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Philosophos
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Philosophos
Plato’s Missing Dialogue

Mary Louise Gill

1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
# Mary Louise Gill 2012
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2012
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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ISBN 978–0–19–960618–4
Printed in Great Britain by
MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn
Preface

This book has been long in the making, and I have incurred many debts, here gratefully
acknowledged. Official work on the project began in 1999–2000, when I was a
Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, an ideal setting for research
and stimulating discussion. I initially conceived the project as an investigation into
Plato’s later metaphysics in dialogues responding to the critique of forms in
the Parmenides—a dialogue I had studied intensively in connection with an earlier
book—but changed course that year, because the investigation of knowledge in the
Theaetetus came to seem more important than the Parmenides for understanding Plato’s
later metaphysics and method. The final project returns to something close to the
original conception, now combined with the second, with a focus on the Parmenides
and the series of dialogues Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman culminating in the prom-
ised but missing Philosopher. I profited from an NEH Summer Stipend (2004) and a
rewarding year at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard (2005–6), and
these awards enabled me to complete a first full draft of the book. The book gained its
current shape only gradually in the years since. I am grateful to those institutions for the
precious time and resources to read, think, and write, and to the University of
Pittsburgh for granting me two terms of research leave and to Brown University for
granting me four such terms.
My debts go back long before 1999 to G. E. L. Owen’s classes on Plato in the late
1970s in Cambridge, especially his lectures on Plato’s Sophist and a graduate seminar on
the second part of the Parmenides. Owen’s fascination with these works was infectious,
and the clarity and rigor of his writings continues to be a model for me. I take this
opportunity to thank him.
Versions of parts of the book have been presented in many venues since 1999.
I thank the participants in a graduate seminar at the University of Pittsburgh and in my
undergraduate and graduate classes on Plato at Brown for their perceptive comments
and questions. I gave papers and seminars related to the project at the American
Philosophical Association, University of Arizona, Brown, University of Connecticut,
University of California at Berkeley and Davis, City University of New York,
Dartmouth College, Harvard, Lehigh, University of Michigan, University of Notre
Dame, University of Pittsburgh, Princeton, St Cloud State, Saint Louis, University of
South Carolina, Stanford, University of Texas at Austin, University of Toronto,
Wesleyan, Williams College, and Yale; and abroad at conferences in Barcelona,
Chania, Dublin, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, and Prague. I am grateful for the feedback at
all those events, and especially thank Eric Brown, Dimitri El Murr, Rachel Singpur-
walla, and my late friend and colleague, Steven Strange, for their challenging
vi PR EFAC E

comments on four of those occasions. Most valuable for the project as a whole was the
opportunity to give five seminars at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon–Sorbonne in
the spring 2010. I thank my hosts, Dimitri El Murr and Annick Jaulin, for organizing
my visit and entertaining me so well.
I also thank Dimitri El Murr for detailed written comments on the Introduction
and Chapter 1, Sandra Peterson on Chapter 2, John Malcolm on papers dealing with
the Theaetetus and Sophist, Jan Szaif on papers dealing with the Theaetetus and
Philebus, Devin Henry on papers treating division in the Sophist, Statesman, and
Philebus, and Scott Berman on a paper pertaining to Chapter 7. I profited from
numerous discussions about Plato with my colleagues Alan Boegehold, Justin
Broackes, David Konstan, Fernando Muniz, and Joshua Schechter. I am grateful
to Christine Thomas for her advice on the whole project, and to Paul Ryan for
comments on the whole and for on-going advice and discussion, especially about
technical matters of Greek.
I owe special thanks to Seana McNamara for her beautiful and innovative
cover design “Knots,” and to Robert Howton for his conceptual insight and
expertise in rendering the Figures in Chapters 5 and 6. Over the years I have
profited from stimulating discussions about Plato with David Berger and Heike
Sefrin-Weis. Nicolas Bommarito prepared the Index of Names; Eric LaPointe and
Allison Kemmerle developed preliminary drafts of the Index Locorum and gave
me helpful comments on the manuscript. Many students have raised penetrating
objections, forcing me to rethink and rewrite, including Derek Bowman, Thomas
Fisher, Daniel Hagen, Randall Rose, and members of the Working Groups in
Ancient Philosophy at Berkeley (2005) and Yale (2007). I thank Sara Kramer for
helping me start the abstracts. My debts to individuals for particular points are
recorded in the notes.
Peter Momtchiloff, my editor at Oxford, generously solicited four sets of reader’s
reports—two at the time the book was accepted, and two more after I revised the
manuscript in light of the first reports. One of the final pair of referees revealed herself
as Constance Meinwald, and I am delighted to be able to thank her by name. I am
grateful to her and the other readers for Oxford University Press for their constructive
criticisms and suggestions, all of which I have tried to address. I also thank the members
of the Oxford production staff for their patience and expert guidance, and Aimee
McDermott for her timely assistance with the proofs.
Thanks to the following presses and editors for permission to use my previously
published work: Hackett Publishing Company; Franz Steiner Verlag; Edward Zalta,
editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, editor of the
Journal of the International Plato Society; Academia Verlag; and Oxford University Press.
Details are given in Works Cited. For abbreviations of titles of ancient texts cited, see
the Index Locorum.
My greatest thanks go to Paul Coppock, who read the whole manuscript at three
different stages and gave me comments both global (on structuring the project) and
 P R E FAC E vii

particular, catching many errors. He is responsible for preliminary work on the General
Index and for the photo of me on the dust jacket. Most important have been our
discussions over the years, which have helped me think through philosophical pro-
blems relevant to Plato.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

Introduction 1
1 The Missing Dialogue 1
2 Portrait of the Philosopher 6
3 Puzzle of the Philosopher 13
1. Forms in Question 18
1.1 Socrates’ Theory of Forms in the Parmenides 19
1.2 Parmenides’ Critique 27
1.3 A World without Forms 43
2. A Philosophical Exercise 45
2.1 Plan of the Exercise in Parmenides Part II 47
2.2 The Positive Hypothesis 57
2.3 The First Antinomy 62
2.4 Instant of Change 64
2.5 The Second Antinomy 65
2.6 Summary of the Positive Hypothesis 69
2.7 Retrospective of the Exercise 70
2.8 Being and Participation 72
3. The Contest between Heraclitus and Parmenides 76
3.1 The Parmenidean Thread in the Theaetetus 78
3.2 Heraclitean Perception and its Objects 81
3.3 Parmenidean Perception and its Objects 86
3.4 Parmenides on Not-Being and Being in the Sophist 92
3.5 Battle of the Gods and Giants 95
4. Knowledge as Expertise 101
4.1 Prologue of the Theaetetus 103
4.2 Definition of Clay 104
4.3 Limits of Perception 107
4.4 True Judgment 120
4.5 Elements and Complexes 125
4.6 Accounts 127
4.7 Knowledge and True Belief 131
5. Appearances of the Sophist 138
5.1 The Angler and the Sophist 139
5.2 Puzzle of the Sophist 145
5.3 Great Kinds 149
x CONTENTS

5.4 Difference 158

5.5 Sameness and Being 163
5.6 False Statement 167
5.7 Producing Appearances 169
Appendix to Chapter 5: Assessment of the Debate:
Being auto kath’ hauto and pros alla 173
6. Refining the Statesman 177
6.1 The Statesman and the Herdsman 179
6.2 The Age of Cronus and the Age of Government 185
6.3 Model of a Model 188
6.4 The Weaver and the Statesman 190
6.5 Imitators 192
6.6 Refining Gold 194
6.7 Arts of Measurement 196
6.8 Laws and Expertise 197
6.9 The Statesman’s Knowledge 198
6.10 Socrates’ Name 200
7. The Philosopher’s Object 202
7.1 Intimations of the Philosopher 203
7.2 Aporia about Being in the Sophist 206
7.3 Dialectic in the Sophist 211
7.4 Excursus on Sound in the Philebus 214
7.5 Dialectic in the Sophist (Revisited) 223
7.6 Resolving the Aporia about Being 227
7.7 The Structure of Being 229
7.8 Being and Knowledge 236
7.9 The Philosopher’s Name 240

Works Cited 245

Index Locorum 263
Index of Names 274
General Index 278
 Introduction

Plato’s Sophist and Statesman present themselves as the first two dialogues of a projected
trilogy undertaken to define three kinds of expert: the sophist, the statesman, and the
philosopher. The Sophist and Statesman define the first two kinds, and both dialogues
advertise the Philosopher, but the anticipated final dialogue is missing.1 We can be fairly
sure that the dialogue was not written and lost, since ancient lists of Plato’s works
survive and do not include it.2 So the question is: why did Plato promise the Philosopher
and then fail to write it? I shall argue that Plato offers various sketches and studies of the
philosopher but deliberately withholds the dialogue in order to stimulate his audience
to combine the pieces into the full portrait he did not paint. Why make this bold claim
instead of supposing that Plato died before he could write it, or moved on to other
projects contrary to his original plan, or any number of possible explanations?3 We can
begin to answer the question about the missing dialogue by locating it within a larger
group of dialogues and by observing Plato’s dialectical strategy within that group.

1 The Missing Dialogue

I mentioned a trilogy, but in fact the Philosopher is the missing final member of a
tetralogy opening with the Theaetetus, a dialogue concerning the question “What is
knowledge (epistēmē )?” Both the Sophist and Statesman link themselves dramatically to
the Theaetetus by presenting that conversation as having occurred the previous day
(Sph. 216a1–2, Stm. 258a3–4), and the Theaetetus links itself to them with Socrates’

1
For the announcements, see Chapter 7 sec. 7.1 below.
2
Diogenes Laertius (first half of the third century ce) in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers (3.56–62
[= Hicks]) discusses several ancient editions of Plato, including the important one of Thrasyllus (died 36
ce) arranging Plato’s works in tetralogies (see Tarrant [1993]), and that of the earlier grammarian Aristophanes
of Byzantium (librarian in Alexandria in the early second century bce), who organized some of Plato’s
dialogues in trilogies. We have all the works Diogenes lists in the editions of Aristophanes and Thrasyllus, plus
several works they rejected as spurious. The Philosopher receives no mention.
3
Many scholars have addressed the question—e.g., Campbell (1867, Introduction to the Statesman:
lvi–lix), Cornford (1935a: 168–9), Skemp (1952: 20–2), Friedländer (1969: I.152–3, III.281 and 525 n. 5),
Wyller (1972, argues that the Parmenides is the Philosopher, a view criticized by Panagiotou [1973]), Klein
(1977: 4–5), Guthrie (1978: V.123–4), Davidson (1993: 193, suggests that the Philebus took the place of the
Philosopher), Dorter (1994: 235–7), M. Frede (1996: 146, 149–51), Notomi (1999: 23–5, 238–40, 287–8,
296–301), and Miller (2004: 10). For discussion of efforts to identify the Philosopher with various existing
dialogues, see A. E. Taylor (1926: 375 n. 1) and Wyller (1972).
2 PHILOSOPHOS

farewell invitation to meet again in the same place tomorrow (Tht. 210d4). The three
dialogues feature the same dramatic characters—Socrates, the geometer Theodorus,
the young mathematician Theaetetus, and his friend Socrates the Younger. An un-
named visitor from Elea accompanies Theodorus on the second day and replaces the
elder Socrates as the main speaker in the Sophist and Statesman.4 Socrates takes part at
the beginning of each dialogue but then silently observes the main discussion.5 The
Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman also share an overarching theme. Knowledge, first
analyzed in the Theaetetus, serves as a generic kind in the rest of the series (called technē
in the Sophist, epistēmē in the Statesman) and is divided into subkinds in the effort to
define the special expertise of the sophist and statesman.6 The philosopher’s expertise
will fall under the same generic kind. In this way the Theaetetus sets up the Sophist–
Statesman–Philosopher series by analyzing the generic kind they assume.
The Theaetetus also contributes to our series by distinguishing three sorts of account
(logos), the second and third of which can serve as definitional techniques.7 Of these,
one sort of account analyzes a whole (physical or generic) into its elementary parts (Tht.
206e6–207d2), and defines a generic whole with reference to those parts in some
combination, as in “clay is earth mixed with liquid” (Tht. 147c4–6). Call the technique
used to reach such a definition “analysis.” The other sort of account differentiates an
entity (a concrete particular or a specific kind) from others falling under a single kind
(Tht. 208c7–209c11), and defines a specific kind with reference to a wider kind and
features that mark it off from others within that kind, as in the familiar formula “man is
a rational animal.” Plato labels the technique of arriving at such definitions “division.”
His Eleatic Stranger uses the method of division to define specific kinds such as the
sophist and statesman, whose arts are sorts of expertise, but he cannot use that same
technique to define the highest genus (knowledge/expertise) itself. To define the
highest genus an inquirer uses analysis, and can use that technique again to isolate a
specific kind from others closely akin to it. The Theaetetus prepares the ground for the
whole series both in showing how to define the relevant highest genus and in setting
out two definitional techniques used at different stages of the project.
Cross-references in both the Theaetetus (Tht. 183e5–184a2) and Sophist (Sph. 217c3–7)
to Socrates’ long-ago meeting with Parmenides portrayed in the Parmenides alert the

4
On the significance of the visitor’s namelessness, see Blondell (2002: 318–26).
5
On the implications of Plato’s silencing Socrates in the Sophist and Statesman for his later approach to
philosophy (the visitor and Socrates differ in styles of teaching), see M. Frede (1996), Long (1998), and
Blondell (2002: ch. 6, esp. 378–96). Socrates is also a silent listener in the second part of the Parmenides and in
most of the Timaeus and Critias and is absent from the Laws. On the possible significance of Socrates’
upcoming trial and death (mentioned at the beginning and end of the Theaetetus: 142c5–6, 210d2–4) for the
conversation in the Sophist and Statesman, see Miller (2004: 1–3), and Zuckert (2009: 39–48, 680–735). These
issues add to the overall picture, but I shall not discuss them. In my view Plato is interested in the philosopher
as a type of expert. Socrates and the Eleatic Stranger are examples of that type, but a much more important
example is our author himself, who writes all the parts of the conversation.
6
Below in this Introduction I discuss the conception of knowledge presupposed in this statement. For
evidence that the same genus is divided in the Sophist and Statesman, see Stm. 258b2–c2.
7
Cf. R. Robinson ([1950] 1969: 55).
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 3

reader to the relevance of that discussion for the present one, though the Parmenides stands
outside our series. Thus we have three dialogues—Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman—
which group themselves into a series, herald the Philosopher as a fourth member, and assert
their reliance on the Parmenides.8
In my view the Parmenides holds the key to Plato’s strategy in our series of dialogues
and to the question about its missing member. In the first part of the dialogue a
youthful Socrates presents and Parmenides criticizes Plato’s theory of forms—the
view that there are eternal, unchanging objects, grasped by the intellect and not by
the senses, which explain selected features of things in the changing world around us—
and Socrates proves unable to rescue the theory.9 At the end of the critique Parmenides
claims that Socrates has posited forms too soon, before he has been properly trained,
and the second part of the dialogue demonstrates the sort of training he has in mind.10
In the transitional section leading up to the demonstration, Parmenides recommends
that once Socrates has completed the upcoming exercise he should start again, repeat-
ing it with variations. Whereas the demonstration in the Parmenides concerns the form
of oneness, Socrates should perform similar exercises taking as his subject likeness,
unlikeness, change, rest, being, not-being, and similar entities (Prm. 136b1–c5). Par-
menides’ recommendation suggests that new rounds of the exercise will bear some
resemblance to the exercise in the second part of the Parmenides. I argue below that
Plato presents a second round of the exercise repeating the dialectical pattern of
argument in the Parmenides and that this second round is especially relevant to the
missing Philosopher. At the end of this Introduction I set out this dialectical pattern,
since it provides the backbone of my book.11
The dialectical pattern established in the second part of the Parmenides is only one
such pattern replicated by Plato in our series, and another duplicated pattern in the
Sophist and Statesman bears significantly on my theme. Both dialogues begin the search
for their respective targets (the sophist, the statesman) with elaborate dichotomous
divisions—the progressive division of a general kind into two subordinate kinds—with

