Some Key Passages on the Forms from Plato's Republic

Earlier chapters developed a critically reconstructed version of "Socratic" Platonism. Now I turn to a close reading of the Greek text of key passages about the Forms in the middle chapters of the Republic, showing how they look when viewed from this perspective.
    My interpretation, and even my translation, of these passages will be markedly different at several key points from the mainstream tradition in Plato-interpretation today. The reason for this, as I see it, is that mainstream Plato-interpretation is determined by a retrospective picture of Plato as the person who started philosophy down the path toward "metaphysics." It looks at Plato as a kind of proto-metaphysician, the person who had metaphysical goals and made metaphysical claims, even if he himself didn't actually manage to establish his metaphysics on a sound rational basis.
    My critical reconstruction looks at Plato from the opposite chronological end, so to speak, paying attention to the path that leads from Socrates to Plato, and stopping at this "Socratic" Platonism, before it developed into the metaphysical Platonism that determined Plato's later reputation.

The key difference between these two approaches can be described in this way:

-- Metaphysical Platonism assumes that immediate personal perceptions of what is morally admirable in concrete cases are fundamentally unreliable.  The problem for reasoning is to find some source of knowledge that is fundamentally different and fundamentally more sound than these perceptions of particular individuals.

-- Socratic Platonism assumes that immediate personal perceptions of what is morally admirable in concrete cases are the most reliable ultimate basis of all moral knowledge.  The problem for reasoning is not to replace this with some fundamentally different basis for moral knowledge.  The problem for reasoning stems from the fact that concrete social reality-as-perceived in these immediate perceptions is a mixture of good and not-good.  The task for reasoning is to mentally extract from this mixture, abstract concepts of pure goodness separated from the not-good elements with which this pure goodness is mixed in the deliverances of concrete personal perceptions.

The Greek vocabulary that Plato uses in key passages about the Forms in the Republic is ambiguous enough that it can be understood in either of these two ways.   Today this vocabulary is almost always translated in ways that decide clearly in favor of the first, metaphysical interpretation.  What I want to show in this chapter is that this same vocabulary can just as easily be understood -- in some cases, more easily -- in the context of a non-metaphysical, Socratic Platonism. 

To take just one example, Plato describes true knowledge (episteme) as anamarteton. This word comes from hamartia, a "fault" (later used by Christians to mean "sin"). An-amarteton thus means literally, "without fault." Translators and interpreters typically give this word the strongest possible meaning, "infallible," placing it squarely in the context of the metaphysical project, the desire to replace uncertain, conditioned, subjective perceptions with knowledge of some wholly different kind which is wholly certain.

"Without fault" of course could have this meaning, but the word in itself is much more ambiguous, depending on some overall context determining what the "fault" is that one thinks the Form theory is supposed to overcome.  From a Socratic point of view, personal perceptions of what is admirable in concrete cases are not fundamentally unreliable because they are too subjective and variable to provide a "certain" and infallible foundation for moral philosophy.   What is "faulty" in these perceptions is only that they provide knowledge of goodness mixed with other elements that are not good.  "Faultless" knowledge would be knowledge that results from mentally extracting abstract concepts of pure goodness separate from anything not-good.

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    As a preview, here are a few other key Greek terms Plato uses in statements about the Forms, with a brief indications of contrasts between the common, metaphysical understanding, and the critically reconstructed Socratic Platonist understanding argued for here.
    Aisthesis, "sense-perception." Aisthesis does not refer to the atomistic sense-perception of modern empiricist philosophy, but to unreflective immediate perceptions of concrete social reality generally, including immediate moral perceptions such as the not-rightness of returning weapons to an insane person, as well as things like the morally mixed character of social pressure described in earlier chapters.
    Noesis, gnosis, and episteme, different words for "knowledge." These terms do not refer to "scientific" knowledge that rests on a basis completely separate from unreflective aisthesis. They are roughly equivalent technical terms for an abstract mental grasp of pure and perfect abstract Forms, which have been abstracted from the deliverances of aisthesis, which is capable only of perceiving moral goodness in the mixed and imperfect form that it appears in concrete reality.
    Doxa, commonly translated "belief," or "opinion," contrasted with episteme "knowledge." The contrast between doxa and episteme is not the contrast between uncertain and unreliable theoretical "opinions" or "beliefs" and perfectly certain, perfectly well-founded "knowledge" ("verified true belief") that rests on completely objective, universal, and certain foundations. Doxa is the noun form of dokei "it seems...." So a more literal translation of doxa would be "the seeming," as when a person seems to be right instead of actually being right, exhibits "the seemings" or appearances of rightness instead of the real "being" (to einai) of rightness. This contrast between "seeming" and "being" determines the meaning of doxa in Republic Book 2, and I will argue is also the meaning it should be given in the passages from Book 5 quoted below. Doxa in this passage is thus roughly equivalent to aisthesis, and I will translate it as "impressions."   As a mental faculty it refers to "going by impressions."
    When used of the Forms, the verb einai, "to be" and its cognates, need not refer to the "existence" of the Forms as separately existing unseen objects. In this critically reconstructed Socratic Platonism, the Form of Courage need not be a separately "existing" invisible object, existing alongside and in addition to visible courageous actions and courageous individual persons. The main point is that the Form of Courage contains the full "being" of admirable courage, which is the same as saying that it represents courage in its most perfect and admirable form. To say that it is "more real" than the courage that is part of the mixed and imperfect world perceived by aisthesis, is to say that it merits our most serious and unreserved admiration and commitment, which cannot be said of anything in the concrete social world. This is true of any virtue-concept that can survive Socratic questioning, whether such a concept refers to a separately existing entity or not.
    When said of the Forms, aei, "always" does not mean "Eternal," or "timeless." It does not refer to the fact that the Forms exist in a realm transcending all cultural diversity and historical change. It refers to the fact that an abstract Platonic Form represents something only and always admirable, in contrast to concretely-conceived rules like "give to each what belongs to him," which represents something sometimes good and sometimes not good, and which will not "stand still" unchanged in the face of Socratic questioning.
    When Plato prefers "one" to "many" this does not directly deny the legitimacy of "many" diverse views among different individuals and different cultures, asserting that in principle there can be only "one" truth, valid for all people for all time, transcending all individual and cultural diversity. It just refers to the fact that one abstract and perfect Platonic virtue-Form can be imperfectly exemplified in "many" concrete persons and actions (perceived through aisthesis) that participate in this one Form (grasped by noesis). It need not say anything about how "many" Forms there might be, how broad a choice there might be for different people in different cultures to model themselves on.

