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Let us leave the Pythagoreans for the present; |
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Further, of the ways in which we prove that the Forms exist, none
is convincing; |
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And in general the arguments for the Forms destroy the things for
whose existence we are more zealous than for the existence of the
Ideas; |
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Further, according to the assumption on which our belief in the Ideas
rests, there will be Forms not only of substances but also of many
other things (for the concept is single not only in the case of substances
but also in the other cases, and there are sciences not only of substance
but also of other things, and a thousand other such difficulties confront
them). |
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Above all one might discuss the question what on earth the Forms
contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or
to those that come into being and cease to be. |
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But, further, all other things cannot come from the Forms in any
of the usual senses of 'from'. |
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Again, it would seem impossible that the substance and that of which
it is the substance should exist apart; |
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Again, if the Forms are numbers, how can they be causes? |
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Again, from many numbers one number is produced, but how can one
Form come from many Forms? |
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Further, they must set up a second kind of number (with which arithmetic
deals), and all the objects which are called 'intermediate' by some
thinkers; |
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Further, the units must each come from a prior but this is impossible. |
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Further, why is a number, when taken all together, one? |
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Again, besides what has been said, if the units are diverse the Platonists
should have spoken like those who say there are four, or two, elements; |
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When we wish to reduce substances to their principles, we state that
lines come from the short and long (i.e. from a kind of small and
great), and the plane from the broad and narrow, and body from the
deep and shallow. |
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In general, though philosophy seeks the cause of perceptible things,
we have given this up (for we say nothing of the cause from which
change takes its start), but while we fancy we are stating the substance
of perceptible things, we assert the existence of a second class of
substances, while our account of the way in which they are the substances
of perceptible things is empty talk; |
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Nor have the Forms any connexion with what we see to be the cause
in the case of the arts, that for whose sake both all mind and the
whole of nature are operative,-with this cause which we assert to
be one of the first principles; |
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And what is thought to be easy - to show that all things are one - is
not done; |
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Nor can it be explained either how the lines and planes and solids
that come after the numbers exist or can exist, or what significance
they have; |
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In general, if we search for the elements of existing things without
distinguishing the many senses in which things are said to exist,
we cannot find them, especially if the search for the elements of
which things are made is conducted in this manner. |
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And how could we learn the elements of all things? |
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Again, how is one to come to know what all things are made of, and
how is this to be made evident? |
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Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the
sense in question? |
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created 1996/11/25 modified 2009/04/26