8
Stylometric analyses of Plato’s works put the composition of the Parmenides and Theaetetus close in time
to each other, after the Phaedo and Republic and other dialogues traditionally dated to Plato’s so-called
“middle” period, and before his late works, including the Sophist and Statesman (dated by their stylistic kinship
to the Laws, a work generally agreed to be Plato’s last). For an assessment of recent work on stylometry and
the chronology of Plato’s dialogues, see Young (1994: esp. 240, presenting a table with results of different
analyses). While I accept the standard dating of Plato’s dialogues, evidence that an earlier Prologue of the
Theaetetus was replaced by the one we have (Anon. Comm. Tht. Col. III, 28–32 [= Bastiani and Sedley]) and
the cross-references between dialogues in our series and back to the Parmenides convince me that even after
publishing his works Plato continued to revise them. Plato’s endless tinkering was well-known in antiquity:
e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De comp. verb. 25 [= Usher]. It seems to me likely that Plato substantially
revised an earlier version of the Theaetetus to fit it into a series with the Sophist and Statesman. I suspect that the
Parmenides underwent revision too—either that or Plato conceived a plan for our series at the time of writing
the second part of the Parmenides and the transitional section leading up to it.
9
Our topic in Chapter 1 below.
10
Our topic in Chapter 2.
11
In Chapters 2, 3, and 7.
4 PHILOSOPHOS

the aim of locating the target at the tip of one branch of the divided tree. Though
unique in their details, these divisions serve a shared heuristic purpose, to uncover the
special puzzle posed by the target kind. The division in the Sophist reveals the sophist at
the tips of branches all over the tree (what ties all those appearances together?); and the
division in the Statesman, though it locates the statesman at the tip of a single branch,
finds him with many rivals at that location (how does the statesman differ from others
who claim to look after human beings?). The puzzle once revealed reorients the
inquiry, suggesting new techniques to locate and define the essence of the target.12
This similar strategy in the two dialogues could indicate that the Philosopher, had Plato
written it, would also have opened with a dichotomous division to reveal the special
puzzle of the philosopher, but I believe that the repetition in the Sophist and Statesman
demonstrates one chief point: the inquirer must initially determine what makes the
target puzzling, and that may be discovered by division or by some other means. I argue
below that the puzzle associated with the philosopher is the puzzle about being, a
puzzle exposed (and indeed solved) in our series by following a dialectical pattern from
the second part of the Parmenides.
Whereas the second part of the Parmenides advertises itself as a dialectical exercise, the
Sophist and Statesman seem more dogmatic, since they arrive at solutions to their central
puzzles. Even so, these dialogues—along with the patently aporetic Theaetetus—also
function as exercises designed to train students in dialectical techniques, the philoso-
pher’s methods. The Statesman in particular features the Stranger and his interlocutor
engaging in trial and error, retracing their steps to make corrections, and diagnosing
what went wrong and why. The Theaetetus reads like a Socratic dialogue, with several
fresh starts, and it ends without reaching a satisfactory conclusion. I shall contend that in
the course of investigating three definitions of knowledge—as perception, as true
judgment, and as true judgment with an account—the Theaetetus also presents exercises
in each activity: in perceiving, correctly judging, and formulating accounts.13 These
dialogues also make increasing use of models—simple but revealing examples or at any
rate simpler cases—to show on a smaller scale how to solve a more difficult problem.
The model of the angler in the Sophist demonstrates the method of dichotomous
division and guides the inquirers part of the way in their search for the sophist; the
model of the weaver in the Statesman displays a new dialectical technique useful in the
search for the statesman and also exemplifies an essential feature of the statesman. These
dialogues contain other models as well, and the Statesman includes a model of a model
(children learning their letters) to show how any good model should operate. Plato’s
Stranger claims that the way children learn their letters shows how people learn
everything (Stm. 278c8–d6). He goes on to observe that in the example of the children
learning their letters, a child is asked to spell a particular word not merely to test his
competence in spelling that particular word but to increase his overall competence in

12 13
Our topics in Chapters 5 and 6. These exercises are discussed below in Chapters 3 and 4.
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 5

spelling (Stm. 285c8–d4). The Stranger then indicates that the investigation of the
statesman, though undertaken to reveal the statesman, aims chiefly to make students
more dialectical about everything (Stm. 285d5–8). Here the investigation of the
statesman itself becomes a model to train the participants in dialectical techniques
and teach them how to investigate other great and difficult topics. One such topic is the
philosopher, whose methods they have been using to uncover the sophist and states-
man.
Thus my argument that Plato intentionally withheld the Philosopher hinges on the
nature of these works themselves—works that stimulate the participants and audience
to engage in exercises of various sorts and urge them to extend arguments left
incomplete. One might agree yet still press the question: Why think that Plato left
out the Philosopher on purpose? The exercises he provides (especially the explicit one in
the second part of the Parmenides) are challenging enough. Why did he not write the
Philosopher with the final exercise as well?
Plato did not write the Philosopher but—and this is the main support for my claim
that he left it unwritten on purpose—he did write the final exercise. This exercise,
spanning parts of the Theaetetus and Sophist, replicates a complex dialectical pattern
established in the second part of the Parmenides. Although the version is simpler, it is in
some respects harder, because Plato goes to considerable lengths to camouflage the
argument, with the result that readers easily miss pieces of the pattern. Overlook any
major part of that structure or miss the way the parts fit together and you will fail to
realize that the argument pertaining to the philosopher repeats the pattern of argument
about oneness in the Parmenides and that its solution lies ready to hand, just as the
solution to the puzzle about oneness does. The fact that Plato sets out the puzzle
associated with the philosopher but hides the pieces of the puzzle and its solution in
plain sight, and that the puzzle once unearthed matches that in the Parmenides and
permits a breakthrough in exactly the same way justifies my conclusion that Plato
could have written the Philosopher but withheld it, while at the same time giving his
audience the means to work out the portrait it would have contained.
Plato uses the devious strategy I have attributed to him because, by making his
audience work very hard to dig out his meaning, he fosters in them (and us, his modern
readers) a skill in reading and a competence in using dialectical techniques and
developing new ones. In my view Plato regards knowledge in general as skill or
expertise (technē ), a cognitive capacity, and philosophy as one expertise among others.
Students acquire that skill through practice, by engaging in philosophical exercises,
reflecting on their mistakes and how to correct them. Plato tests their competence by
posing problems he does not explicitly solve.
Obviously the merits of my argument can be properly assessed only when the details
are fleshed out and defended in the course of this book, but if I am right about the
strategy, Plato did not write the Philosopher because he would have spoiled the exercise
had he written it. In finding the philosopher through the exercise, the student becomes
6 PHILOSOPHOS

a philosopher by mastering his methods, and thus the target of the exercise is internally
related to its pedagogical purpose.

2 Portrait of the Philosopher

I now turn to the portrait of the philosopher Plato challenges his audience to find, and
I discuss two principal topics: first, the philosopher’s object, the subject-matter he
studies; and second, the philosopher’s knowledge, his special expertise in dealing with
that object. A third topic, which I restrict mainly to this Introduction, is the philoso-
pher’s product—his discourse—the article he makes and brings into the world, on a par
with the sophist’s deceptive discourse and the statesman’s happy and well-managed
city. I start with the philosopher’s object, since his object generates the puzzle of the
philosopher.

The philosopher’s object: the form of being

In the middle of the Sophist, while describing the method of dialectic in his search for the
sophist, the Stranger claims to have caught sight of the philosopher first. He remarks that
the sophist is hard to see, because he keeps escaping into the darkness of not-being (the
negation of being: to mē on). The philosopher is hard to see too, but because he always
devotes himself through reasoning to the form of being (tēi tou ontos . . . ideai). People fail to
see him because they are dazzled by the light (Sph. 254a8–b1), but the Stranger assures
his interlocutor that they will find the philosopher in that divine place—the region of
being—if they look for him (Sph. 253e7–8), and he coyly adds that they will investigate
the philosopher more clearly soon, if they still want to (Sph. 254b3–4). Thus, in the
midst of his investigation of not-being undertaken for the sake of the sophist, the
Stranger indicates where to find the philosopher. We will find him by investigating
the subject-matter he studies, the form of being.
Some scholars think that the Stranger clarifies being through his analysis of not-
being in the Sophist and thereby reveals the philosopher as well as the sophist. On this
view Plato had no need to write the Philosopher because it would have duplicated
material in the Sophist (Plato avoids that sort of repetition). The idea seems plausible,
because a few pages earlier in the Sophist, after developing a series of puzzles about not-
being and then about being, the Stranger declares that they are now equally confused
about both. That equal confusion gives him hope: to the extent that he can shed light
on one of them, he will shed light on the other as well (Sph. 250e5–251a3).14 He goes
on to analyze not-being, and that analysis allows him to unmask the sophist. At the end
of his treatment of not-being, he boasts that he has found the form of not-being (to
eidos . . . tou mē ontos), and he then makes a series of parallel claims about not-being and

14
This hope for the joint illumination of being and not-being is known in the scholarly literature as the
“Parity Assumption.” See Owen (1971: 229–31).
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 7

being (Sph. 258d5–259b7). So although the Stranger does not explicitly define the
philosopher in the Sophist, he suggests that one can work out the definition based on
the joint illumination of not-being and being.15 No need, then, for Plato to write the
dialogue Philosopher.
Although the Stranger clarifies not-being and being to the same extent, one can
demonstrate that clarity sufficient for not-being and the sophist will not suffice for
being and the philosopher. The puzzles about not-being set out earlier in the dialogue
had a common source, a Parmenidean conception of not-being as the opposite (enantion)
of being.16 The opposite of being is nothing, and we cannot think or talk about that.17
The Stranger solves the problem about not-being by showing that the expression “not
being” (to mē on) is incomplete—it takes a further completion (for instance, “not being
large,” or “not being beautiful”). In the central section of the Sophist he distinguishes
five great kinds (megista genē )—being, sameness, difference, change, and rest—and
argues that instead of construing not-being as the opposite of being, one should
understand not-being as difference (Sph. 257b3–4, 258e6–259a1). For example, any-
thing other than being counts as not being being, because it is different from being
(non-identical with it): change is not being, redness is not being, and so on.
Once the Stranger interprets not-being as difference, it is easy to show that being and
not-being (difference) are not reverse sides of the same coin, and hence that equal
illumination will shed only partial light on being. In the section on great kinds, difference
is marked off from being on the following ground: difference always relates an entity to
things other than itself (pros alla), whereas being operates in two ways, both itself by itself
(auto kath’ hauto) and in relation to other things (pros alla) (Sph. 255c13–e7).18 At this stage
we need not spell out the key distinction between auto kath’ hauto and pros alla (the
distinction is highly controversial, and we shall examine it in due course); we need merely
notice that equal illumination will reveal only what difference and being have in
common, namely their operation pros alla. Being is a much richer notion than not-
being, and so the degree of illumination needed to clarify not-being and the sophist

15
See Notomi (1999: esp. 23–5, 238–40, 287–8, 296–301; and 2007: esp. 270–2).
16
I translate enantion as “opposite.” Following a helpful note and textual evidence in Keyt (1973: 300
n. 33), I understand “opposites” to cover both polar contraries (i.e., polar incompatibles with intermediates
between them, such as white and black) and contradictories (polar incompatibles without an intermediate,
such as odd and even or white and not-white). The word “incompatible” extends more broadly than
“opposite,” since the presence of one feature can exclude another without being its opposite—e.g., the same
thing cannot be both round and square.
17
The historical Parmenides seems to have regarded not-being as the contradictory of being, since his
Way of Truth allows no intermediate between them (DK 28B2). One might alternatively regard nothing as
the polar contrary of being and suppose that there are intermediates between them. Plato appears to toy with
that view in Republic V, 475b8–480a13. On either conception not-being is the opposite of being.
18
As noted by Dancy (1999: 58 n. 29) and Malcolm (2006a: 275 n. 1), the new Oxford Classical Text of
the Sophist (Duke et al. [1995]) misidentifies the opening lines of this passage by misplacing the number 15 in
the margin at line 14 in their text. I cite the Stranger’s opening statement by the correct numbering in Duke
(1995): 255c13–14. These lines are often referred to in the literature by the numbers in the earlier Burnet
(1900) edition: 255c12–13.
8 PHILOSOPHOS

will be too little to clarify being and the philosopher. To find the philosopher, we must
understand being auto kath’ hauto, the nature or form of being.
Commentators too rarely notice that the Stranger’s intricate discussion of five great
kinds in the Sophist and subsequent treatment of not-being provide an analysis of only
one of those kinds—difference—the form he needs in order to analyze falsehood and
then finally to capture the sophist who produces false statements.19 The Stranger gives
no comparable analysis of being. So to the extent that being receives illumination, it
comes entirely via the analysis of not-being interpreted as difference. I shall use the
analysis of difference as a model to make headway on sameness and being (and in doing
so I engage in an exercise inspired by but not present in the text), but that model will
not take us the whole distance.20 The latter part of the Sophist does not provide
sufficient resources fully to grasp the nature of being, and therefore does not tell us
enough to find the philosopher. The puzzle about being is the special puzzle of the
philosopher, and solving it would be the main project of the missing Philosopher, much
as solving the problem of not-being, the heart of the puzzle associated with the sophist,
is the main task of the Sophist. The puzzle concerns the philosopher’s object, the
subject-matter he studies.

The philosopher’s knowledge

We shall approach our topic from a second direction by examining the philosopher’s
knowledge, comparable to the sophist’s sophistry and the statesman’s statecraft. On this
topic we start with Plato’s investigation of knowledge in general in the Theaetetus, a
dialogue that examines and rejects three definitions of knowledge—as perception, as
true judgment, and as true judgment with an account.21 To understand Plato’s
conception of knowledge, we need to decide why the final definition in the Theaetetus
fails, and whether that failure points toward some constructive alternative. Some
scholars think the final definition—knowledge as true judgment with an account—
anticipates a familiar twentieth-century definition, knowledge as justified true belief.
Philosophers credit Plato for first proposing this definition and also for noticing that the
definition is circular and that attaining knowledge involves a vicious regress, since one
must know the evidence to know the proposition it is evidence for.22 On this view, to
find a way past the failure at the end of the Theaetetus Plato must find a means to avoid
the circularity and regress or somehow render them benign.
Other interpreters put weight on Plato’s discussion of knowledge and belief in
the Republic and propose a quite different explanation of the failure at the end of the
Theaetetus. In Republic V Socrates characterizes knowledge and belief as cognitive
capacities (dunameis), analogous to sight and hearing, which have different objects

19
The point has been noticed by Heinaman (1983: 11 n. 27) and Reeve (1985: 56).
20
We shall discuss these topics in Chapter 5 sec. 5.5.
21
Our topic in Chapter 4.
22
E.g., Gettier (1963: 121 n. 1), Armstrong (1973: 150–61), and Fine (1979).
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 9