 My primary argument in this chapter is not that these interpretations definitely represent Plato's own understanding of these words.  I will show in several key cases (regarding doxa and episteme for example) my interpretation is much better supported by the context than the more common interpretations are.  But I have to concede that Plato  did probably go beyond the Socratic-reasoning basis that I have described in earlier chapters, to relate his thought to the thought of other intellectuals of his time, like Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans. This may have led him to experiment with claims about the Forms that could be called metaphysical, or at least proto-metaphysical.

My main argument is that, whether or not Plato made metaphysical claims, there are clear indications in the Republic that

(a) he also wanted to present his Form theory as a way of resolving problems raised by Socratic reasoning, and that

(b) he suggests ways in which knowledge of virtue-Forms can be gained without going beyond the basis on which Socratic reasoning rests, individual, immediate personal perceptions of what is admirable and not admirable in clear concrete cases.

So the interpretation I propose does not consist in substituting some other understanding of Plato's words completely different from his own understanding.  Insofar as it departs from Plato's own understanding, it consists only in rolling back some claims Plato may have made that we can now see were overambitious, to  more modest claims that Plato also intended to make, and that are not vulnerable to the criticisms directed against metaphysical Platonism.
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    Before proceeding to the texts themselves, two more prenotes need to be added.
    First, on the present understanding, Plato is just showing how things look from the perspective of a person who takes the Form theory as part of her worldview.  He is not trying to prove that there is some logical or rational necessity why everyone needs to see things this way.  In modern parlance, his Form theory is thoroughly "perspectival," representing reality as seen from the perspective of someone converted to Platonism.  The reason this is a good perspective is a moral reason, not its universal validity or logical necessity.  It is a morally better perspective because it resolves the problem describe earlier, about the mixed and imperfect character of social standards and social pressure as a context for self-definition and self-evaluation.
    Secondly, by comparison with later philosophical writing, Plato's philosophical vocabulary is extremely crude. For example, From the point of view of my critically reconstructed Socratic Platonism, much of what he says about the relation of the Forms to the visible world around us could be much more clearly and less problematically put in terms of the contrast between "abstract general concepts," on the one hand, and "concrete particular individuals" on the other hand. But he employs no Greek words exactly equivalent to "abstract," "general," "concept," "concrete," "particular," or "individual." His language is better understood as representing the gradual transition in Greek philosophical thought between metaphorical concrete imagery and precise abstract philosophical concepts. For example, when he says that opposite concepts get "mixed together" in what aisthesis perceives, and need to be "separated" (chorizein) by noesis, his language is almost pictorial, inviting a comparison to the way that carrots and onions might get "mixed together" in a soup, and need to be "separated" from each other by a person who doesn't like carrots.

In other words, there are two ways of understanding Plato's discourse.  We can interpret him in a very literal way, as though he were speaking in the precise and literal language characteristic of later philosophy -- which would result in attributing to him many extreme and implausible views.  Or we can interpret his language as more metaphorical and suggestive, adjusting our understanding of his rather crude language in a way that attributes to him more plausible views.
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    Now I proceed to several passages in the middle chapters of the Republic commonly regarded as key to understanding Plato's Form theory. I begin with comments on connected passages from Republic Book 7 and Book 5.
    In the passage in Book 7, Plato asks us to consider a person looking at three fingers on a hand, the little finger, the ring finger, and the middle finger. Is the ring finger short or long? Answer: It is short in relation to the middle finger, but long in relation to the little finger.
    Plato analyzes this observation about the short-and-long finger in a very odd way. He constructs an imaginary dialogue in which the sense of sight (aisthesis) reports to the soul (psyche) contradictory things about the same single finger. It reports the single finger to be both long and short, confusing the mind. The sense of sight itself is unable to resolve this contradiction, compelling the soul to call on a different mental capacity noesis, mental understanding, which is able to resolve the contradiction. Noesis can do this because it has the ability to understand concepts -- "abstract concepts" we would say -- which are not tied to any concrete material objects.
    As Plato pictures it the mind is confused because the sense of sight perceives contradictory perceptions [enantian aistheseis] "long," and "short" all "mixed together" in the one concrete particular finger as though they were one thing. Only noesis, as purely mental understanding, is able to resolve this contradiction, because, unlike sight, it is able to grasp the two contradictory concepts "long" and "short" as separate (choriston) from each other and from the concrete finger.
    In Plato's words:

