms of things visible to the senses will inevitably lead to conflicts and contradictions between a person’s own personal perceptions. Only abstracting, "separating," a concept of Beauty from all visible concrete things can such conflicts and contradictions be overcome. The passage commented on below indeed makes reference to the kind of contradictions uncovered in Socratic inquiry and to the mental abstraction necessary to resolve them.

As argued in the previous chapters, this understanding of Platonic Knowledge is compatible with cultural and historical pluralism. To take a simple example, the Greek concept of beauty, to kalos, is not exactly the same as the American concept of "beauty." The American concept is very visually oriented, making it strange to speak of "beautiful institutions" and "beautiful sciences" as Plato does (Symposium 211c), and leading translators to switch between "beautiful" and "noble" or "fine" to translate to kalos. The opposite of "beautiful" is "ugly," whereas the opposite of kalos is aischros, "shameful." These associations allow Plato to speak of to kalos as a "virtue" (arete,Symposium 212a), whereas it is more of a stretch for Americans to think of beauty as a virtue. So an ancient Greek Platonist trying to formulate a Platonic Form of to kalos, based on concrete examples she would associate with this word, would most likely define a Platonic Form of to kalos very differently from the way an American Platonist define a Platonic Form of "beauty."

If one supposes that Platonic Knowledge can only be Knowledge of the one and only Eternally Correct definition of "beauty," then one would have to say that a mental grasp of these two different definitions cannot both count as Platonic Knowledge. Either one is true, unconditioned Knowledge (episteme) of Beauty, and the other is mere culturally conditioned "opinion" (doxa) about beauty. Or else both are mere opinion, and only a grasp of some third definition "transcending all cultural particularity and historical change," would count as Platonic Knowledge of the one true "Essence of Beauty."

The present understanding, however, would see the issue in a very different way. The contrast is not between the single Eternally Correct definition of beauty and other less correct opinions about beauty. It is the contrast between pure and perfect abstract Forms, each representing something only and always admirable, and concrete visible admirable things, none of which is only and always admirable. In this context, nothing prevents us from seeing an American Platonist’s definition of "beauty," and a Greek Platonist’s definition of to kalos as both representing a valid Platonic Form. Although we usually speak of "the essence" of something, we would be justified in speaking here instead, in a pluralist way, of "an essence": The Greek Platonist knows "an essence" of Beauty, and the American Platonist knows "an essence" of Beauty, the two essences in question being different from each other.

I am not of course suggesting that Plato himself drew this conclusion, explicitly advocating the "pluralist Platonism," I am advocating here. Plato perhaps believed or hoped that all individuals conducting a Socratic inquiry into beauty would arrive at exactly the same definition. This was plausible for Plato, an ethnocentric Athenian addressing himself to a small group of relatively well-off Athenian males. It is no longer plausible for us. Following the logic of Plato’s argument would logically lead us, as citizens of an extremely diverse global village, to a pluralist Platonism.

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The above discussion sets the stage for a close reading of some Plato passages that now follows.

First, I want to make some observations about some passages in Republic Book II supporting the understanding of doxa described above. Doxa is the noun form of the Greek verb dokein, an ordinary word meaning "to seem." (Socrates often asks his conversation partners dokei soi...., "does it seem to you that....")

Proceeding further, Socrates says that a really just man must be one who "does not wish to seem [dokein] just, but to be [einai] just." If we want to picture such a man, we must "deprive him of the seeming [to dokein]. Because if he seems [doxei] just, honors and gifts will come to him on account of this seeming [dokounti toiouto]. Then it will not be clear whether he is this way for the sake of justice or because of honors and gifts. He must be stripped bare of everything except justice... Doing no injustices, he must have the seeming [doxan echeto] of the greatest injustice." (361c-d) Shorey again translates doxa here as "reputation."

These are just a few examples of the way that terms dokein and doxa are used throughout this discussion extending from 360e to 367e. This prepares for a discussion of my main passage Republic 475d-480a, in which doxa also plays an important part.

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My central passage begins (475d) by contrasting true philosophers with some people who go around to towns and villages to all the Dionysiac festivals, which were in Greece at the time occasions for theatrical performances and revelry (Dionysos was the Greek god of wine and dance). Plato calls these "sight-lovers" (philo-theamones) and "sound-lovers" (phil-ekooi), and it is these same people that he calls in a later passage "doxa-lovers (philo-doxai). These he contrasts with true philo-sophoi, "lovers of wisdom" who are "sight-lovers of truth" (philotheamones tes aletheias), i.e. lovers of the sight of truth.