(sight is set over colors, hearing over sounds) and accomplish different things (sight sees,
and hearing hears) and can be differentiated on those grounds. Knowledge and belief
can be similarly distinguished by their objects and what they accomplish: knowledge is
directed toward unchanging forms and never makes mistakes, whereas belief is directed
toward changing things in the world, and sometimes gets things right, sometimes
wrong (Rep. V, 475b8–480a13). If Plato believes that knowledge and belief are distinct
capacities set over different realms of objects, then the final definition of knowledge in
the Theaetetus goes wrong because it treats knowledge as upgraded true belief. Since the
Theaetetus also seems to ignore or at least downplay forms, the failure at the end is taken
to provoke the audience to realize that knowledge requires forms as its object.23
I diverge from these views and argue that Plato in the Theaetetus still regards
knowledge as a skill or expertise (technē )—a complex cognitive capacity (dunamis)
(labeled nowadays as “knowing how”)—which can be acquired through training,
and then actively used and gradually improved. In my view the failure at the end of
the dialogue prompts the reader to go back to a proposal Theaetetus made and Socrates
apparently rejected at the very beginning: knowledge as expertise (Tht. 146c7–d3).
One needs to combine Theaetetus’ three official definitions of knowledge—as per-
ception, true judgment, and an account—into an adequate definition of knowledge as
expertise. According to this reading the Theaetetus focuses on active knowledge and
analyzes it into three components: acquaintance with sensible or intelligible objects
(direct awareness of something either through sense perception or through what I call
“mental perception”), true judgment about it, and an account that grounds the
activity. Knowing how is intimately connected with knowledge by acquaintance and
propositional knowledge (knowing that) but is not reducible to one or the other of
them or both.24 I take it that this conception of knowledge preserves Plato’s view in
the Republic that knowledge and belief are capacities (dunameis) directed toward objects
(Rep. V, 477c6–d5), though not necessarily different objects—if indeed that was Plato’s
view in the Republic.25 The Theaetetus also preserves the idea in the Republic that
knowledge “knows what-is as it is” (gnōnai hōs esti to on [Rep. V, 477b10–11; cf.
478a6]): knowledge is a capacity to grasp something (what-is) in a particular way (as it
is). Plato continues to treat forms as the special objects of knowledge, but—and this is
an important difference—forms in our series of dialogues do not exist apart from things
in the world around us, as they do in the first part of the Parmenides and probably in the
Phaedo and Republic, but are the stable natures of things, immanent in them.26 Plato’s

23
Cornford (1935a: 7, 28, 162–3), Ross (1951: 101–3), Dorter (1994: 15, 118–20), and Sedley (2004:
esp. 178–81).
24
The classic article is Ryle (1945–6). Knowing how is a topic of renewed debate: see Stanley and
Williamson (2001), Koethe (2002), and a collection of essays edited by Bengson and Moffett (2011).
25
For arguments that Plato does not restrict knowledge to forms in the Republic, see Fine (1978) and
Annas (1981: ch. 8). Cf. Rowe (2007: ch. 6, esp. 213).
26
The Timaeus, traditionally regarded as a late dialogue, is a notable exception. Because the Timaeus seems
to ignore the objections to forms in the Parmenides, Owen (1953) argued that the Timaeus predates the
Parmenides, and several scholars agree, including Sayre (1983: 255, 256–67) and Bostock (1988: 9, 149–50);
10 PHILOSOPHOS

treatment of forms in the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman is in my view one respect in
which his later philosophy displays a distinctly Aristotelian bent.27
Branches of knowledge are distinguished from one another by their special object—
the subject-matter they study—and that object organizes the expertise, dictating its
proper methods and tools (shoes dictate the techniques of shoemaking, numbers those
of arithmetic, health those of medicine, and so on).28 People acquire expertise in
medicine or law or arithmetic by solving medical, legal, or arithmetical problems. In
solving problems students learn to use the methods proper to a particular discipline;
they make mistakes, correct them, and reflect on what went wrong and why. Training
in many arts involves learning rules that govern practice, but even if someone can state
the rules early on, she has mastered them only when she can apply them reliably in a
variety of situations. The rules must become internalized, second-nature, so that they
help to structure the expertise.29 The expert can apply the rules automatically without
stopping to recall them or check them in a book, and she has the flexibility to solve
problems not encountered before. Although the expert might say the same thing as a
novice when asked why she did what she did, she grasps the rule in a quite different
way, and when called upon to explain, she does not simply cite general rules, but states
why she did what she did on this occasion in these particular circumstances. In a famous
passage distinguishing knowledge from true belief in the Meno, Plato’s Socrates says
that true beliefs acquired by hearsay are fine things as long as they last, but they rarely
last long unless one ties them down by reasoning out the explanation (Meno 97e6–
98a4). In the Meno the knower is an eye-witness, someone who can direct others to
Larisa because he has traveled the road himself. And so it is with expertise. The expert
can explain what he did on a particular occasion, because he has traveled, and keeps
traveling, the road.30
The philosopher’s knowledge is a skill like others, but a skill in searching for answers
to questions of a certain sort, those dictated by the philosopher’s object, the form of

but Cherniss (1957) gave detailed objections to Owen’s view, and many scholars now reject Owen’s redating.
I count myself in the latter group. Although I do not discuss the Timaeus in detail in this book, I believe that
Plato reintroduces separate forms in the Timaeus for a special reason: the Demiurge looks to these objects in
fashioning the world. In Chapter 1 note 53 below, I briefly discuss the way I take the Timaeus to avoid the
objections to forms in the Parmenides.
27
Since Aristotle spent twenty years in Plato’s Academy until Plato’s death in 347 bce, first as a student
and then presumably as a teacher, mutual influence is scarcely surprising. I shall sometimes appeal to Aristotle
to clarify topics in Plato.
28
This statement will need to be qualified in the case of arts that deal with the same object from different
perspectives—e.g., weaving, spinning, and carding all deal with clothes. In cases of this sort the object only
partially determines the techniques of a discipline and must be supplemented by the discipline’s particular
perspective on the object and manner of dealing with it. I discuss this topic in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 sec. 7.9.
29
As Ryle (1945–6: 14) vividly puts the idea, “Rules are the rails of [a person’s] thinking, not extra
termini of it.”
30
Some philosophers would question whether the expert even needs to be able to explain. See the debate
between Dreyfus (2005, 2007) and McDowell (2007a, 2007b). In connection with Plato, see Wieland (1999:
esp. 280–309) and objections (review of the original edition) in C. C. W. Taylor (1983).
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 11

being.31 That object organizes the expertise in a particular way and, like the object of
other disciplines, determines the appropriate methods the philosopher uses, methods
Plato calls “dialectic.” A student acquires this discipline by undertaking philosophical
exercises, and through such training learns to recognize patterns across variations and
gradually gains a settled disposition to solve a range of problems including ones not
encountered before.
To speak of a settled disposition might suggest that a person gains a new capacity
previously lacked, but that is not Plato’s view. He thinks that all humans share a basic
cognitive capacity—intelligence—which they can direct toward various objects and
can progressively refine and improve.32 In the Allegory of the Cave in the Republic,
Socrates claims that learning is not like putting sight into blind eyes (Rep. VII, 518b6–
c2). Human beings are born with a mental capacity (dunamis), analogous to sight, a
capacity keen and sharp, no matter what object it takes as its focus (Rep. VII, 518d9–
519b6). Thus the same innate capacity can develop into expertise in shoemaking or
chess or medicine or arithmetic or statecraft or philosophy, depending on the object
the capacity is directed toward. Education does not instill a capacity lacked at the start
but rather turns an innate capacity in a new direction, and then gradually articulates and
sharpens it.
On the question of the philosopher’s knowledge, the Statesman guides the investi-
gation in several key respects. Whereas the Sophist presents a negative portrait of the
sophist as the great pretender and might give the impression that the philosopher just is
his positive counterpart, the Statesman reveals that sophists come in many stripes, and
pretenders to statecraft are declared to be the greatest sophists of all (Stm. 303b8–c5).
Only some sophists, then, pretend to be philosophers, while others claim other sorts of
expertise. Moreover, the Statesman shows that locating the object of an expertise
frequently does not suffice to distinguish that expertise from others sharing the same
domain (for instance, the statesman has many rivals who look after the needs of humans
who live in a city). In cases like this one must use some method other than dichoto-
mous division to mark off the target kind from its closest rivals while also preserving
their kinship.33 As we shall see, Plato’s philosopher has a rival who investigates being
using dialectical techniques, so it is not enough to locate the philosopher’s object and
his methods of dealing with it. The Statesman recommends and uses techniques to
define the statesman that can be extended to the investigation of the philosopher.34

31
On philosophy (and other disciplines) as knowing how, cf. Ryle (1945–6: 15).
32
The Republic claims that people are suited from birth for different functions (guardians, army, workers),
and so suggests that some people cannot turn away from mundane things. Even so, a worker can become an
expert in his craft.
33
Our topic in Chapter 6.
34
In Chapter 7 sec. 7.9 I discuss the philosopher’s main rival—the true rhetorician in the Phaedrus—and a
way to distinguish them.
12 PHILOSOPHOS

The philosopher’s discourse

The philosopher, like the sophist and statesman, also has a product—his discourse,
whether oral or written (or silently thought), and insofar as he uses his discourse to
teach others, his expertise is practical, as well as theoretical.35 In this Introduction
I discuss the philosophical product of chief importance to this book, the written works
of our author, Plato.
Plato’s conception of knowledge and its acquisition makes the dialogue a particularly
useful means for philosophical teaching. The audience witnesses a philosophical expert
(Socrates, Parmenides, the Eleatic Stranger) in action exploring a philosophical prob-
lem either with a purported expert or with a young person undertaking to learn the art.
Many of these conversations end without being finished, because the interlocutor gives
up in exasperation in the middle or runs out of ideas. A respondent who gives up the
search has not profited from the encounter, but the audience can go further. The
puzzle that ends the conversation should stimulate them to try again. Plato does not
leave his audience to their own devices: sometimes he picks up the thread in another
work, but more often he goads his readers to retrace their steps to find some mistaken
assumption that led to the unsatisfactory outcome or some fruitful suggestion worth
pursuing. The dialogues frequently indicate how to go on, how to get beyond an
impasse, but they require rereading, following roads not taken, and reassessing assump-
tions earlier taken for granted. The audience must pay attention to signals of various
kinds in the text, which urge them to make a connection with something said before.
Plato’s dialogues present live conversations between a main speaker and one or more
interlocutors, or narrations of such conversations, but he wrote his dialogues chiefly to
be read.36 My claim might seem so obvious as not to need stating, since Plato’s thought
is accessible to us only through his writings, but it may seem less likely when we think
of his ancient audience and his own claims about writing. In the Theaetetus Plato’s
surrogate author, Eucleides of Megara, says that Socrates narrated the conversation to
him, Eucleides went home, took notes, and wrote the conversation when he had time.
He checked bits with Socrates later and made revisions, and now has a full text, which a
slave will read to him and Terpsion while they rest (Tht. 142c5–143b4). This passage
suggests that ancient audiences heard Plato’s written text recited by a single voice, yet
such communal reading is similar to private reading in that one can ask the reader to go

35
Some philosophers—e.g., Dreyfus (1979: 67–8) and C. Taylor ([1992] 1995)—think that Plato got
western philosophy off track by distinguishing theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge and then
leaving a gap between theory and its practical application. Plato may have gone astray in the Republic, but
even there his educational program prescribes that future philosopher-kings (and queens) spend fifteen years
engaged in the practical affairs of the city before they make their final ascent in dialectic (at age 50) in
preparation for taking their turn ruling the city (Rep. VII, 539e2–540b7). Whatever one ultimately decides
about the Republic, in the Statesman Plato’s Stranger recognizes that an expert must be able to use his
knowledge in day-to-day practice.
36
Cf. Burnyeat (1999: 269–70 n. 25).
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 13

back and reread an earlier passage.37 More troubling is Socrates’ notorious critique of
writing in the Phaedrus and the claim in a Platonic letter (possibly spurious) that writing
should be just for fun, not a serious pursuit, and that Plato would not write about the
most important things (Phdr. 274b6–278e3; Ep. VII, 341a7–344d2). These criticisms of
writing have encouraged some scholars to think that Plato saved his most important
ideas for his oral teaching, or at least would not put such ideas in writing.38 Some
commentators cite these texts to explain why the Philosopher is missing.39 I believe, on
the contrary, that Plato’s written works present or indicate his main ideas and that he
wrote his works to be read—not once, but over and over. Unless we can go back and
reread earlier bits of a dialogue in light of what is said later, we shall miss some of Plato’s
most important insights, including elements of his portrait of the philosopher.
Plato’s dialogues make huge demands on the reader. Plato expects his students to
read the arguments on the page carefully and critically, but he also expects them to
observe signposts in the text that press them to make connections the speakers do not
explicitly make and to construct arguments that go beyond the surface text. Reading
Plato’s dialogues feels like solving a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces are all there (if we can just
find them), we see how some of them fit together into part of the design, but the
overall picture only gradually emerges, and in the end we may have to redo a section
we thought was already finished. An unsuccessful or puzzling dialogical ending
provokes the reader to go back to something said before, either in the middle or at
the beginning. In my view, continuing in the direction broken off at the end is only
sometimes the way forward; more often progress requires combining elements from
earlier attempts and developing an idea proposed and seemingly discarded, perhaps at
the very beginning.40

3 Puzzle of the Philosopher

In developing my interpretation of Plato I have used several heuristic techniques,
typically ones recommended by his main speakers to their interlocutors. First, I have
taken seriously Parmenides’ advice in the prelude to the philosophical exercise in the
second part of the Parmenides that students should repeat the exercise with variations.

37
In the Parmenides Zeno reads his book aloud to the assembled group (Prm. 127c5–6), and then Socrates
asks him to go back and reread a section (Prm. 127d6–7). The Phaedrus features Phaedrus reading aloud a
speech by the orator Lysias (Phdr. 230e6–234c5), and on two occasions while criticizing it Socrates asks
Phaedrus to go back and reread the beginning (Phdr. 262d8–e6, 263d5–264a3). According to Knox (1968:
432–5), books in antiquity were normally read aloud, but there is also evidence of silent reading. Cf. Gavrilov
(1997), Burnyeat (1997), and Johnson (2000). Thanks to Peter Agócs for these additional references.
38
Krämer (1990: 108), Szlezák (1999: esp. ch. 12), and other members of the Tübingen School. Cf.
Migliori (2007: 95). On the vexed issue of Plato’s unwritten doctrine (mentioned once explicitly by Aristotle,
Phys. IV.2, 209b13–16), I agree with Sayre (1983: 75–84) that Plato’s main views are expressed in his writings.
39
E.g., Cornford (1935a: 169) and Friedländer (1969: III.281).
40
In Chapter 4 I defend such a reading of the Theaetetus.
14 PHILOSOPHOS

I therefore looked for similar dialectical patterns in our series on the hunch that they
would guide me to Plato’s philosopher. Second, I have followed the Stranger’s advice
in the Sophist and Statesman and looked for models—simple but revealing examples or
at least simpler cases—introduced to show on a smaller scale how to solve a more
difficult problem. Third, I have paid close attention to Plato’s stage directions, cross-
references, verbal echoes, and other literary devices on the assumption that they would
indicate how to read the text and how to make connections within and across texts.
Here in the Introduction I limit myself to sketching a single pattern of argument Plato
uses to bring the philosopher into view.
I have claimed that Plato spells out the puzzle about being (the philosopher’s object)
by repeating a dialectical pattern Parmenides uses in the second part of the Parmenides in
the exercise devoted to oneness. The basic idea of the exercise in the Parmenides is this:
Assume that oneness is, and ask what follows for it and for other things on that
hypothesis. Then assume that oneness is not, and consider what follows for it and for
other things on that hypothesis. The relevant pattern of dialectic occurs in Parmenides’
treatment of the positive hypothesis.41 In four steps he examines and rejects two
positions about oneness (in Deductions 1 and 2), positions that initially look very
similar but end up at opposite extremes—that the one is nothing (Deduction 1) and
that the one is everything (Deduction 2)—then finds a middle path (in Deduction 3),
and then destroys the solution (in Deduction 4). To get past the fourth deduction and
go back to the constructive solution in the third deduction, the student needs to
diagnose the mistake in the fourth deduction. The fourth deduction overturns the
preceding proposal by insisting that the one is simply one and not many. As we shall
see, that is Socrates’ own thesis in the first part of the dialogue, and he challenges
Parmenides to prove him wrong (Prm. 129d6–130a2). Parmenides refutes him by
relying on that thesis at key moments in the exercise.42 If Socrates wants to escape
the conclusions of the fourth deduction and return to the proposal in the third
deduction, he must give up that thesis and recognize that the one is both one and
many. The idea, which initially seemed to him impossible, need not be troubling once
he recognizes that the same thing can have opposite features if those features are
explained in different ways.
To repeat: in his programmatic remarks before he begins the demonstration in the
second part of the Parmenides, Parmenides claims that the upcoming exercise represents
only the first step of a much larger program. When the student completes the exercise
about the one, he should start over, and take some other entity as his topic—likeness,
unlikeness, change, rest, being, not-being, and other topics (Prm. 136b1–6)—and only
through repeating the exercise with variations can he achieve a full view of the truth
(Prm. 136c4–5).