[In the case of the ring finger] the sense of sight sees "long" and "short," but not as separate (kechorismenon), but as mixed together (sygkechymenon) [in one finger]. So in order to clarify this, mental understanding [noesis] is compelled to see "long" and "short" not as mixed together but as separate, the opposite way from sight.
    And it is from some such circumstances that it first occurs to us to ask, "What is ‘the long', and again of ‘the short'?'' And so we call these [latter] things "mentally understood" (noeton) and the other things "visibly seen" (horaton.) (524C)

Some among our sensory perceptions [aistheseis] do not call upon noesis to examine them... Others certainly summon the help of noesis to examine them because aisthesis/sense-perception produces nothing sound. They do not call for help... if they do not at the same time signal contradictory perceptions [enantian aistheseis]; I describe those that do as calling for help whenever the sense perception does not point to one thing rather than its opposite. 523a-c

In these cases we need to call upon... noesis, to examine whether each of the things announced to it is one or two...524b

First, this is a good example of Plato's rather crude and imagistic language. To put what Plato says here in more precise modern philosophical terms, we could say that "long" and "short" are two "abstract general concepts". We can see with our eyes "concrete individual particulars" like fingers that are long or short. We can't see with our eyes the abstract general concepts "long" and "short" in themselves. "Long" and "short" can only be grasped by mental understanding (noesis) operating independently of sense-perception.
    But Plato's language is more imagistic. He creates an imaginary dialogue between two entities: Aisthesis "reports to" the soul (psyche) some confusing information which can be cleared up only when the soul calls upon noesis. The single term aisthesis covers for "perception of concrete individual particulars" such as a finger, and noesis for "mental grasp of general abstract concepts" such as the concepts "long" and "short."  Choriston "separate" is the closest term to our word "abstract," but the emphasis is on the difference between the way that sense-perception is only able to see contradictory concepts "mixed together" (sygkechymenon) in a concrete object, and the way what noesis is able to see each of the two opposing concepts "separated" from each other.

 The verb chorizein, "to separate" and its cognates are often understood to refer to the separate existence of Platonic Forms as abstract objects.  Its use here clearly need not refer to any such strong claim.  It just refers to the fact the noesis is able to mentally separate two opposing abstract concepts, unlike aisthesis, which can only see these as "mixed together" in the concrete finger.
    Secondly, this is a very odd problem. Who is ever actually confused in this way at the sight of the ring finger? Plato is not trying to show that this problem "necessarily" presents itself to every thinking person, and that the solution here is the one and only possible solution to this "universal" problem. Here it is important to consider the context. Plato is not trying to prove the existence of abstract concepts, or that some logical necessity compels everyone to think in abstractions. This problem about the finger-both-long-and-short is introduced as one preparatory exercise for philosophers-in-training, teaching them the art of thinking-in-abstractions ("conducive to awakening noesis" 523a) necessary for gaining a mental grasp of the Forms. The dialogue assumes, rather than trying to prove, that an understanding of the Forms is necessary for all true philosophers.
Not all reflection on sense-perceptions is useful for the purpose of developing noesis, only those that present this kind of problem for resolution:

Some among our sense-perceptions [aistheseis] do not call upon noesis to examine them... They do not call for help... if they do not at the same time signal contradictory perceptions [enantian aistheseis].

Concretely-conceived general moral concepts as also "mixtures of opposites"

How is this practice-exercise regarding the contradictory concepts "long" and "short" related to grasping virtue-Forms? Book 5 connects this problem of the finger-both-long-and-short to the interchange in Book 2 about the rule "give to each what belongs to him," which refers to some actions which are right (in the usual case), and some which are the opposite, not-right (in the case of the man gone insane).

Is there any one of the many "right" things that will not [appear] "not-right"?....
What about the many things that are "double"? Are they any less "half" than "double"? So with things "long" and "short", - - can these things be said of them [any more than] the opposite?... No... Each of these things partakes of both opposites.(479b)