If we think of these theater-goers as people who Plato claims have doxa rather than true Knowledge [episteme] about beauty, this makes implausible the common translation of doxa as "opinion" in this passage. "Opinion" makes it sound like there is some kind of theoretical debate going on about how to define beauty. Some people in the debate only have subjective unreliable "opinions" about how to define beauty, whereas others have absolutely certain "Knowledge" based on objective rational argument. But the theater- and party-goers in this passage are not theorists who happen to have unsound subjective opinions about how to define beauty. They are simply people who enjoy beautiful scenes, beautiful dialogue, and probably the beautiful bodies of their fellow party-goers. They are thus aptly described as sight-lovers and sound-lovers (phio-theamones and phil-ekooi).

The problem of these philo-doxous is not that they have unsound opinions. Their problem is rather a concrete-mindedness which causes them to allow themselves to be carried away by concrete visible beautiful things, potentially mixed with things that are shameful (aischron), as for example in theater-plays combining upliftingly beautiful scenes with scenes picturing things morally shameful. They are going by externally visible seemings, concrete appearances (doxa) of beauty, rather than the Truth about Beauty itself seen by Plato’s philosophical "lovers of the sight of the Truth," Truth about Beauty which these philosophers have been able to mentally "separate" from concrete externally observable exemplars in which Beauty is mingled, but which are not Beauty Itself.

In what follows, I will translate doxa as "visible appearances," and the verb doxazein as "going by visible appearances."

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The following is an attempt at a fairly literal translation the Greek text of the main passages I want to comment on:

476a

Next, Republic 479a

The reference to an Idea of Beauty "always remaining the same" provides one of the main bases for the metaphysical interpretation of Plato. Taken literally in a modern context, this is easily understood to mean that there is one and only one true definition of Beauty transcending all cultural diversity and all historical change.

But Plato makes no mention here of problems having to do with cultural diversity and historical change. The problems he mentioned are the kind uncovered by Socratic questioning, the fact that contradictions that occur when one tries to define "rightness" and other virtues in concrete terms. Taken in this context, "remaining the same" is better understood to refer to a concept of Beauty which never includes anything not-beautiful. "Many beautifuls" (polla kala) is a way of referring to many concrete beautiful things (people, actions, scenes, etc.) No concretely existing entity is fit to represent admirable Beauty Itself. All of these only imperfectly represent the one Form of Beauty which they all participate in.

Note also that, when Plato speaks of "the many beautifuls" he is speaking of many concrete manifestations of Beauty. He is not speaking of many different culturally determined abstract concepts of beauty, and saying that only one of these concepts is the correct one.

Plato continues 479c:

"Is it more than it is not whatever one might say it is." [poteron oun esti mallon e ouk estin hekaston ton pollon touton, ho an tis phe auto einai;] This clearly assumes the predicative sense of "is" ("is an x") rather than the existential sense ("x exists"). The question is not "Does it exist always?" but "Is it always the kind of thing we say it is?"

This predicative sense of "is" is reinforced by the comparison to puns, and to an apparently familiar children’s riddle, which Shorey gives as follows:

A man not a man, seeing but not seeing, a bird not a bird, perching on a branch not a branch, hit at and did not hit it, with a stone not a stone.

The solution to the riddle: A half-blind eunuch seeing (a man not a man, seeing did not see) a bat (a bird not a bird), perching on a reed (a branch not a branch), threw at it a pumice stone and missed (hit at and did not hit it with a stone not a stone). (Shorey Republic I, p. 530-31)

A bat is not halfway between existing and not existing, but halfway between fully being-a-bird and not-being-a-bird at all, and so on with the rest of the riddle.

Plato continues 480a:

I think "Know" in this passage does not refer to the Enlightenment ideal of completely objective "scientific" knowledge, or completely certain knowledge of necessary truths.  Plato just wants a special vocabulary to use for the abstract, non-sensory knowledge of the Forms, and chooses the Greek words episteme, noesis, and gnosis for this purpose.

At the end of this passage Plato makes use of all that he has said to give his derivation of the word "philo-sopher," literally "lover [philo-] of wisdom [sophia]." For Plato, only those who love and take delight in the Form which alone have the full being of Goodness are "wise." Others who do not really love the being of Goodness but only its visible external appearances, are not philo-sophous but philo-doxous.