41
My interpretation of the exercise in the Parmenides is controversial, and I argue for it in Chapter 2
sec. 2.1. Here I simply state my view.
42
For my defense of this claim, see Chapter 2 secs. 2.3, 2.5, and 2.7.
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 15

How much of the exercise in the Parmenides is the student to carry over to new
rounds? It would be rash to generalize from two instances, since the exercise probably
allows considerable diversity depending on the topic and special puzzles surrounding
that topic, so let me simply describe the similarities between the two versions I plan to
discuss. Each version focuses on a single subject (oneness in the Parmenides, being in the
Theaetetus and Sophist), and in two steps presents an antinomy each arm of which is
unacceptable. The third step seeks a middle path between the extremes, and the fourth
step undermines the solution. In the exercise about being, the lead speaker considers
two opposed views about the nature of being—the Heraclitean view that being is
changing (step one) and the Parmenidean view that being is unchanging (step two)—
and shows that the conclusions of each alternative should be rejected. Steps three and
four mimic the strategy in the Parmenides by first finding a middle path (at step three),
and then dismantling it (at step four).43
Thus in my view the exercise about being replicates in four steps the treatment of the
positive hypothesis in the Parmenides, and diagnosing the error in its fourth step will
allow us to locate the philosopher. This version takes place across two dialogues, the
Theaetetus and Sophist, and to my knowledge it has escaped scholarly notice. Although
the dialectical pattern is unmistakably there, it has been overlooked because Plato’s
readers are accustomed to reading his dialogues as stand-alone unified wholes, but in
this case we miss the pattern unless we read the Theaetetus and Sophist together as parts
of a series. Secondly, our author takes extraordinary trouble to keep his audience from
noticing. Just for a start, he has different main speakers—Socrates in the Theaetetus, the
Eleatic Stranger in the Sophist—carry out different steps of the argument.
In the first part of the Theaetetus Socrates stages a contest between two opposing
positions about being, the view of Heraclitus that being is many and changing, and the
view of Parmenides that being is one unchanging thing.44 In the Theaetetus the
competition looks like a side-show, because Socrates keeps stressing the irrelevance
of Parmenides to the discussion (about perception), while at the same time mentioning
him again and again. Seemingly in passing he says that he and his interlocutor must take
sides with one group or the other or end up marooned, having refuted all the wise men
of the past (Tht. 180d7–181b4). He then refutes the Heracliteans, but refuses to
confront Parmenides despite his earlier promise to do so (Tht. 181b4–184a9). The
Sophist finally takes on Parmenides, and the Stranger refutes him (Sph. 244b6–245e5
and 248a4–249b7).45 Thus we have the first two steps of the pattern, the demonstra-
tion that each of two extreme positions is unacceptable. In the section that follows the
official refutation of Parmenides, the Eleatic Stranger contrives a battle between two

43
I discuss the first three steps in Chapter 3 and the final step (and the third step once more) in Chapter 7.
44
These are Plato’s representations of Heraclitus and Parmenides, and they may well not match the views
of the historical figures.
45
I argue in Chapter 3 that the official refutation of Parmenides, which concerns the number of beings, is
not the relevant challenge to him. The relevant challenge comes in the next section on the nature of being,
where he is represented by the “friends of the forms,” who insist that being rests and cannot change.
16 PHILOSOPHOS

groups, whom he calls the Gods (friends of the forms) and the Giants (materialists), who
disagree about the nature of being (Sph. 245e6–249d8). These two groups are not the
same as the ones in the Theaetetus, but by the end of the passage the friends of the forms
have joined forces with the champions of rest, and the materialists have joined forces
with the champions of change.
The Stranger tries to get the two groups to reach an agreement about being, and
offers them a definition: being is a capacity (dunamis) to act on other things or to be
affected by other things (Sph. 247d8–e4). The Giants accept the proposal (these are
refined, agreeable Giants), while the Gods resist, claiming that forms are unchanging
and so cannot be affected. The Stranger finally gives up the effort to persuade them.
For his part he declares in closing that the philosopher will take sides with neither
group, but like children who are offered a choice between two things and beg for both,
he will say that “being and the all are all things unchanged and changed, both together”
(Sph. 249c10–d4). Whatever this statement precisely means (and we shall return to it
more than once), for now simply note that the philosopher pursues a fourth option not
entertained in the Theaetetus. Instead of taking sides with one group or the other or
rejecting both, the philosopher finds a compromise between the two groups. In the
strategic pattern, this compromise—I call it the “children’s plea”—matches the con-
structive third deduction in the Parmenides, the third step of the dialectical exercise.
No sooner does the Stranger exclaim that he has got a definition of being (Sph.
249d6–7) than he notices a problem (249d9–11). Being cannot be defined as both
changing and resting, because change and rest are complete opposites (contradictories),
and therefore exclude each other (Sph. 250a8–9). So being is not change and rest, both
together, but something else (Sph. 250c3–4). The Stranger next claims that in its own
nature being neither rests nor changes (Sph. 250c6–7), and his claim seems plausible—
even promising—yet then he announces that being (whatever its nature is) neither rests
nor changes, but stands outside change and rest (Sph. 250c12–d3), a conclusion he
invites Theaetetus to reject: “Most impossible of all” (Sph. 250d3–4). What is this
mysterious thing called “being,” which neither rests nor changes? If change and rest are
contradictories with universal application, everything must do one or the other, and
any self-respecting Platonist should say that being rests, since rest (stability) is a feature
of Platonic forms as forms (an ideal feature of forms, as Aristotle calls such features).46
This argument—I call it the “Aporia about Being” (Sph. 249d9–250d4)—rules out the
previous constructive result and constitutes the fourth step of the dialectical exercise.
The Aporia about Being is deeply flawed, but this is the argument that gives the
Stranger his grounds for saying that he and Theaetetus are now completely confused
about being—indeed as confused about being as they previously were about not-
being—and this observation gives him hope that he may be able to clarify both being
and not-being at once (Sph. 250d5–251a4). We shall need to come back and assess the

46
Aristotle, Top. V.7, 137b3–13. His own example of an ideal feature of Platonic forms is rest (to ēremein).
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 17

Aporia, but we should notice one thing now: the inquirers find themselves squarely in
the bad spot Socrates hoped to avoid in the Theaetetus, stuck in no man’s land between
the advocates of change and the advocates of rest, after renouncing both. This fourth
step in the pattern is comparable to the fourth deduction in the Parmenides, and the
solution is the same: Socrates must give up his thesis in the first part of the Parmenides,
this time about change and rest (Prm. 129d6–130a2; cf. 129b1–3, b6–c3).
To solve the puzzle about being and find the philosopher, Plato’s readers must
recognize that change rests and rest changes. Not such a momentous admission, we
might think, but the idea is very strange in light of the Sophist, because throughout the
remainder of the dialogue the Stranger insists that change and rest are mutually
exclusive opposites, and many of his arguments in the section on great kinds rely on
that premise. Plato could have written the same or similar arguments in the later part of
the Sophist using a pair of opposite forms that do exclude each other, such as hot and
cold, but he did not. Because of his treatment of change and rest, I claim that Plato does
not paint the portrait of the philosopher in the Sophist. He did, however, draw the
cartoon in the Battle of the Gods and Giants, before barring us from it in the Aporia
about Being. My reading will show why the attractive proposal about being in the
Battle of the Gods and Giants has seemed so hard to square with the rest of Sophist.
Plato challenges his readers to make their own way back to that solution: we shall find
the philosopher there, in the vicinity of the children’s plea.
 1
Forms in Question

T s ØØ çغçÆ  æØ; B

fi æ łÅ
fi Iªı ø  ø;
(Plato, Parmenides 135c5–6)
What then will you do about philosophy? Where will you turn, while these diffi-
culties remain unresolved?

Plato’s Eleatic Stranger says in the Sophist that the philosopher always devotes himself
through reasoning to the form of being, but the brightness of the place keeps most
people from seeing him. We start our investigation of the philosopher by considering
forms in general. This chapter will set out the theory of forms proposed in the first part
of the Parmenides and the objections marshaled against it, and will consider what
revisions Plato can make to address the main objections. In my view the dialogues in
our series—Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman—reflect those modifications while pre-
serving key aspects of the theory intact.
The Phaedo and Republic appeal to forms in the course of treating other topics—the
immortality of the soul in the Phaedo and the education of the philosopher-king in the
Republic—but neither dialogue gives a systematic treatment of them, and their state-
ments do not add up to a single well worked-out theory. Central questions receive
different answers in different places, even within a single dialogue, including the
troublesome issue of participation—initially the relation between sensible particulars
(physical objects grasped by our senses) and intelligible forms invoked to explain some
of their features. Only in the Parmenides are forms the central topic of discussion and far
from settling issues, the dialogue presents puzzles about forms without solving them.
By the end of the examination one might wonder whether Plato can (or should)
preserve a theory of forms at all, yet his main speaker declares that if someone,
impressed by all the difficulties, denies the existence of forms, he will have nowhere
to turn his thought and will destroy the capacity for dialectic entirely (tēn tou dialegesthai
dunamin) (Prm. 135b5–c3).1 This statement suggests that Plato will keep the theory,

1
All citations in this chapter refer to the Parmenides unless otherwise noted, and translations come from
Gill and Ryan (1996) with minor revisions. Some scholars translate dialegesthai here with a weaker word, such
as “discourse” or “conversation,” but a weaker word results in a much stronger meaning—that unless
Socrates solves the difficulties no meaningful discourse will be possible. See Cornford (1939: 99–100);
 FORMS IN QUESTION 19

though with some revisions to meet the objections. In my view several of the main
difficulties stem from a conception of forms as separate, as existing apart from ordinary
physical things in an immaterial realm of their own.

1.1 Socrates’ Theory of Forms in the Parmenides

The Parmenides recounts a conversation Socrates had in his youth with Parmenides,
when Parmenides visited Athens from Elea with his younger colleague Zeno, who
brought to Athens for the first time his book defending Parmenidean monism from
critics who believed in the existence of many things.2 Socrates presents his theory of
forms as a reply to Zeno’s objections and thus as an aid to Parmenides’ critics, but
Parmenides then shatters Socrates’ theory in turn. Unlike typical Socratic dialogues in
which Socrates cross-examines and refutes someone who claims knowledge about a
particular topic, here Plato reverses the roles of his speakers, with Socrates defending a
theory of forms, and Parmenides cross-examining and refuting him.3 Where do things
stand at the end of the whole critique (the end of the first part of the dialogue)? One
might expect that Parmenides, having saved his own thesis, will force Socrates to accept
it, but that is not the moral Parmenides draws. Instead he observes that Socrates has
posited forms too soon, before he has been properly trained, and recommends that he
examine both sides of a question.
We start with Zeno, whose book contained a series of arguments designed to defend
Parmenides’ thesis, “the all is one” (128a8–b1), from critics who believed in a plurality
of things (128c6–d6).4 Zeno’s arguments had the following shape: If things are many,

cf. Peterson (1996: 177 and 2000: 19–20, 43). By the end of Part II it does look as though there is nothing to
talk about, but then no one is there to do any talking either. Maybe Parmenides is already anticipating that
conclusion, but since he next asks what Socrates will do about philosophy (135c5–6), and since the
philosopher’s major tool is dialectic, I think “dialectic” is the appropriate translation here. Cf. Phlb. 57e6–
7, where the same phrase is used and plainly means “the capacity for dialectic.”
2
The dramatic date of the conversation is perhaps 450 bce, when Socrates was about 19 years old, and the
dramatic date of its retelling is at least fifty years later, after Socrates’ death in 399 bce. For more details, see
Miller (1986: 15–36) and Gill (1996: 3–7); and see Mansfeld (1990: 64–8) for the suggestion that the fictional
date is much earlier, when Socrates would have been exceedingly young (sphodra neon) (Prm. 127b1–c5).
Whatever the dramatic date of the Parmenides, it is highly unlikely that a conversation of this sort ever took
place between the historical Parmenides and the historical Socrates. Here a youthful Socrates presents a full-
blown theory of forms, and these forms—and the problems with them—have a lot in common with forms as
presented in the Phaedo, a conversation Socrates had with friends at least fifty years later on the last day of his
life. Given the devastating critique in the Parmenides, Socrates’ views in the Phaedo all those years later would
scarcely look so similar had either conversation actually occurred. Historical truth is not Plato’s aim.
3
The Parmenides provides a good occasion to query the idea that some character in Plato’s dialogues speaks
for the author, because here both Socrates, who advocates the theory, and Parmenides, the critic, have a claim
to represent Plato. Plato wrote all the parts in his dialogues, and his views can best be determined by
considering what emerges from the whole conversation. Even then our grasp of Plato’s views remains partial
until we also take into account his conversation with his audience by means of the dialogue.
4
Scholars have doubted whether the historical Parmenides was a numerical monist. See Mourelatos
(1970) and Curd (1998). Although I am inclined to think that he was, nothing in my argument depends on
his actual view, only on the position Plato attributes to him, and that is numerical monism.
20 PHILOSOPHOS

they must be both F and not-F for some value of “F” (e.g., like and unlike, one and
many, at rest and in motion)—pairs of features Zeno regards as incompatible, incapable
of belonging to the same thing at the same time.5 Since the same things cannot have
incompatible properties at the same time, things are not many, and Parmenides is right:
the all is one. Plato does not rehearse Zeno’s particular arguments, because he can
motivate Socrates’ proposal simply by appealing to Zeno’s main thesis: if things are
many, they have incompatible properties, and that is impossible.6
Socrates replies to Zeno in a long speech (128e5–130a2), claiming that he can explain
the compresence of opposites in ordinary things, if Zeno will grant his hypothesis, that
there are forms: “a form of likeness, itself by itself (auto kath’ hauto), and another form,
opposite to this—what unlike is (ho estin anomoion)” (128e6–129a2). According to Socrates,
he and Zeno are like and unlike each other by partaking (tōi metechein) of the forms of
likeness and unlikeness, and there is nothing astonishing about that (129a2–b1). Similarly,
Socrates is one and many—one person among the seven people present but many parts—
and he has both features because he partakes of two opposite forms, oneness and multitude
(129c4–d2). That is not surprising either: ordinary things have opposite features simulta-
neously because they partake of forms of opposites, such as likeness and unlikeness or
oneness and multitude. He says he would be shocked, however, if someone could show
him that the same difficulty infects the forms themselves—that the like itself is unlike, the
unlike like, the one itself many, the many one; that change itself rests, and rest changes, and
more generally that forms partake of other forms. He challenges Parmenides and Zeno to
prove him wrong—to show that the same difficulty he introduced forms to solve extends
to forms themselves (129b1–3, b6–c3, 129d6–130a2).
In the second part of the dialogue, Parmenides presents Socrates’ thesis about the
one—that it is simply one and not many—as the first step of his own argument and
demonstrates the devastating consequences of that thesis. I shall argue that Part II is an
indirect argument demonstrating that to save the theory of forms and philosophy
Socrates must abandon his thesis about the one and admit that it is both one and many

5
According to the fifth century ce Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus (In Parm. 694,23–25 [= Cousin]),
Zeno’s book contained 40 logoi (arguments), each of which attacked the thesis that things are many by
deriving contradictory consequences from it. See Dillon (1986) and Dillon’s introduction in Morrow and
Dillon (1987: xxxviii–xliii). On opposites and incompatibles, see my Introduction, note 16.
6
One genuine fragment from Zeno’s book survives, and it indicates the sorts of arguments he used (here
the predicates are “limited” and “unlimited”). The Neoplatonic commentator Simplicius (sixth century ce)
preserves the statement:
In proving again that, if things are many, the same things are limited and unlimited, Zeno writes the
following in his own words:
“If things are many, they must be as many as they are, and neither more nor less than that. But if they are
as many as they are, they would be limited.
“If things are many, the things-that-are are unlimited; for there are always others between the things-
that-are, and again others between those. And in this way the things-that-are are unlimited.” (DK 29B3
= Simplicius, In Phys. 140,28–33 [= Diels])
This reductio, like the one described in the Parmenides, yields the conclusion that things are not many. Hence
the all is one.
 FORMS IN QUESTION 21