This comparison does not imply that issues concerning "long" and "short" are similar in every respect to issues concerning "right" and "not-right." It's only that the problems posed for the mind by aisthesis, and the way of resolving the problem by noesis, is similar in each case, so that reflecting on the finger problem is good training for thinking in abstractions, necessary for reflecting on and resolving problems in moral thought.
    To see their similarity, first we have to see that aisthesis in Plato does not refer to the empiricist concept of sense-perception of British empiricism that carries over into Kant. For example, for Kant, when we perceive a beautiful human body, what sense-perception perceives is only a physical object of a certain size and shape. "Beauty" is a "judgment" added to these sense perceptions by the mind. By contrast, Plato regards beauty as something immediately perceived by aisthesis. This is not a reflectively supported philosophical theory, but just reflects a kind of commonsense naive realism about beauty shared by almost all non-philosophers in the conduct of everyday life. It's what everyone assumes who has not been exposed to the fundamental doubts raised especially by modern science -- when we see a beautiful human body we generally assume commonsensically that we are actually "seeing" something beautiful, not first seeing physical size and shape, and only then adding the mental judgment "beautiful."
    This naive realism extends also to "perceptions" of not-rightness in cases like returning weapons to an insane person. I think Plato is best understood if we regard this as something directly perceived by aisthesis, not (again as in Kant) a moral "judgment" made by the mind, added on top of some morally-neutral sense-observations.
    "Give to each what belongs to him," is actually a kind of generalization, "one" general rule applying to "many" individual concrete cases. What is the problem with it? The problem is that this generalization is not "abstract" enough. It is instructions for what a person should do, prescribing external conduct that everyone can see, visible to the general public. I argued in an earlier chapter that no rule for observable behavior can ever survive Socratic questioning by counterexamples like the story of the man gone insane. This is partly because it is very hard to make up a general rule covering all possible concrete situations. More fundamentally, it is impossible to show that a person can become a more and more admirable person just by following some given rule more and more consistently and exactly. This is because any rule one can devise can be followed for bad motives (in the case of a confidence-man or a terrorist, for example).
    Plato says (479a), "Is there any one of the many.... 'right'  things (ta dikaia) that will not also appear 'not right'?" How does this apply to the general rule "give to each what is his"? Trying to speak more exactly than Plato does, it is not true that the rule itself is an example of "many right things" that will also appear "not right." Speaking more exactly, we can make sense of this by regarding this general rule as a classifier, a means of classifying different actions. Two actions can be said to be "the same action" if they both follow this same rule. It is in this sense that "the same action" (giving to each what belongs to him) can be said to be both right (in the ordinary case) and not-right (in the case of the insane man).
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    Probably the most important point of this discussion is the implication that everything depends on having a basic trust in the deliverances of immediate perceptions, not setting them aside to try to find some separate source of knowledge that is more reliable.
    The problem about the finger-both-long-and-short would not arise at all if one felt free to ignore what sense-perceptions report about the finger. Both the perception that the finger is long and the perception that it is short are immediate perceptions. "Long" and "short" are pictured as "in" the finger-as-perceived. (Since we are concerned here only with the deliverances of aisthesis, it does not matter whether they are really and objectively out there in the finger.) The more abstract capabilities of the mind (noesis) come in only to work with materials provided to it by sense-perception, and to resolve a problem that only arises if one trusts in the basic reliability of sense-perception perceiving contradictory qualities in the same object.
    The same can be said of Socratic questioning-by-counterexample. How can we know that following the rule "give to each what belongs to him" would amount to "sometimes doing what is right, sometimes doing what is not right (Republic 331c)?  Only if we have some way of knowing what what is right and not right that is independent of this general rule.  Socrates does not appeal to some other general rule by which we could know that giving weapons to an insane person is not right.  He appeals to Polemarchos' immediate personal perception that it is not right to return weapons to an insane person.  If Polemarchos did not have a basic trust that this immediate perception is more reliable than the general rule, Socratic questioning of the general rule could not get off the ground.  It is only by trusting such immediate perceptions (in very clear cases) that a person can be brought to see the problem that "the same actions" (actions following this same rule) are both right and not right.
    I argue that we should treat this immediate perception of rightness/wrongness as a case of aisthesis.  Put in these terms, the problem is not to replace aisthesis with some completely other kind of knowledge based on a separate foundation. The problem is to resolve difficulties arising through the deliverances of aisthesis itself. And the solution lies in the direction of more perfect "abstraction," more perfect mental separation (chorizein) of the abstract concept "rightness" from any externally visible or visualizable human behavior. I've argued in an earlier chapter that such a virtue-concept needs to be "invisible" not only in the sense that all abstract concepts are invisible, but also in the sense that a virtue-concept needs to refer to invisible internal "virtue," consisting of habitual attitudes, motivations, skills, and so on, which are not directly visible to the general public.
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    On this interpretation, all moral knowledge begins with, and is based on, aisthesis in the broad sense described above. Abstract thought (noesis) is not based on some completely separate source of knowledge. It works with the raw material provided by aisthesis. It's just that the deliverances of aisthesis contain good and not-good "mixed together," and the function of noesis is to separate these out in the form of what we would call "abstract concepts." Plato's pictorial language invites comparison with the refining process in mining: Pure silver is contained in silver ore, it just exists there "mixed with" many impurities, and needs to be separated from them.
    It's possible, of course, to read these passages in a different way. Perhaps somehow noesis is able to gain some knowledge of "long" and "short," "right" and "not-right" in a way completely independent of aisthesis. What is perceived in sense-perception merely reminds a person of these abstract concepts she learned about independently of aisthesis.  But how plausible is this?     What would this completely separate source of knowledge be? I suggest Plato's writings give us no hint of an actual method by which a person could tap into such a separate source and gain such separate knowledge. The only other sources philosophers have come up with consist in so-called "self-evident truths," and "necessary presuppositions" presupposed in all thought, but neither of these concepts appears in Plato's discussion of the Forms, and it is completely implausible that a true definition of courage, for example, could be derived from either of these sources.  (It is noteworthy, for example, that even the geometry problem presented to the slave-boy in the Meno, which could be solved on the basis of the so-called Phythagorean theorem, does not appeal to any such principle derived from "self-evident" abstract axioms. The whole point of the lesson is that the slave-boy does not need to be taught any such theoretical knowledge developed by expert geometricians, but can arrive at the abstract principle that solves the problem by relying only on his own simple observations ["sense-perceptions"] about squares and triangles drawn in the sand.)
    It's possible that Plato believed there was some rational method of arriving at moral knowledge separate from aisthesis. If this is the case, we either have to suppose that he kept this method to himself, or that he had a kind of mystical faith that some such method does exist, even though he himself was unable to discover what it was. The thesis proposed here, that Platonist moral philosophy has an "empiricist" rather than a "rationalist" basis -- a basis in aisthesis rather on "pure reason" -- seems at least an equally plausible alternative.
    There are of course deep philosophical problems involved in the idea that the immediate moral perceptions of culturally conditioned individuals can serve as a reliable basis for moral knowledge. I address the fundamental philosophical problems involved at length in the Section Four of this book, especially in the chapter "Why is this not Relativism?"
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Next here are some some passages from the middle chapters of Plato's Republic that are key to understanding his theory of Platonic Forms. 

First, 507b.

  ... [I] remind you of things that have been said here before and often on many occasions: There are many beautiful things and many good things... We speak also of the Beautiful Itself and the Good Itself.  And so, everything which previously we considered "many," we now go back and consider each to be "one" according to [its] Form. The former [many] things we speak about as "seen" [horasthai] not "mentally understood" (noesthai).  But Forms we speak of as "understood," not "seen"... We speak of many beautiful things, and many good things, And Beauty Itself, and Goodness Itself, and so with all the things which before we considered many we now consider them again according to a single Form of each, which is one, and which we in each case call ‘that which is’ (ho esti) ...

"[I] remind you of things that have been said here before and often on many occasions."  This supports the view of several commentators, that this part of the Republic was not addressed to the general public, to prove to them by rigorous logic that the Form theory is true.  It is addressed to individuals who are already familiar with the basics of the Form theory and already accept it.  These passages explain how things look "perspectivaly," from the perspective a person whose worldview centers on the Forms.

Aisthesis is here represented by the sense of sight (horasthai things "seen").  This passage makes clear the correlation between aisthesis and "many" on the one hand, and between noesis and "one" on the other hand.  In modern philosophical language, noesis grasps single abstract general concepts, each of which can be instantiated in many concrete individual particulars perceived by aisthesis.  From the perspective of Socratic Platonism, it's important not to read this as the distinction between the "one" universally valid abstract concept of beauty in contrast to the "many" false abstract concepts.  This passage does not directly imply that there can only be "one" correct definition of beauty valid for all people for all time.  It allows for the possibility that there can be many equally valid abstract Platonic Forms of Beauty grasped by noesis, each being "one" concept instantiated in "many" concrete individual particulars grasped by aisthesis.

The final phrase in this last section, "that which is" (ho esti), reflects Plato's somewhat peculiar use of the Greek verb "to be" (einai), and its derivatives like "is" (esti), "being" (on), etc.  We would be attributing to Plato a rather extreme view if we suppose that he means here that only the abstract Form of Beauty "is" - - that only it "exists," in contrast to concrete examples of beauty which "are not," i.e. do not exist.  Does he mean that we should realize that our impression that beauty actually exists in a beautiful body is a delusion, since only the invisible Form of Beauty actually exists?  As will be made clearer in other passages discussed below, we can avoid this extreme view by supposing that Plato is using "is" to mean that only the Form of Beauty "is" fully beautiful, only it represents something only and always purely beautiful. The contrasting case is the case of many beautiful concrete objects, which might be partly beautiful and partly not beautiful, or which might change from being beautiful to being not-beautiful (illustrated in the Symposium passage quoted below.) 

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Next I want to deal with some excerpts from a long passage stretching from 476a to 479d, quoting only those parts essential to my purpose.

Sight-lovers [philo-theamones]... and sound-lovers [phil-ekooi] are a strange group to be numbered among wisdom-lovers [philo-sophous].  You could not get them to attend any serious debate... they lend their ears to every chorus and run around to all the Dionysiac festivals, never missing one in all the villages.  Are we to call such men... "wisdom-lovers"? -No. But they are like wisdom-lovers.  [because] true wisdom-lovers are sight-lovers of [the sight of] truth [philo-theamones tes aletheias].  - How do you mean?  - It's difficult, [but let me explain]:

Since "the Beautiful" is the opposite of "the Shameful," they are two... Since they are two, each is one.  And in respect to "the Right" and "the not-Right," "the Good" and "the Bad," and all the Forms... each is one, but because of mixing [koinonia] with bodies and actions and each other, each appears everywhere under many appearances.

I make a distinction like this: I set apart... the sight-lovers and lovers of skill and action, and separate them from those whom our talk concerns, who alone are rightly called lovers of wisdom [philo-sophous].  The lovers of sound and sights delight in beautiful tones and colors and shapes, and everything that artful skill creates out of these, but their thought is unable to see and take delight in the nature of the Beautiful Itself. [Those are] few who are able to approach Beauty Itself, and see it by itself.... [So we have one kind of person] who attends to beautiful actions, but does not attend to the Beautiful Itself, nor is able to follow when someone tries to guide him to the knowledge of it...[And then there is the person who is] the opposite of these: someone who recognizes the Beautiful Itself, and is able to see both it and what participates in it, and does not mistake what participates in it for it itself, nor mistake it itself for what participates in it.... 476a-476d.