(in different ways).7 To repeat a claim I made in my Introduction, Socrates (or at least
Plato’s readers) will eventually have to reevaluate, for other examples as well, the denial
that forms participate in other forms, and in some cases their own opposite. In the first
part of the dialogue Parmenides repeatedly demonstrates a different point: take any
form—say largeness—which Socrates regards as one, and Parmenides will show that it
is many rather than one. In this section I shall undertake to show why Socrates and others
find Zeno’s paradoxes troubling and how forms are supposed to solve them.
Socrates introduces forms in his speech to explain a phenomenon that seems to allow
a simple diagnosis. Why should anyone be bothered by Zeno’s paradoxes, the com-
presence of opposites in ordinary things? The same thing can be simultaneously both
F and not-F (say like and unlike), as long as it is F in one respect or relation and not-F in
another. For example, Zeno is like Socrates in species but unlike him in age and size—
fill out the predicates “like” and “unlike” by specifying the respects in which Zeno and
Socrates are like and unlike, and the contradiction disappears. Again, Socrates is both
one and many, because he is one man and many parts. Only if the same thing is F and
not-F at the same time, in the same respect, and in relation to the same thing, is there a
contradiction. Socrates regularly mentions the qualifiers when he speaks of the com-
presence of opposites, yet—like Zeno—he finds that compresence puzzling. He thinks
his theory of forms enables him to solve the paradoxes.
As interpreters we need to understand why Plato’s dramatic characters find the
compresence of opposites troubling. Their puzzlement makes sense on the supposi-
tion that, whereas we moderns regard “like” and “unlike,” “one” and “many,”
“large” and “small” as incomplete predicates requiring something further to com-
plete the meaning, Plato’s dramatic characters regard such terms as complete pre-
dicates that specify monadic properties of things, even though they recognize that
those predicates regularly take a further completion.8 If largeness and smallness are
regarded as monadic properties, the statement “Simmias is large (in relation to
Socrates) and small (in relation to Phaedo)” is as paradoxical as the statement “the
same thing is round and square,” because one property excludes the other.9 In my
view Socrates introduces forms in the Parmenides to remove a feeling of paradox we
do not share.
Let us set aside our misgivings and grant that Zeno’s paradoxes have bite, and now
ask how forms are supposed to solve them. I turn to an argument in the Phaedo, which

7
See Chapter 2 sec. 2.3 below. Cf. Anscombe ([1966] 1981: 28–9).
8
For the distinction between complete and incomplete predicates, see Owen (1957: esp. 107–11), who
speaks of the “Greek mistreatment of ‘relative’ terms in the attempt to assimilate them to simple adjectives”
(110), and cites Aristotle’s complaint (Met. `.9, 990b15–17) about Plato’s “nonrelative class of relatives”
(kath’ hauto genos tōn pros ti) (107). Whereas Owen discussed the mistake in connection with forms (e.g., the
form of equality is simply equal, not equal to anything), I take the problem to extend to the relational
properties of ordinary things, such as largeness in Simmias. I do not wish to defend Plato’s treatment of
relational properties, only to make sense of it. For a vigorous defense of Plato’s treatment of relational
statements in the Phaedo, see Matthen (1982).
9
In this book I use “property,” “attribute,” and “feature” interchangeably, though I prefer “property” in
distinguishing monadic and relational features of things, and “attribute” or “feature” in distinguishing features
internal or external to the nature of things.
22 PHILOSOPHOS

sets out in more detail a theory of forms very similar to the one Socrates proposes in the
Parmenides. Many aspects of Plato’s theory of forms in the Phaedo are controversial, and
it is not my aim to assess alternative views but merely to present an interpretation,
consistent with the evidence, that makes sense of Socrates’ theory in his long speech in
the Parmenides and gives Parmenides’ objections purchase on it.
In the Phaedo Socrates meets with friends on the last day of his life and gives a series
of arguments to prove the immortality of the soul. At the beginning of the final
argument, he claims that he can prove the soul’s immortality, if Simmias and Cebes
(his main interlocutors) agree that there are forms, and that forms explain features
things have in the sensible world, notably opposite features, such as beauty and ugliness
or largeness and smallness (Phd. 100b1–9).10 Socrates says:
If anything else is beautiful besides the beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than
because it partakes of that beautiful; and the same goes for all cases. Do you agree to this sort of
explanation? (Phd. 100c4–7)

Socrates rejects various explanations of beauty, such as bright color and shape (Phd.
100c9–d3), and claims to be sure of only one thing, that “by the beautiful (tōi kalōi) all the
beautiful things are beautiful” (Phd. 100d7–8, e2–3). Socrates uses the Greek instru-
mental dative “by the beautiful” to indicate that the form of beauty is responsible for—
the cause of—the beauty of beautiful things.11 Plato’s Socrates does not have our
modern conception of a cause as an event that brings about another event (e.g., the
burning of the match that causes a fire), but instead thinks of causes as things responsible
for effects of a certain kind.12 In the Phaedo Socrates discusses three principles of
causation.13
First, a cause should explain one sort of effect and not its opposite, and for that reason
Socrates rejects other purported causes of beauty, such as bright color or shape.

10
Later he extends the account to entities which are not themselves opposites but are essentially
characterized by a feature with an opposite—e.g., fire (always accompanied by heat) and snow (always
accompanied by coldness) or threeness (the feature of triplets and always accompanied by oddness) and
twoness (the feature of pairs and always accompanied by evenness) (Phd. 103c10–105c7). He uses this later
“clever” explanation to prove the immortality of the soul (105c8–107a1). We need only the earlier “safe”
explanation to make sense of Socrates’ theory in the Parmenides.
11
For this use of the instrumental dative to specify a cause, cf. Euthphr. 6d9–e2, Prt. 332a8–b1, and Hp.
Ma. 287c1–d2. We shall discuss more examples in the Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Sophist.
12
Sedley (1998: 115) observes that we should understand “thing responsible” in a very broad sense to
include (among others) physical stuffs, mathematical processes such as addition, a soul, and forms. Two Greek
words commonly translated as “cause”—aition and aitia—originated in the law courts. An aition was typically
the person responsible for some outcome, the one who bears the blame, while an aitia is the charge of
responsibility, often an accusation of blame (LSJ s.v. aition and aitia). M. Frede ([1980] 1987: esp. 129) claims
that Plato (unlike Aristotle) often observes this distinction, and when he does, an aition is the thing
responsible, properly translated as “cause,” while an aitia is something linguistic, a statement attributing
responsibility, and can be translated “reason,” “causal account,” or “explanation.”
13
Cf. Bostock (1986: 136–42, 151–3), Sedley (1998: 121), and Hankinson (1998: 87–98); see also Burge
(1971: 4–5). These authors state the rules in the negative (thus adhering more closely to Socrates’ examples
than I do), though they ultimately state my (3) in the positive. On my version:
 FORMS IN QUESTION 23

Although bright color seems to account for beauty in many instances—for example,
the Thracian parade he saw at the Piraeus and a sunset—bright color sometimes
accounts for the opposite effect, for instance, the ugliness of Helen’s cloak at a funeral.
Since bright color apparently accounts for opposite effects, it is not the real cause of
beauty. For a similar reason Socrates rejects particular sizes—such as 5 feet 6 inches—as
the cause of largeness, because the same size makes Simmias large in comparison with
Socrates but also small in comparison with Phaedo (Phd. 100e5–101a8).14 The cause of
largeness should explain only largeness and not its opposite.
Second, a real cause should be the sole cause of an effect and permit no alternative
explanation. While the Thracian parade seems to owe its beauty to the bright color of the
costumes, Helen seems to owe hers to her comely shape. Because bright color has
competitors it is not the real cause of beauty. Socrates discusses another example: someone
might claim that adding one unit to another explains why there are two things, but
someone else might claim that dividing one unit into two accounts for that same effect.
Since two operations can explain the same effect, neither addition nor division is the real
cause of the twoness of a pair of things (Phd. 101b4–c9). The cause of twoness should be
the only cause of pairs, and the cause of beauty the only cause of beauty.
Third, the cause of F-ness has the character it explains in its effects. Socrates finds it
incredible that one might say that Phaedo is larger than Socrates by a head, because a
head not only accounts for opposite effects (Phaedo’s largeness and Socrates’ smallness),
but is itself a small thing (Phd. 101a8–b2). The cause of largeness should be large.
Consider again the first part of the passage I quoted above: “It appears to me that if
anything else is beautiful besides the beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than
because it participates in that beautiful” (Phd. 100c4–6). The statement indicates that
other things are beautiful because they participate in the form of beauty, and that the
form itself is beautiful. Statements of the form “beauty is beautiful” are known in the
scholarly literature as self-predication.15
The precise meaning of self-predication is controversial. I shall criticize some
alternatives in due course, but here I simply state the view that seems to me to be

If x causes something to be F
(1) x causes only instances of F-ness (and perhaps effects that follow from F-ness) and never the opposite of
F-ness.
(2) x is the only cause of F-ness (there is no competing cause).
(3) x is itself F (and in no way not-F).

Some of Plato’s “clever” causes mentioned later in the dialogue do not satisfy (2). Bostock (1986: 153–6)
thinks that (3) is due to a conceptual muddle on Plato’s part, but as we shall see, (3) is a very important part of
Plato’s theory.
14
Irwin (1977: 8–9) argues that features such as bright color and shape are problematic because they are
sensible qualities. But there need be no restriction to sensible qualities, because at Rep. I, 331c1–10, Socrates
rejects returning what you owe (an action type) as a definition of justice. Returning what you owe, though just
in most situations, is not just in all (suppose you borrowed a weapon from someone who goes mad before you
return it). Returning what you owe is therefore as problematic as bright color, yet is not a sensible quality.
15
In addition to the Phaedo passage, self-predications occur at e.g., Prt. 330c2–e2 and Hp. Ma. 292e6–7.
24 PHILOSOPHOS

most consistent with the evidence.16 In my view the self-predication assumption goes
hand-in-hand with a view of causation, sometimes called the “transmission theory of
causation” or the “synonymy principle,” the view that a cause has the character it
explains in its effects—for instance, fire in virtue of its own heat makes other things
hot.17 The pre-Socratic philosophers and Hippocratic doctors regarded material stuffs
as causes, and those stuffs have the character they transmit to their effects.18 Plato’s
Socrates cites immaterial forms as causes, but he agrees that the item responsible for an
effect has the property it explains in that effect: the form of beauty, itself a beautiful
thing, makes other things beautiful. Socrates’ causal theory might seem vacuous but it is
not: If you can grasp what beauty is—define it—the definition of beauty should enable
you to pick out things in the world that really are beautiful, and moreover to explain
what the beauty of the form and its instances consists in.19
The form has the same character as its participants and has it in a preeminent way.
While the many F things are both F and not-F (in different respects or relations, at
different times, from different perspectives, and so on), the form of F-ness (the F) is
unqualifiedly F—F regardless of context or other qualifications. Socrates says in the
Symposium (quoting the wise Mantinean woman Diotima):
First, the beautiful always is and neither comes to be nor is destroyed, and neither grows nor
diminishes; and next, it is not beautiful in one way, ugly in another, nor at one time but not at
another, nor beautiful in relation to one thing but not in relation to another, nor beautiful here
but ugly there, so that it is beautiful to some people but ugly to others. (Smp. 210e6–211a5)

Because the form of F-ness is unqualifiedly F—invariantly F across contexts—it shuts out
its opposite, and for that reason forms explain instances of F-ness alone and not the
opposite, unlike typical features cited as causes, such as bright color and shape, which are
beautiful in some contexts but not in others. In his long speech in the Parmenides Socrates
highlights this idea when he insists that oneness and other forms exclude their opposites.
Note that when I say that the form of F-ness “is unqualifiedly F” or “has F-ness in a
preeminent way,” these phrases do not indicate that the form stands to F-ness in a

16
For an assessment of various interpretations of self-predication in Plato, see Malcolm (1991).
17
Aristotle, Phys. VIII.5, 257b9–10; cf. APo I.2, 72a29–30; Phys. III.2, 202a9–12; Met. Æ.1, 993b23–26.
Aristotle often illustrates the principle with man generates man—the parent (in particular the male parent)
has the same species form as its offspring. In artificial production the craftsman has in mind the form he
transmits to the product. Socrates uses the example of fire and heat in his “clever” explanation later in the
Phaedo (Phd. 103d2–12 and 105b5–c4). The transmission theory of causation enjoyed a long history and is
endorsed by Descartes in Meditation III.40–41 [= Adam and Tannery]. On the transmission theory, see
Lloyd (1976), Makin (1990), Dancy (1991: 86), Sedley (1998: 123–4); cf. Burge (1971), Barnes (1979: I.88,
118–20), and Hankinson (1998: 31–2, 92, 449). The version in Teloh (1981: 4, 42–6) is criticized by
Malcolm (1991: 11–16).
18
To quote Anaxagoras: “How could hair come to be from not hair and flesh from not flesh?” (DK
59B10). The ancient medical treatises On the Nature of Man 7 and On Ancient Medicine 13–16 [= Jones] treat
material stuffs as dunameis (powers/capacities) and as having dunameis. On Plato’s debt to medical writers, see
Moline (1981: 88–95).
19
Sedley (1998: 127–9) notes that Plato’s Socrates illustrates the point with largeness, because we all
understand what largeness is—the capacity to exceed something.
 FORMS IN QUESTION 25

different relation from the one in which its participants stand to that same character. The
relation is participation in both cases, expressed in predications as various as “Socrates is
wise/has wisdom” (accidental predication) “wisdom is a virtue” (essential predication)
and “beauty is beautiful” (self-predication).20 In the Phaedo Socrates refuses to spell out
what he means by participation, saying only that “nothing else makes something
beautiful except the presence (parousia) of that beautiful or association (koinōnia) or
however it occurs ( prosgenomenē ), for I won’t yet insist on that” (Phd. 100d4–7).21
Participation remains obscure in the Parmenides. I shall take it to be the relation—
whatever that relation turns out to be—that ties an entity (sensible thing or form) to
some attribute it has, specified by the verb in sentences of the form “X is F,” “X is (an)
F,” or “X has F-ness” (where “X” stands for a term designating the thing the sentence is
about, “F” for an adjective or kind term, “F-ness” for a noun, and both adjective and
noun specify the attribute F-ness).22 In the Parmenides and our series of dialogues, Plato’s
speakers call the relation by many names, but most important for our purposes are
“participation” (methexis or metechein) and “being” (einai). The problem of participation
is part of the problem about being, the puzzle associated with Plato’s philosopher.
Socrates’ statement about participation appears to leave open the question as to whether
a form is immanent in its participants (and thus an immanent form) or exists apart from its
participants and explains a feature of them that merely corresponds to that separate form
(call the feature an immanent character—e.g., the largeness in Simmias corresponds to the
form of largeness and the beauty in Helen corresponds to the form of beauty).23 In his long