One important way in which my interpretation differs from that of other commentators begins with a view of the contrast being drawn here between "true [Platonist] philosophers" on the one hand and the "sight-lovers" and "sound-lovers" on the other hand.  I take the latter to refer to people who roam around to Dionysiac festivals, attracted by the beautiful sights and sounds ("beautiful tones and colors and shapes") of theater productions and probably also the partying that accompanied these in Dionysiac festivals.  The main point is that they only know about beauty perceived by aisthesis (sight and hearing) in many concrete particulars instances of beauty, unlike the true philosopher who grasps (by noesis) the one abstract concept of Beauty instantiated in each of these concrete particulars. 

Other commentators want to draw a different contrast.  What I see as just Dionysiac party-goers, they see as cultured connoisseurs of beauty, who however have unsound beliefs about beauty, unlike Plato's true philosopher whose beliefs about beauty rest on a completely sound rational foundation.  This is connected to an interpretation of a later part of this passage (quoted below), which refers to these same sight-lovers as "lovers of doxa."  The accepted translation of doxa in this latter passage is "belief" or "opinion," making it sound again as though we are dealing here with different theories about beauty, some of which do not rest on a sound rational basis (mere unfounded "opinions"), in contrast to the theory of beauty held by the Platonist philosopher, which alone constitutes rationally well-founded Knowledge (episteme). 

I understand the "lovers of doxa" very differently.  These are not people who have unsound general theories about beauty, but people who don't have any theories or general "beliefs" about beauty at all.  What the passage actually says is that they are "sight-lovers" and "sound-lovers," -- "sight" and "sound" clearly refer to two of the traditional five senses, Plato's aistheseis.  They are just people who love beautiful sights and sounds perceived by aisthesis, as opposed to the Platonist philosopher who loves an abstract general concept Beauty capable of being perceived by noesis, not by aisthesis..  Not all abstract general concepts of beauty are perfect, but perfect Beauty can only be grasped by means of abstract general concepts.

Since "the Beautiful" [kalos] is the opposite of "the Shameful," [aischros] they are two... Since they are two, each is one.  And in respect to "the Right" and "the not-Right," "the Good" and "the Bad," and all the Forms... each is one, but because of mixing [koinonia] with actions (praxeis) and bodies (somata) and each other, each appears everywhere under many appearances [phantazomena].

Here we have, expressed in different words, the same picture we saw in the passage about the finger-both-long-and-short.  From the perspective of the Platonist who sees everything concrete as an instantiation of perfect abstract Forms, imperfect concrete reality-as-perceived-by-aisthesis will typically be seen as composed of concrete particulars in which individual Platonic Forms, each perfectly admirable in itself, are mixed with other things that are not admirable.  This is especially applicable to theater-productions and Dionysiac partying.  For the Platonist philosopher, the physical "bodies" (somata) of actors and other party-goers will typically instantiate perfect Beauty along with many imperfections and even "shameful" elements in the individual persons involved.  Their externally observable "actions" (praxeis) will typically represent some things very fine and noble (kalos), but at the same time some things that Plato would regard as "shameful" (aischros).  The person who grasps each abstract Form by noesis sees each Form as single, pure and perfect in itself, unmixed with anything imperfect.  When such a person perceives concrete individual particulars she will perceive them as though "by mixing" [koinonia] these Forms have gotten "mixed with" concrete particular individual physical bodies and actions, and in so doing each Form appears (to aisthesis) to be also "mixed together" with its opposites (just as the opposites "long" and "short" appear "mixed together"  [sygkechymenon] in a single concretely visible finger).   Sight-lovers will perceive in the same physical bodies and actions in the theater productions as having enantian aistheseis -- the same physical bodies and actions will appear to be both beautiful and shameful, kalos and aischros.  In is in this sense that concretely visible individual particulars perceived by aisthesis represent "many" diverse visible "appearances" (phantazomena) of "one" and the same invisible, perfect, abstract concept of Beauty. 

Next I skip down to 478c, a passage containing some sentences already commented on above, connecting the problem of the finger-both-long-and-short to the problem of concrete visible actions, and concretely conceived rules for visible behavior, which represent both things that are beautiful or right, and the opposites of these concepts, shameful and not-right.

[Suppose there is] a person who does not think there is the Beautiful Itself [auto kalon], or any Form of Beauty Itself [idean autou kallous] always remaining the same [aei kata tauta hosautos echousan] but who attends to many beautiful things - - the sight-lover, I mean, who cannot endure to hear anybody say that the Beautiful is one and Rightness is one, and so of other things.  Is there any one of these many beautiful things that will not appear shameful? And of the right things, that will not seem not-right? And of the holy things, that will not seem unholy?  And again, do the many double things appear any the less halves than doubles? And likewise of the long and the short things, the light and the heavy things - - can these things be said of them [any more than] the opposite?...

This passage employs a somewhat peculiar phrase to describe the "unchanging" Form of Beauty, aei kata tauta hosautos echousan.  Hosautos is an adverbial form of an adjectival expression hos-autos, literally "like itself."  So the phrase aei kata tauta hosautos echousan might be literally translated as "according to the same things [kata ta auta] always remaining [aei exhousan] like-itself [hosaoutos] -- put more briefly "in all respects always remaining like itself."  The contrast drawn is with concrete individual people, who might be admirable in some respects and not in others, or admirable today and not admirable tomorrow, and with concretely conceived rules for visible behavior, which will sometimes prescribe actions that are admirable, and sometimes prescribe actions that are not admirable.  These do not remain always "like themselves" in their ability to represent something purely, only, and always admirable.