20
On participation, cf. Wedberg (1955: ch. 3, esp. 36), F. C. White (1977), and see the salutary discussion
in Mates (1979). Some Platonic scholars will balk at my claim about participation, since they regard the
relation specified in a self-predication as something other than participation (e.g., identity or some other
relational tie called “being”). But Aristotle had no qualms in the Topics about speaking of participation in
definitional contexts, e.g., a species participates in its genus (Top. IV.1, 121a10–19; cf. IV.5, 126a17–25) and
in its differentiating features (Top. V.4, 132b35–133a11). Perhaps the Neoplatonic efforts to harmonize Plato
with Aristotle’s Categories help to explain the pervasive idea that Plato envisaged two distinct relational ties
between subject and attribute in essential predications (taken on the model of Aristotle’s said-of relation) and
accidental predications (taken on the model of Aristotle’s inherence relation). On the Neoplatonic tradition,
see Gerson (2005).
21
This passage contains a textual problem. At 100d6 most of the MSS read æª Å, printed in
Burnet’s (1900) edition with a dagger, which I have translated “[however] it [participation] occurs.” But
Wyttenbach proposed, and Duke et al. (1995) accept (with some papyrus support), æƪæı Å to yield
“[however it (participation)] is called.” The participle could instead be neuter genitive (æª ı),
rather than feminine nominative, in which case the translation would read “[however it (the beautiful)] is
present.” I thank Dimitri El Murr for calling this issue to my attention. My argument does not hinge on the
decision here, since I take Socrates’ claim, however construed, to be intentionally vague. But I prefer
æª Å or æª ı, since I take Socrates’ vagueness to concern the nature of participation,
not merely what to call it.
22
Greek has no indefinite article, and it must often be supplied when speaking of an entity as falling under
a kind, as in “Socrates is (a) man,” or “man is (an) animal.”
23
The label “immanent character” applies only to those features of objects that separately existing forms
are invoked to explain, and it is an open question what features count as immanent characters. To judge from
the Phaedo, Simmias’ largeness is an immanent character (Phd.102b3–103a2), whereas his height of 5 feet 6
inches is simply a feature of him but not an immanent character. The scope of forms and immanent characters
is highlighted in the first movement of Parmenides’ critique in the Parmenides (130b1–e4). See note 26 below
26 PHILOSOPHOS

speech in the Parmenides, Socrates favors separate forms and immanent characters and
explicitly speaks of forms as separate (chōris) (Prm. 129d6–8); he also confirms the separation
of forms from immanent characters when Parmenides asks him whether the form of F-ness
is separate from the F-ness in things (Prm. 130b1–6). Although Socrates’ position in the
final argument in the Phaedo is less clear than that in the Parmenides, I shall assume that he is
talking about immanent characters and separate forms rather than immanent forms, but
whichever way one understands the Phaedo, the theory as so far explicated does not remove
the puzzle with which we began. Simmias is both large and small; and so, through
partaking of the forms of largeness and smallness, he has both largeness and smallness in
him. If his largeness and smallness are monadic properties, the situation remains as
paradoxical as before, and forms fail to remove the problem, since largeness and smallness
in Simmias exclude each other.
A discussion in the Republic helps to elucidate the status and role of immanent
characters in the Phaedo and will allow us finally to see how Socrates’ theory of forms is
supposed to disarm Zeno’s paradoxes in the Parmenides. In Republic IV Socrates explains
psychological conflict by distinguishing three parts of the soul in competition with one
another. He introduces the following Principle of Opposites:
It is clear that the same thing will not be able to act or be affected in opposite ways at the same
time, in the same respect and in relation to the same thing, so that if we discover these things
happening in their case [i.e., in the case of the soul], we’ll know that it was not the same thing but
more than one. (Rep. IV, 436b8–c1)

Socrates duly mentions the qualifiers, which by our lights should solve the problem of
psychological conflict, but he does not use them in his own explanation, concluding
instead that the soul has three distinct parts that can oppose one another. A person
wants and refuses the same thing, say a drink, because her appetite wants the drink,
while her reason resists. According to Socrates, when someone attributes opposites to
one thing, the person speaks loosely, since the thing has parts, and strictly speaking
different parts are bearers of the opposite features. Socrates gives another example of
compresent opposites and resolves the conflict in the same way. Take a man who
waves his arms while standing still. Strictly speaking one should not say that the same
man, at the same time, is both at rest and in motion, but instead say that part of him is at
rest (his legs) and part in motion (his arms) (Rep. IV, 436c5–d3).24 Again Socrates
distinguishes parts of the thing, and attributes the opposites to different parts.

for the main difference between immanent characters and other features of things. Denyer (1983) and Fine
(1984 and 1986) have challenged in different ways the traditional view that Socrates in the Phaedo takes forms
to be separate—to exist apart—from their participants. For objections to Fine’s view, see Devereux (1994:
esp. 63–83).
24
Socrates also mentions a top twirling in one spot (Rep. IV, 436d4–e7), which might be explained in
the same way—its axis is at rest while its circumference is in motion—though Bobonich (2002: 229–31 and
529–30 nn. 16 and 19) has proposed a different explanation of this case.
 FORMS IN QUESTION 27

Socrates appears to adopt a similar strategy in the Phaedo, except that here the proper
bearer of each of a pair of opposite features is an immanent character.25 Simmias is both
large and small because he partakes of the forms of largeness and smallness, and by
partaking of them he has two immanent characters, largeness and smallness, as “parts”
of him. Simmias is the host of largeness and smallness, but when someone says
“Simmias is large and small” he speaks loosely. As in the Republic, Simmias is large
and small because one part of him (his largeness) is large, while another part (his
smallness) is small (Phd. 102d5–103a3).26 The felt contradiction vanishes because
different parts of Simmias are the subjects of each of the opposite features. This is the
final piece of the solution to Zeno’s paradoxes proposed by Socrates in the Parmenides.
In his speech in the Parmenides Socrates says that while the compresence of opposites
in sensible things should not surprise us, since he can explain those features by appeal to
opposite forms, he would be amazed if the forms themselves partook of their opposite.
There are two reasons why this would amaze him: First, if the form of beauty partook
of its own opposite, it would violate the first rule of causation and be no more
responsible for the beauty of beautiful things than bright color, which is beautiful in
some contexts (the Thracian parade, a sunset), ugly in others (Helen’s cloak at a
funeral). The form of beauty must be unqualifiedly beautiful to ensure that it accounts
for beautiful things alone, and not ugly things as well. Second, if a form partook of its
own opposite, that compresence would itself call for explanation (as such compresence
does in the case of sensible things), and so there would have to be further opposite
forms to explain the compresent opposites in it. At some level there must be opposite
forms that exclude their own opposite, or else—so Socrates thinks—the explanatory
role of forms would be undermined altogether. He therefore blocks the proliferation at
the start by insisting that forms exclude their opposite. Parmenides will show him in the
second part of the dialogue that he must give up that thesis in the case of oneness. But if
oneness is many, as well as one, how can it explain the oneness of other things, since
the compresence of opposites in it calls for explanation?

1.2 Parmenides’ Critique

Socrates’ account leaves several issues obscure, and Parmenides asks for clarification
more than once before he begins his objections. The critique of forms divides into six
movements, and they raise some fundamental questions for Socrates’ theory: First,

25
Cf. Jordan (1983: 42–3) and McCabe (1994: 50).
26
In this passage Socrates emphasizes that both the form F-ness and the immanent character F-ness are
F and will not admit their opposite. In this key respect immanent characters differ from typical features an
object has, such as Simmias’ size—5 feet 6 inches—which is both large and small (in different comparisons).
The compresence of opposites in the case of typical features calls for explanation, just as it does in the case of
Simmias himself. For the claim that the problem of compresence infects many features of things and not (or
not merely) the things that have those features, cf. Gosling (1960), Crombie (1963: II.70), and Irwin (1977:
8–9 and nn. 12 and 13).
28 PHILOSOPHOS

what forms are there? Why are there forms of some things and not others (first
movement)? Second, what is the nature of participation, the relation between some-
thing with a certain feature and the form responsible for that feature (second and fifth
movements)? The second question raises a kindred question, because different con-
ceptions of participation have different implications for the ontological status of forms
themselves. What sort of entities are forms? Universals? Immaterial stuffs? Perfect
abstract particulars? Third, on what grounds does Socrates think that a form, invoked
to explain a multiplicity of instances, is itself one and not many? Are those grounds
correct and adequate (third movement)? Parmenides reveals the weakness of Socrates’
position by showing again and again in various ways that the forms he took to be one
are in fact many rather than one. I shall omit the fourth movement in which Socrates
makes the interesting suggestion, quickly rejected, that forms are thoughts in the mind.
Parmenides’ objections display a progression, and results of earlier arguments are
assumed in later arguments. Thus, when Socrates realizes at the end of the fifth
movement that he lacks a coherent account of participation, Parmenides assumes in
the sixth and final movement of Part I that sensible particulars do not partake of forms
at all, that there is a complete divorce between the world of forms and our world.
Instead of sensible particulars partaking of forms, sensibles and forms relate only to
other entities in their own group. But then, if we in our realm have no connection to
forms, and they in theirs have no connection to us, what import do forms have for us?
Socrates in his opening presentation had claimed that sensible things have certain
features by partaking of forms. It now appears that, if forms exist but have no link to
things in our realm, they fail to explain anything. Nor do they ground our knowledge,
since we have no access to them. One might think that the final argument shows that
Socrates can do without forms, but Parmenides asserts at the end that there must be
forms, if Socrates is to save dialectic and philosophy (135b5–c6). To preserve philoso-
phy, the objections must be addressed.

Scope of Forms
In the first movement of the interrogation (130b1–e4), Parmenides asks: What forms
are there? On what grounds does Socrates posit forms in some cases but not in others?
The argument proceeds in four steps. Socrates feels confident that there are forms of
the sorts listed at steps one and two, begins to have doubts about the forms at step three,
and feels quite sure there are no forms for things mentioned at step four, though he
admits that the reasons for positing forms in the other cases might apply here as well.
Parmenides starts his interrogation by asking for clarification:
Tell me. Have you yourself distinguished as separate (choris men), in the way you mention, certain
forms themselves, and also as separate (choris de) the things that partake of them? And do you
think that likeness itself is something, separate (choris) from the likeness we have? And one and
many and all the things you heard Zeno read about a while ago?—I do indeed, Socrates replied.
(130b1–6)
 FORMS IN QUESTION 29

Here Parmenides gets Socrates to confirm two points left vague in his presentation.
First, separation is a symmetrical relation—if X is separate from Y, Y is separate from
X. Having said in his speech that forms are separate from the things that partake of them
(129d6–8), Socrates now agrees that things that partake of forms are also separate from
them. Second, he agrees that likeness itself is separate from the likeness we have—that is,
separate from the immanent character the form is invoked to explain. His agreement on
this second point will cause him trouble later, since a form will prove unable to explain
its own immanent character, as the form and its own character are not separate from
each other. Parmenides does not ask what Socrates means by separation beyond
ensuring that it is a symmetrical relation.27 The meaning becomes plain in the course
of the first movement. Forms are separate from their participants and immanent
characters, and vice versa, by existing apart from them. As Socrates conceives them,
forms exist in their own realm apart from their spatiotemporal participants.
At step one Parmenides asks about forms of opposites of the sort mentioned in Socrates’
long speech—likeness and unlikeness, oneness and multitude, and everything Zeno
talked about in his book. Plato does not offer a complete inventory of forms in this
group, and consequently leaves us asking how extensive the list should be. The second
part of the dialogue focuses on oneness and other highly abstract kinds, some or all of
which presumably belong on the list—being, not-being, sameness, difference, largeness,
smallness, equality, change, and rest, among others—and several of these are called “great
kinds” (megista genē ) in the Sophist: being, sameness, difference, change, and rest. Socrates
explicitly mentioned change and rest in his earlier speech (129d6–e4), and they were
certainly a central topic for Zeno. Their presence on the list is important for my overall
theme in this book, but as I mentioned in my Introduction, their status is problematic.
I shall call forms at step one structural forms or kinds.28 Other forms have categorial
content and can be located in genus–species trees as in Aristotle’s Categories (e.g., man
and ox are species of animal, animal is a species of living thing, and so on up the tree of
substance; bravery, justice, and wisdom are species of virtue, redness and greenness are
species of color, and both virtue and color are species of quality), but structural forms,
such as oneness, sameness, and difference, have no place in the categories. Scholastic
philosophers in the Middle Ages called them “transcendentals,” because they transcend
Aristotle’s categories and apply to items in all these groups.29 Structural forms enable
categorial (and other structural) forms to relate to one another in various ways.

27
While “separation” could have various meanings in connection with Plato’s theory of forms, some of
the possibilities are ruled out here because Socrates agrees that separation is a symmetrical relation. Fine
(1984) has a different view of separation from mine, but she sets aside the evidence of the Parmenides (1984:
58–9) on which mine is based. On the meaning of “separation,” see also Morrison (1985) and Devereux
(1994).
28
Plato uses eidos (“form”) and genos (“kind”) interchangeably when speaking of structural forms, and so
shall I.
29
Ryle ([1939] 1965: 115) calls them “formal concepts” and points out that they differ from ordinary
concepts not just in level of generality but in type. As he says, they are “not peculiar to any special subject-
matter, but integral to all subject-matters.” Later in the same paper ([1939] 1965: 131) he calls such topic-
30 PHILOSOPHOS

Parmenides next asks, at step two (130b7–10), whether Socrates thinks there are
forms of justice, beauty, and goodness, and everything of that sort. Moral and aesthetic
values absorb the speakers’ attention in the Socratic dialogues (e.g., Euthyphro, Laches,
and Charmides), and Socrates regularly cites justice, beauty, and goodness as forms in the
Phaedo and Republic.30 Although Parmenides mentions only positive forms in this
group, Socrates in the Republic introduces their opposites as well: justice and injustice,
beauty and ugliness, goodness and badness (Rep. V, 475e9–476a7). In the Parmenides
Socrates accepts the forms at step two, and Parmenides does not ask him about their
opposites.
When at step three (130c1–2) Parmenides asks whether there is a form of man,
separate from us all, and forms of fire and water, Socrates begins to hesitate (130c3–4).
If we think of his previous long speech, we can understand his hesitation, because in
response to Zeno he introduced only forms of opposites to explain opposite features in
sensible things. Moral and aesthetic values at step two resemble the opposites at step
one in that they, too, often apply to things together with their opposite—a fine-
looking woman is beautiful when compared to other women, but not beautiful when
compared to a goddess (Hp. Ma. 289a8–b7); a bright color is beautiful in one context,
not in another. People also disagree about values—an action prized as just in one
society is faulted as unjust in another society. Given Socrates’ focus on the problem of
opposites, he might see no comparable need for forms of natural kinds in group three.
A passage in the Republic (Rep. VII, 523a10–524d6) supports the adoption of forms
of opposite features and not of physical objects, their parts, and material stuffs. Socrates
says that some of our sense perceptions do, whereas others do not, provoke our
thought to reflection. Perceptions summon our reflection if they yield an opposite
perception at the same time. He holds up three fingers—the little finger, ring finger,
and middle finger—and says that each of them appears to be a finger. Since sight gives
no opposite report, one does not think to ask: What is a finger? Perception of a finger
does not stimulate the intellect. But in the case of largeness and smallness and other
pairs of opposites, sight reports that the ring finger is large compared to the little finger
but small compared to the middle finger. The visual report is confusing, since it
announces that the same thing is both large and small, and thus provokes the intellect
to ask: What is largeness? What is smallness?
The Republic passage does not say that there is a form of largeness and not a form of
finger, but it corroborates the impression given by his long speech in the Parmenides
that Socrates posits forms of opposites. Because sense perception seems to yield a

neutral concepts “syncategorematic.” In my view some of these items (e.g., sameness and difference) apply to
all subject-matters, while others (e.g., equality and inequality) only to some.
30
Parmenides lists the good as one form among others, apparently ignoring the preeminent status it enjoys
in Republic VI and VII. The good does not figure prominently in the Parmenides or in our series of dialogues
that presuppose the Parmenides. It does have a prominent place at the end of the Philebus, where Socrates
characterizes it in terms of three conjuncts: truth, measure, and beauty (Phlb. 64c1–65a5). I shall return to
goodness in Chapter 6 sec. 6.5 and Chapter 7 sec. 7.9.
 FORMS IN QUESTION 31

satisfactory report about physical objects and stuffs, he feels no comparable need to
posit a form. At the end of the first movement of the cross-examination (130e1–4) and
again in the transition to the second part of the dialogue (135c8–d6), Parmenides
attributes Socrates’ difficulties to his youth and lack of training. The obviously difficult
cases, such as largeness and smallness, provoke his reflection, but he does not yet fully
appreciate that sense perception on its own may not suffice even when there is no
perceptual conflict, as in the case of man, fire, and water. The late dialogues invoke
forms of natural kinds, so Plato evidently includes such forms in his later metaphysics.31
Parmenides’ examples at step four (130c5–d2)—hair, mud, and dirt—further urge
Socrates to consider in what contexts he posits forms and why. Here the young man
resists the idea that there are separate forms of things that seem to him undignified and
worthless, and he claims that these things are just what we see (130d3–9). Since
Parmenides attributes Socrates’ reluctance to his inexperience, he leaves us to wonder
how extensive the list of forms should be. Should there perhaps be a separate form
whenever people call a number of things by the same name? That is, does Plato adopt a
“One over Many” principle, according to which there are forms of all general kinds
and features, including artifacts and negations?32 Whatever one decides about hair,
mud, and dirt, Socrates should plainly have a better reason for excluding forms in these
cases than that the examples seem worthless and commonplace.33 Our group of
dialogues will discuss numerous commonplace kinds, and in particular angling and
weaving, which are definable and probably count as forms.
Except by implication at step one of the Scope of Forms, Parmenides’ critique does
not mention forms of negations (e.g., the not-large, the not-beautiful), and we might
reasonably think that Plato will reject such forms because one can appeal to the positive
member of a pair of opposites to explain its negative counterpart.34 In the Statesman the
Eleatic Stranger rules out a form of barbarian, and he does so because barbarians
constitute a group merely by sharing a negative feature in common, that of being
non-Greek speakers (Stm. 262c10–263a1). As we shall see when we discuss the Sophist
and Statesman, Plato rejects forms of negations with one notable exception—the form
of not-being, interpreted as difference (Sph. 258b9–c4).
In his long speech in the Parmenides, Socrates has given an argument for forms of
opposites only. In the Scope of Forms Parmenides encourages him to consider what
functions forms perform beyond explaining compresent opposites in ordinary things.
Do Platonists need a form of mud, for instance, if there are forms of its components,
earth and water? If forms play an explanatory role, mixtures of stuffs might be
explicable in terms of the forms of stuffs that compose the mixture. Does a Platonist