It is important to keep this particular contrast in mind, in order to avoid importing into this passage the idea that the Forms are "always the same" meaning that they transcend all cultural diversity and historical change.  Problems related to cultural diversity and historical change are simply not the issues or concerns being addressed in this passage.

To keep the train of thought, I need to repeat the last part of the previous passage:

 Is there any one of these many beautiful things that will not appear shameful? And of the right things, that will not seem not-right? And of the holy things, that will not seem unholy?  And again, do the many double things appear any the less halves than doubles? And likewise of the long and the short things, the light and the heavy things - - can these things be said of them [any more than] the opposite?...

So in regard to each of these many things [ton pollon touto]: "Is" [esti] it more than it "is-not" [ouk estin] what one might declare it to be [ho an tis phe auto einai]?

It is like those who pun on double meanings at banquets, or the children's riddle about the eunuch and his hitting the bat - - what they say he hit it with and as it sat on what.  These things too are double-meaninged, and it is impossible to conceive firmly any one of them to "be" [einai] or "not-be," [me einai] or both, or neither.  [There is not] a better place to put them than midway between being [ousia] and not being [me einai]. For we shall surely not discover anything darker [skotodestera] than not-being [mē on], that something should "not be" still more, nor anything brighter [phanotera] than being [on], that something should "be" still more [to mallon einai].

We would seem to have found, then, that the many conventions of the many people [ton pollon polla nomima] about the beautiful and other things roll around [kylindetai] in the mid-region between what "is-not" and what exactly "is" [tou ontos heilikrinos] 478e-479a

This passage is important for understanding Plato's use of the verb einai "to be" and its cognates, esti "is" and ousia "being."   In Greek the verb einai does double duty for two concepts expressed by different words in English, "to be" and "to exist."  From the perspective of Socratic Platonism, einai when used of the Forms refers only to the full and perfect "being" of goodness represented by Platonic virtue-Forms, with no necessary reference at all to to the "existence" of the Forms as separate objects.  The contrast is between completely abstract virtue-Forms and concretely conceived rules like "giving to each what belongs to him."  With regard to this concretely-conceived rule one might say both that it "is right" and also that it "is-not right.  It both does and does not represent the "being" (ousia) of rightness -- in contrast to the pure and perfect Platonic Form of Rightness, which would only and exactly represent the full, pure, and perfect "Being" of rightness unmixed with anything not-right.

This is confirmed by the reference to the children's riddle which Paul Shorey gives more fully as follows (according to an early commentator on Plato):

The riddle: A man not a man/ Seeing and not seeing/ A bird not a bird/ Sitting on a limb not a limb/ Hit at it and did not hit it/ With a stone not a stone. 

The riddle’s answer: A half-blind eunuch saw (a man not a man, seeing and not-seeing)/ 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 and did not hit it with a stone not a stone).

Clearly, a bat is not something that partly exists and partly does not exist.  It flies like a bird, but is actually a mammal, a non-bird, so it can be said to lie somewhere between fully-being-a-bird and not-being-a-bird-at-all.  In the same way, the concretely-conceived rules [nomima] the masses of the people go by -- such as the commonsense rule "rightness consists in giving to each what belongs to him" -- can also be said to represent both "being right" and "not-being right," so they can also be said to "roll around" between being right and not-being right. 

These conventions clearly do not roll around between existing and not existing.  Either something exists or it doesn't -- there is no medium place between existing and not existing.

This makes sense also of the statement that there is nothing "brighter" (phanotera) than "being."  Merely existing does not make something "bright."  The Platonic Form of Rightness "shines brightly" because it represents the full and perfect "being" of rightness.

Anything of this kind [rolling around between being and not-being]... must be called "what one has impressions about" [doxaston] not what is Known [gnoston], the wanderer between being caught by this in-between [mental] capacity [which goes by impressions].  Those who see many beautiful things, but do not see The Beautiful... and see many right things but not The Right, and everything like this - - we should say they "go by impressions" [doxazein] about everything, but do not Know what they have impressions about. What about those who see each of those things, the things [i.e. the Forms] that always are the same [aei kata tauta hosautos onta]? [We should] say they "Know," not that they "have impressions" [doxazein].

[We should] say that those who take delight in and love those things about which there is Knowledge, the others [take delight in and love those things] about which they have impressions [doxa]... These love and give their attention to beautiful sounds and colors and similar things, but cannot bear the Beautiful Itself as something that "is" [auto to kalon oud' anechesthai hos ti on.]

[We should] call them "lovers of impressions" [philo-doxous] rather than "lovers of wisdom" [philo-sophous]...  Those who delight in the "being" of each thing [hekaston to on] should be called "lovers of wisdom" [philo-sophous] not "lovers of impressions" [philo-doxous].  479c-479e

This is a key passage for those who think that, after the manner of modern philosophy, Plato claims that a grasp of the Forms gives a person an Absolute, Unconditioned, and perfectly certain rational foundation for true Knowledge (episteme), in contrast to mere "beliefs" or "opinions" (doxai) that lack such a foundation.  It's important to keep in mind that this passage clearly refers back to the fans of Dionysiac festivals characterized at the very beginning  of this long section (476a) as "sight-lovers" and "sound-lovers."  Interpretations which contrast well-founded Knowledge with inadequately founded "opinions" have to assume that Plato envisions here some contest between different theories of beauty -- the fans of Dionysiac festivals have ill-founded theories of beauty, as opposed to the Platonist who has the only perfectly well-founded theory of beauty, founded on the only solid foundation, the Platonic Form of Beauty.

I think this is one passage where the context pretty clearly favors the different understanding I propose here.  The idea that the lovers of doxa are people who love unsound theories of beauty strains the whole context here.  The "lovers of doxa" here are clearly the same as the "sight-lovers" and "sound-lovers" mentioned much earlier in 476a, and there is no indication that they love any theories of beauty at all.  The passage here repeats that they "love and give their attention to beautiful sounds and colors," -- i.e. they simply love the "many" concrete individual beautiful-looking and beautiful-sounding particular people, performances, and parties which they perceive through their senses (aisthesis) and which attract them to Dionysiac festivals.  Because what aisthesis perceives in these many particulars is a mixture of the beautiful and the not-beautiful, the particulars-as-perceived can be said to "roll around" between being-beautiful and not-being-beautiful. 

The discussion above has shown that Plato's main point is that the social world perceived by aisthesis will always contain a contradictory mixture of good and not-good, and the only way to resolve this difficulty is to mentally extract from sense-perceptions refined abstract concepts of goodness, thoroughly separated from anything concrete and visible to the senses.  So the contrast in this immediate passage is not the contrast between different theories of beauty, but the contrast between those able to grasp pure beauty through abstract general concepts, and those who don't theorize at all but merely go by what their senses tell them because they can't overcome the common human tendency toward concrete-mindedness, regarding the concrete social world that impacts so strongly on senses and emotions as the only "real world."

I think the most natural way of taking this passage is just to equate the "lovers of doxa" with the lovers of sights and sounds, i.e. lovers of aisthesis who have failed to develop noesis as that mental faculty capable of grasping abstractions separate from anything visible to the senses. 

The only remaining potential difficulty with this concerns the meaning of the word doxa.  Can it be understood as the rough equivalent of aisthesis, as I understand it here.  Here is my argument that yes it can:

In this earlier passage, Socrates’ goal is to make a very clear and complete distinction between the most just man (dikaiotaton), and the most unjust man (adikÇtaton 360e). The height of injustice, he says, is to "seem just (dokei dikaion einai) [while] not being [mē einai] [just]. The most unjust man will then be the one who commits the greatest injustices while procuring for himself "the greatest seeming [doxa] of justice" [tēn megistēn doxan... eis dikaiosynen], i.e. giving the strongest "impression" of being a just person. Doxa here clearly does not refer to theoretical opinions about how to define "justice." It refers to the impression this person manages to make on the general public of being a just person, managing to "seem" just without really being just.  This is why Shorey, who translates doxa as "opinion" in Book 5, translates doxa here as "reputation."

The above passage is part of a description of Plato's "philosopher kings" whose job it is to establish norms (nomima) for the society at large, conducive to the development of true virtue in all citizens in Plato's utopia.  In order to avoid all the controversies that today surround the idea of some people legislating morality for others, my critically reconstructed Socratic Platonism drops this aspect of Plato's thought, and treats this knowledge of virtue "paradigms" as something each individual needs in order to cultivate true virtue in herself.

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The next passage is one in which translators typically translate aei, the ordinary Greek word for "always," by the metaphysically loaded word "eternal," reflecting and reinforcing the understanding of the Forms as "eternally existing" objects.  Aei can of course have this meaning, but saying that "Plato always writes in Greek" is clearly different from saying "Plato eternally writes in Greek."  The first occurrence of aei in the following sentence -- they "always love the knowledge..." -- clearly has the more ordinary meaning of "always," not "eternal." I think the second occurrence of this word is better translated this way also.

Here the Forms are called the "natures" (physei) of things.  The abstract Forms of virtues are what "really have being," in contrast to many concrete particular virtuous actions, which are only the external visible impressions (doxai) made by invisible internal virtue when it expresses itself in visible external behavior.

A true philosopher does not mentally dwell among the images connected to concrete visible virtuous actions.  He is rather a person who has mentally "taken flight" from this imperfect world to the perfect world of the Forms, constantly looking "over there" and mentally communes ((literally "mingles') with the perfect Forms, which have the "most real 'being" (ontōs on).  He identifies himself with an idealized "soul" (pysche) which is capable of abstract thought and so can grasp the perfect Goodness of the Forms (as opposed to mental capacities tied to the senses, which can only grasp the imperfect world of concrete particulars.)

Again note the use of "Beings" (ta onta) to refer to the "divine" Forms.

The Platonist philosopher does not see himself in the context of social life in this world, competing with others in a world full of competitive wrangling.  He makes the "divine" Form the main objects of love in his life.  He fashions his identity in relation to them, trying to become like them, and so himself becoming "divine" so far as is possible to man.  Obviously "divine" here is equivalent to "perfect in its goodness."

I would say that the Forms can be "harmonious" (kosmios) with each other as abstractions.  When however they are instantiated in concrete particulars, then they can come in conflict with each other, so that in the same concrete action -- say telling Mary I saw her husband cheating on her -- there can be a conflict between the virtue of "loyalty to Mary" and the virtue of "being responsible" in not breaking up a marriage.  This is what happens when Forms, single and containing no opposites within themselves, are "mixed with bodies and actions" and this is how opposite forms can get "mixed with each other."