31
E.g., Phlb. 15a4–5 speaks of the form of man, and Ti. 51b6–e6 discusses the form of fire.
32
Rep. X, 596a6–7, on its most natural reading states that there is a form whenever people call a number
of things by the same name, and Socrates proceeds to talk about forms of couch and table. For a different
construal of the passage, see J. A. Smith (1917) and Fine (1980: 212–20).
33
I say more about mud in Chapters 3 and 4.
34
Cf. Aristotle, Met. ˘.7, 1032b2–6.
32 PHILOSOPHOS

need a form of hair or finger, given a form of man, since these functional parts can be
explained with reference to the whole of which they are parts?35 Relevant to the scope
of forms is a question explored in the second part of the Parmenides and Theaetetus:
What is the relation between a whole and its parts?36 If a whole is simply the sum of its
parts, there need be no form of the whole, since the whole can be analyzed into its parts
and explained with reference to forms of those parts. If, on the other hand, a whole is
more than the sum of its parts, a form of the whole might be called for. Although I shall
follow up on the scope of forms only piecemeal in upcoming chapters, I believe that
Plato economizes in his later theory of forms: he posits forms to explain things and
refrains from positing a form when some feature or kind can be fully analyzed in terms
of other forms.

Whole–Part Dilemma
The second movement (130e4–131e7) takes up the problem of participation, an issue
the aged Socrates left unexplained in the Phaedo (Phd. 100d4–7): What is the relation
between things that have a certain feature and the form of that feature? Parmenides
starts, as he did at the beginning of the first movement, by clarifying Socrates’ position
and asking for confirmation:
But tell me this: is it your view that, as you say, there are certain forms, from which these other
things, by getting a share of them, derive their names—as, for instance, they come to be like by
getting a share of likeness, large by getting a share of largeness, and just and beautiful by getting a
share of justice and beauty?—It certainly is, Socrates replied. (130e4–131a3)

Socrates said nothing explicitly about names in his speech, but otherwise Parmenides’
statement appears to summarize his view with additional examples from steps one and
two of the Scope of Forms. The claim about names recalls the final argument in the
Phaedo where Socrates says that things derive their names from forms in which they
participate (Phd. 102a11–b6).37 This allusion to the Phaedo should remind the reader
that in refusing to clarify participation Socrates left open the question as to whether
forms are separate from their participants or immanent in them. In this first treatment of
participation, Parmenides assumes immanence, and Socrates tries to resist.
Parmenides opens with a dilemma and presents the alternatives as exhaustive: does
each participant get as its share the whole form or only a part of it? Taking up the first
alternative, he asks: Can a whole form—one thing—be in each of a number of things?
If so, the form will be separate from itself by being, as a whole, in things that are
separate from each other (131a8–b2). Parmenides’ reasoning depends on the assump-
tion that immanent forms are in question rather than immanent characters (features of

35
Ti. 76c1–d3 gives a functional account of hair and does not mention a form of it.
36
Prm. 157b6–159b1 (third deduction) and Tht. 203c4–205e8. On the passage in the Theaetetus, see
Burnyeat (1990: 191–209), and on wholes and parts more generally in Plato, see Harte (2002).
37
E.g., when Simmias and Phaedo come to be like by getting a share of likeness, they have likeness in
them and are called “like” eponymously after the name of the form (“likeness”).
 FORMS IN QUESTION 33

things that correspond to forms).38 Obviously Socrates fails to anticipate where Par-
menides is heading when he initially agrees that the two alternatives exhaust the
possibilities (131a7), because in movement five (132c12–133a7) he will propose anoth-
er way to understand participation—the pattern–copy model—and on that conception
forms are separate from their participants, and no Whole–Part Dilemma arises.
In movement two Socrates tries to avoid the first alternative (that the whole form is
in a number of things) by proposing an analogy, one that reveals his commitment to
separate forms. He claims that a form is like one and the same day—a day is in many
places at the same time without being separate from itself. If a form is like that, it could
be one and the same in all the instances (131b3–6). Socrates’ proposal allows more than
one construal: he could mean one and the same daytime, some definite period between
sunrise and sunset, the same in Athens and Thebes; or he could mean one and the same
daylight, an invisible, homogeneous stuff covering many different places at the same
time. On the first interpretation he would conceive of forms as abstract particulars, on
the second as homogeneous invisible stuffs, but on either interpretation forms are
separate, since one day is in many places without being a component of located things.
Parmenides immediately opts for the second alternative and says: you mean like a sail
covering a lot of people? (131b7–9). His analogy removes the previous ambiguity in
favor of daylight, a diaphanous stuff covering many things at the same time.39 This new
analogy appears to concede separation (but only temporarily) and leads into the second
side of the dilemma. If a form is comparable to a sail, part of the sail is over (epi) each
person, and in that case forms are divisible, and each participant—being under its own
bit of the sail—partakes of a part. So, declares Parmenides, only part of the form is in
(en) each thing (here he reintroduces immanence) (131c5–7). Forms are therefore not
merely divisible but actually divided into parts, and hence are many rather than one—a
conclusion Socrates concedes (131c9–11).
At the end of the section Parmenides introduces a series of puzzles about the forms of
largeness, equality, and smallness (131c12–e7) to show that the second alternative will not
do either. If forms are regarded as wholes with parts, forms of quantities give rise to
paradoxes. Take smallness: the form of smallness is small, because smallness is small (self-
predication); but also large, because smallness as a whole is larger than each of its parts
(131d7–e1). Parmenides does not give a parallel argument about largeness, because no
conflict would crop up: the form of largeness is large for two reasons—both in the way
that smallness is small, since largeness is large (self-predication), and in the way that
smallness is large, since the whole of largeness is larger than each of its parts. Instead he
highlights a puzzle concerning the parts of largeness (immanent forms): the parts of

38
In taking the Whole–Part Dilemma to concern immanent forms, I revise my interpretation in Gill
(1996: 24–9).
39
Readers sometimes fault Parmenides for not taking Socrates’ proposal seriously and for intimidating
him into accepting his own less auspicious analogy instead. See e.g., Crombie (1963: II.330–1). Allen (1997:
131–3), on the other hand, thinks that Parmenides is making Socrates’ analogy more explicit. On the
analogies, see Panagiotou (1987).
34 PHILOSOPHOS

largeness are large (that being their proper character) and small (in relation to the whole of
largeness) (131c12–d2). At least in the case of smallness and largeness, then, the second side
of the dilemma is no more acceptable than the first (131e3–7). Not only is the form of
largeness many rather than one, but largeness in Simmias (now conceived of as an
immanent form) is both large and small. This result might encourage Socrates to insist on
separate forms, but as we shall see (fifth movement) he has no greater success explaining
participation in terms of separate forms than Parmenides has with immanent forms.
It is significant that the Whole–Part Dilemma is the only movement in the Parmenides
explicitly recalled in another dialogue, the Philebus. Scholars sometimes point to the
Philebus as evidence that Socrates should adopt the second alternative in the Parmenides,
that participated forms—forms other things partake of—are multiplied in their partici-
pants, but the passage in the Philebus by no means assures that conclusion.40 In reading the
passage, notice that Socrates treats items he calls “monads” as immanent in things:
And after that, [must we suppose] that in the things that come to be in turn and are unlimited,
one and the same monad comes to be at the same time in one and many, whether we must posit
it [the monad] as scattered and multiplied or as a whole separate from itself—which might appear
most impossible of all? (Phlb. 15b4–8)

We cannot conclude that Socrates prefers the idea that a participated form is scattered
and multiplied simply because he claims that the other alternative “might appear most
impossible of all”: in using the Greek potential optative (English “might”) with the
verb “to appear” he makes his assertion of impossibility doubly doubtful. We should,
however, be struck by the fact that immanence is taken for granted.41 In the Philebus
passage Socrates presents two ways that forms might be immanent in things without
deciding between them.
One might defend the idea that forms are present as wholes in many scattered
particulars by conceiving of forms as universals. Aristotle characterizes a universal as
“what is naturally predicated of more than one thing” (Int. 7, 17a39–40; cf. Met. ˘.13,
1038b11–12), and claims that universals are immanent in things, not separate: “what is
common (to koinon) is present in many places at the same time—so clearly none of the
universals exists separately (chōris) apart from the particulars” (Met. ˘.16, 1040b25–27).
Socrates could have pursued that option in the Parmenides, but he does not, and
presumably he overlooks it because he regards forms as separate from their participants,
not as universals immanent in them. Although he might look more favorably on the
idea in the Philebus, there is an independent reason why he would deny that forms are

40
Pace Fine (1986: 81–2) and Allen (1997: 128–9, 133–4).
41
Some scholars, e.g., Cornford (1939: 86–7) and Cherniss (1944: Appendix VII), think that the Whole–
Part Dilemma responds to Eudoxus, who (under the influence of Anaxagoras) advocated immanent forms.
Cf. Alexander’s discussion of Eudoxus (In Met. 97,27 98,24 [= Hayduck]), which repeats the dilemma from
the Parmenides; and Aristotle, Met. `.9, 991a14–19. For criticisms of Cherniss, see Schofield (1973: 1–3).
Regardless of whether Plato is responding to Eudoxus in the Whole–Part Dilemma, it matters more that he
himself adopts an immanentist position in the Philebus and other late dialogues (except the Timaeus).
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 accuses me of extravagance only because he never felt himself, the rapture of
inspiration. And you accuse me of redundant figure, because you are not much
troubled yourself with the throes of imagination—just as G— H— abuses eloquence
because there is no chord in his heart that responds to its notes. So take that. And if
you abuse me any more, I will belabor your magazine as one of the heaviest, dullest,
most drab-colored periodicals extant in these degenerate days. What! shall a
Conestoga wagon-horse find fault with a courser of the sun, because he sometimes
runs away with the chariot of day, and sets the world on fire? So take that again, and
put it in your pocket. But enough of this badinage, for if I pursue it much farther you
will think me serious—besides it is verging to eleven, and the fire has gone down. I
began this scrawl a little after five—walked for health till dark—came in and found
company who remained till near ten—and could not go to bed without a little more
talk with you. But I shall tire you and catch cold—so with our united love to Mrs. Rice,
my dear Harriet, and yourself, good night.

Your friend, in truth,

WM. WIRT.

LIFE OF DR. CALDWELL.

Oration on the Life and Character of the Rev. Joseph Caldwell, D.D.
late President of the University of North Carolina, by Walker
Anderson, A.M.

It was only within the last few days that we met with the above
oration, in a pamphlet form—and we cannot refrain from expressing
the very great pleasure its perusal has afforded us. Dr. Caldwell was
unquestionably a great and good man—and certain are we that the
task of paying tribute to his manifold qualifications and virtues, now
that he is gone, could not have been committed to abler hands, than
those of Professor Anderson. The tone of feeling pervading the
oration is quite characteristic of its author—ardent—affectionate—
consistent.
 "We come," says he, near the beginning, "we come as a band of brothers, to do
homage to that parental love, of which all of us, the old as well as the young, have
been the objects; and by communing with the spirit of our departed father, to
enkindle those hallowed emotions which are the fittest offering to his memory. But
why needs the living speaker recall to your remembrance the venerated and beloved
being whose loss is fresh in the memories of all who hear me? We stand not, it is
true, over his grave, as the Spartan over the sepulchre of his king, but his memorials
present themselves to the eye on every side and are felt in every throbbing bosom.
The shady retreats of this consecrated grove—the oft frequented halls of this seat of
learning—the sacred edifice in which we are assembled—and the very spot on which I
stand, are memorials to awaken the busy and thronging recollections of many a full
heart! Quocumque ingredimur in aliquam historiam vestigium ponimus. I look around
this assembly and see monuments of his love and of his labors, such as can never
grace the memory of the warrior, and which throw contempt on all the sculptured
memorials of kings. I look at the eyes beaming with intelligence; I contemplate the
refined intellects; I see their rich fruits in public and honorable employment; I recall
the memory of others who are far distant, but whose thoughts are mingling with ours
upon this occasion; who have carried with them the seeds of virtue and wisdom
which they gathered here, and in other lands, have brought forth the noblest results
of usefulness and honorable consideration. I revert, too, to those whose bright career
is ended, and who preceded their guide and instructor to the abodes of the blessed. I
think of all this, and feel that you need not the voice of the speaker to arouse your
grateful recollections." p. 4.

Mr. Anderson shortly after this, goes into a very interesting sketch of
the family history of the deceased, portraying with great tenderness
and delicacy, the maternal solicitude to which young Caldwell was so
deeply indebted for his well doing in after life—and evincing as we
humbly conceive, in this part of his oration, fine powers as a
biographical writer. There is much force in his development of the
Doctor's character throughout, but especial beauty, we think, in the
way in which he treats of his religious principles. One extract more
from the pamphlet, in proof of what we have just said, must close
this hasty and imperfect notice of it.
 "The religious character of Dr. Caldwell, was not the formation of a day, nor the hasty
and imperfect work of a dying bed. His trust was anchored on the rock of ages, and
he was therefore well furnished for the terrible conflict that awaited him. We have
seen that he had made Religion the guide of his youth; it beautified and sanctified the
labors of his well spent life; nor did it fail him in the trying hour, which an allwise but
inscrutable Providence permitted to be to him peculiarly dark and fearful. The rich
consolations of his faith became brighter and stronger, amidst the wreck of the
decaying tabernacle of flesh; and if the dying testimony of a pure and humble spirit
may be received, death had for him no sting—the grave achieved no triumph. In any
frequent and detailed account of his religious feelings he was not inclined to indulge—
the spirit that walks most closely with its God, needs not the sustaining influence of
such excitements—yet a few weeks previous to his death, a friend from a distant part
of the State calling to see him, made inquiries as to the state of his mind, and had
the privilege of hearing from him the calm assurance of his perfect resignation and
submission to the will of God. His hope of a happy immortality beyond the grave, was
such as belongs only to the Christian, and by him was modestly but humbly
entertained. It was to him a principle of strength that sustained him amidst the
conflicts of the dark valley; and to us who witnessed the agonies of his parting hour,
a bright radiance illuming the gloom which memory throws around the trying scene."
pp. 38, 39.

WASHINGTONII VITA.

A Life of George Washington, in Latin Prose: By Francis Glass, A.M.

of Ohio. Edited by J. N. Reynolds. New York: Published by Harper
and Brothers.

We may truly say that not for years have we taken up a volume with
which we have been so highly gratified, as with the one now before
us. A Life of Washington, succinct in form, yet in matter sufficiently
comprehensive, has been long a desideratum: but a Life of
Washington precisely such as a compendious Life of that great man
should be—written by a native of Ohio—and written too, in Latin,
which is not one jot inferior to the Latin of Erasmus, is, to say the
least of it,—a novelty.

We confess that we regarded the first announcement of this rara

avis with an evil and suspicious eye. The thing was improbable, we
thought. Mr. Reynolds was quizzing us—the brothers Harper were
hoaxed—and Messieurs Anthon and Co. were mistaken. At all events
we had made up our minds to be especially severe upon Mr. Glass,
and to put no faith in that species of classical Latin which should
emanate from the back woods of Ohio. We now solemnly make a
recantation of our preconceived opinions, and so proceed
immediately to do penance for our unbelief.

Mr. Reynolds is entitled to the thanks of his countrymen for his

instrumentality in bringing this book before the public. It has already
done wonders in the cause of the classics; and we are false prophets
if it do not ultimately prove the means of stirring up to a new life
and a regenerated energy that love of the learned tongues which is
the surest protection of our own vernacular language from impurity,
but which, we are grieved to see, is in a languishing and dying
condition in the land.

We have read Mr. R's preface with great attention; and meeting with
it, as we have done, among a multiplicity of worldly concerns, and
every-day matters and occurrences, it will long remain impressed
upon our minds as an episode of the purest romance. We have no
difficulty in entering fully with Mr. Reynolds into his kindly feelings
towards Mr. Glass. We perceive at once that we could have loved
and reverenced the man. His image is engraven upon our fancy.
Indeed we behold him now—at this very moment—with all his
oddities and appurtenances about him. We behold the low log-cabin
of a school-house—the clap-board roof but indifferently tight—the
holes, ycleped windows, covered with oiled paper to keep out the air
—the benches of hewn timber stuck fast in the ground—the stove,
the desk, the urchins, and the Professor. We can hear the worthy
pedagogue's classical 'Salves,' and our ears are still tingling with his
hyperclassical exhortations. In truth he was a man after our own
heart, and, were we not Alexander, we should have luxuriated in
being Glass.

A word or two respecting the Latinity of the book. We sincerely think

that it has been underrated. While we agree with Mr. Reynolds, for
whose opinions, generally, we have a high respect, that the work
can boast of none of those elegancies of diction, no rich display of
those beauties and graces which adorn the pages of some modern
Latinists, we think he has forgotten, in his search after the mere
flowers of Latinity, the peculiar nature of that labor in which Mr.
Glass has been employed. Simplicity here was the most reasonable,
and indeed the only admissible elegance. And if this be taken into
consideration, we really can call to mind, at this moment, no modern
Latin composition whatever much superior to the Washingtonii Vita
of Mr. Glass.

The clothing of modern ideas in a language dead for centuries, is a

task whose difficulty can never be fully appreciated by those who
have never undertaken it. The various changes and modifications,
which, since the Augustan age, have come to pass in the sciences of
war and legislation especially, must render any attempt similar to
that which we are now criticising, one of the most hazardous and
awkward imaginable. But we cannot help thinking that our author
has succeeded à merveille. His ingenuity is not less remarkable than
his grammatical skill. Indeed he is never at a loss. It is nonsense to
laugh at his calling Quakers Tremebundi. Tremebundi is as good
Latin as Trementes, and more euphonical Latin than Quackeri—for
both which latter expressions we have the authority of Schroeckh:
and glandes plumbeæ, for bullets, is something better, we imagine,
than Wyttenbach's bombarda, for a cannon; Milton's globulus, for a
button; or Grotius' capilamentum, for a wig. As a specimen of Mr. G's
Latinity, we subjoin an extract from the work. It is Judge Marshall's
announcement in Congress of the death of Washington.
"Nuncius tristis, quem heri accepimus, hodierno die nimium certus advenit. Fuit
Washingtonius; heros, dux, et philosophus; ille, denique, quem, imminente periculo,
omnes intuebantur, factorum clarorum memoriâ duntaxat vixit. Quamvis enim, eos
honore afficere solenne non esset, quorum vita in generis humani commodis
promovendis insumpta fuit, Washingtonii, tamen, res gestoe tantoe extiterunt, ut
populus universus Americanus, doloris indicium, qui tam latè patet, deposcere suo
jure debet."

"Rempublicam hancce nostram, tam longè latèque divisam, unus ferè Washingtonius
ordinandi et condendi laudem meret. Rebus omnibus, tandem confectis, quarum
causâ exercitibus Americanis proepositus fuerat, gladium in vomerem convertit,
bellumque pace lætissimè commutavit. Cum civitatum foederatarum Americanarum
infirmitas omnibus manifesta videretur, et vincula, quibus Columbi terra latissima
continebatur, solverentur, Washingtonium omnium, qui hancce nostram proeclaram
rempublicam stabiliverant, principem vidimus. Cum patria charissima eum ad
sedandos tumultus, bellumque sibi imminens ad propulsandum et avertendum,
vocaret; Washingtonium, otium domesticum, quod ei semper charum fuit,
relinquentem, et undis civilibus, civium commoda et libertatem servandi causâ,
mersum, haud semel conspeximus; et consilia, quibus libertatem Americanam
stabilem effecerat, perpetua, ut spero, semper, erunt."

"Cum populi liberi magistratus summus bis constitutus esset, cumque tertiò præses
fieri facillimè potuisset, ad villam, tamen, suam, secessit, seque ab omni munere civili
in posterum procul amoveri, ex animo cupiebat. Utcunque vulgi opinio, quoad alios
homines, mutetur, Washingtonii, certè, fama sempiterna et eadem permanebit.
Honoremus, igitur, patres conscripti, hunc tantum virum mortuum: civitatum
foederatarum Americanarum consilium publicum civium omnium sententias, hác una
in re, declaret."

"Quamobrem, chartas quasdam hîc manu teneo, de quibus Congressûs sententiam

rogare velim: ut, nempe, civitatum foederatarum Americanarum consilium publicum
proesidem visat, simul cum eo, gravi de hoc casu, condoliturum: ut Congressûs
principis sella vestibus pullis ornetur; utque Congressus pars reliqua vestibus pullis
induatur: utque, denique, idonea à Congressu parentur, quibus planè manifestum fiat,
Congressum, virum bello, pace, civiumque animis primum, honore summo afficere
velle."1
1 The sad tidings which yesterday brought us, this day has but too surely confirmed.
Washington is no more. The hero, the general, the philosopher—he, upon whom, in
the hour of danger, all eyes were turned, now lives in the remembrance, only, of his
illustrious actions. And although, even, it were not customary to render honor unto
those who have spent their lives in promoting the welfare of their fellow men, still, so
great are the deeds of Washington, that the whole American nation is bound to give a
public manifestation of that grief which is so extensively prevalent.

Washington, we had nearly said Washington alone, deserves the credit of regulating
and building up, as it were, the widely extended territory of this our Republic. Having
finally achieved all for which he had accepted the command of the American forces,
he converted his sword into a ploughshare, and joyfully exchanged war for peace.
When the weakness of the United States of America appeared manifest to all, and the
bands by which the very extensive land of Columbus was held together, were in
danger of being loosened, we have seen Washington the first among those who re-
invigorated this our glorious Republic. When his beloved country called him to quiet
tumults, and to avert the war with which she was menaced, we have once more seen
Washington abandon that domestic tranquillity so dear to him, and plunge into the
waters of civil life to preserve the liberties and happiness of his countrymen: and the
counsels with which he re-established American liberty will be, as I hope, perpetual.

When he had been twice appointed the Chief Magistrate of a free people, and when,
for the third time, he might easily have been President, he nevertheless retired to his
farm, and really desired to be freed from all civil offices forever. However vulgar
opinion may vary in respect to other men, the fame of Washington will, surely, be the
same to all eternity. Therefore, let us show our reverence for this so great man who is
departed, and let this public counsel of the United States of America declare upon this
one subject the opinion of all our citizens.

For this end I hold these resolutions in my hand, concerning which I would wish the
opinion of Congress, viz: that this public counsel of the United States of America
should visit the President to condole with him upon this heavy calamity—that the
speaker's chair be arrayed in black—that the members of Congress wear mourning—
and lastly, that arrangements be entered into by this assembly, in which it may be
made manifest that Congress wish to do every honor to the man first in war, first in
peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.
The 'barbarisms' of Mr. Glass are always so well in accordance with
the genius of Latin declension, as never to appear at variance with
the spirit of the language, or out of place in their respective
situations. His 'equivalents,' too, are, in all cases, ingeniously
managed: and we are mistaken if the same can be said of the
'equivalents' of Erasmus—certainly not of those used by Grotius, or
Addison, or Schroeckh, or Buchanan, neither of whom are
scrupulous in introducing words, from which a modern one is
deduced, in the exact sense of the English analogous term—
although that term may have been greatly perverted from its original
meaning.

Having said thus much in favor of the Washingtonii Vita, we may

now be permitted to differ in opinion with Professor Wylie and others
who believe that this book will be a valuable acquisition to our
classical schools, as initiatory to Cæsar or Nepos. We are quite as
fully impressed with the excellences of Mr. Glass' work as the
warmest of his admirers; and perhaps, even more than any of them,
are we anxious to do it justice. Still the book is—as it professes to be
—a Life of Washington; and it treats, consequently, of events and
incidents occurring in a manner utterly unknown to the Romans, and
at a period many centuries after their ceasing to exist as a nation. If,
therefore, by Latin we mean the Language spoken by the Latins, a
large proportion of the work—disguise the fact as we may—is
necessarily not Latin at all. Did we indeed design to instruct our
youth in a language of possibilities—did we wish to make them
proficient in the tongue which might have been spoken in ancient
Rome, had ancient Rome existed in the nineteenth century, we could
scarcely have a better book for the purpose than the Washington of
Mr. Glass. But we do not perceive that, in teaching Latin, we have
any similar view. And we have given over all hope of making this
language the medium of universal communication—that day-dream,
with a thousand others, is over. Our object then, at present, is
simply to imbue the mind of the student with the idiom, the manner,
the thought, and above all, with the words of antiquity. If this is not
our object, what is it? But this object cannot be effected by any such
work as the Washingtonii Vita.

NORMAN LESLIE.

Norman Leslie. A Tale of the Present Times. New York: Published by

Harper and Brothers.

Well!—here we have it! This is the book—the book par excellence—

the book bepuffed, beplastered, and be-Mirrored: the book
"attributed to" Mr. Blank, and "said to be from the pen" of Mr.
Asterisk: the book which has been "about to appear"—"in
press"—"in progress"—"in preparation"—and "forthcoming:" the
book "graphic" in anticipation—"talented" a priori—and God knows
what in prospectu. For the sake of every thing puffed, puffing, and
puffable, let us take a peep at its contents!

Norman Leslie, gentle reader, a Tale of the Present Times, is, after
all, written by nobody in the world but Theodore S. Fay, and
Theodore S. Fay is nobody in the world but "one of the Editors of the
New York Mirror." The book commences with a Dedication to Colonel
Herman Thorn, in which that worthy personage, whoever he may
be, is held up, in about a dozen lines, to the admiration of the
public, as "hospitable," "generous," "attentive," "benevolent," "kind-
hearted," "liberal," "highly-esteemed," and withal "a patron of the
arts." But the less we say of this matter the better.

In the Preface Mr. Fay informs us that the most important features of
his story are founded on fact—that he has availed himself of certain
poetical licenses—that he has transformed character, and particularly
the character of a young lady, (oh fi! Mr. Fay—oh, Mr. Fay, fi!) that
he has sketched certain peculiarities with a mischievous hand—and
that the art of novel writing is as dignified as the art of Canova,
Mozart or Raphael,—from which we are left to infer, that Mr. Fay
himself is as dignified as Raphael, Mozart, and Canova—all three.
Having satisfied us on this head, he goes on to say something about
an humble student, with a feeble hand, throwing groupings upon a
canvass, and standing behind a curtain: and then, after perpetrating
all these impertinences, thinks it best "frankly to bespeak the
indulgence of the solemn and sapient critics." Body of Bacchus! we,
at least, are neither solemn nor sapient, and, therefore, do not feel
ourselves bound to show him a shadow of mercy. But will any body
tell us what is the object of Prefaces in general, and what is the
meaning of Mr. Fay's Preface in particular?

As far as we can understand the plot of Norman Leslie, it is this. A

certain family reside in Italy—"independent," "enlightened,"
"affectionate," "happy,"—and all that. Their villa, of course, stands
upon the seashore, and their whole establishment is, we are
assured, "a scene of Heaven," &c. Mr. Fay says he will not even
attempt to describe it—why, therefore, should we? A daughter of this
family is nineteen when she is wooed by a young Neapolitan,
Rinaldo, of "mean extraction, but of great beauty and talent." The
lover, being a man of suspicious character, is rejected by the parents,
and a secret marriage ensues. The lady's brother pursues the
bridegroom—they fight—and the former is killed. The father and
mother die (it is impossible to see for what purpose they ever lived)
and Rinaldo flies to Venice. Upon rejoining her husband in that city,
the lady (for Mr. Fay has not thought her worth enduing with a
specific appellation) discovers him, for the first time, to be a rascal.
One fine day he announces his intention of leaving herself and son
for an indefinite time. The lady beseeches and finally threatens. "It
was the first unfolding," says she, in a letter towards the
dénouement of the story, "of that character which neither he nor I
knew belonged to my nature. It was the first uncoiling of the basilisk
within me, (good Heavens, a snake in a lady's stomach!). He gazed
on me incredulously, and cooly smiled. You remember that smile—I
fainted!!!" Alas! Mr. Davy Crockett,—Mr. Davy Crockett, alas!—thou
art beaten hollow—thou art defunct, and undone! thou hast indeed
succeeded in grinning a squirrel from a tree, but it surpassed even
thine extraordinary abilities to smile a lady into a fainting fit!

"When I recovered"—continues the lady—"he was gone. It was two

years before I could trace him. At length I found he had sailed for
America. I followed him in the depth of winter—I and my child. I
knew not the name he had assumed, and I was struck mute with
astonishment, in your beautiful city, on beholding, surrounded by fair
ladies, the form of my husband, still beautiful, and still adored. You
know the rest." But as our readers may not be as well informed as
the correspondent of the fair forsaken, we will enlighten them with
some farther particulars.

Rinaldo, upon leaving his cara sposa, had taken shipping for New
York, where, assuming the name of "Count Clairmont of the French
army," he succeeds in cutting a dash, or, in more proper parlance, in
creating a sensation, among the beaux and belles of the city of
Gotham. One fair lady, and rich heiress, Miss Flora Temple, is
particularly honored by his attentions, and the lady's mother, Mrs. T.,
fired with the idea of her daughter becoming a real countess, makes
no scruple of encouraging his addresses. Matters are in this position
when the wife of the adventurer arrives in New York, and is quite
bewildered with astonishment upon beholding, one snowy day, her
beloved Rinaldo sleighing it to and fro about the streets of New York.
In the midst of her amazement she is in danger of being run over by
some horses, when a certain personage, by name Norman Leslie,
but who might, with equal propriety, be called Sir Charles Grandison,
flies to her assistance, whisks herself and child up in the very nick of
time, and suddenly rescues them, as Mr. Fay has it, "from the very
jaws of Death"—by which we are to understand from the very hoofs
of the horses. The lady of course swoons—then recovers—and then
—is excessively grateful. Her gratitude, however, being of no service
just at that moment, is bottled up for use hereafter, and will no
doubt, according to established usage in such cases, come into play
towards the close of the second volume. But we shall see.
Having ascertained the address of Rinaldo, alias the Count
Clairmont, the lady, next morning, is successful in obtaining an
interview. Then follows a second edition of entreaties and threats,
but, fortunately for the nerves Of Mrs. Rinaldo, the Count, upon this
occasion, is so forbearing as not to indulge in a smile. She accuses
him of a design to marry Miss Temple, and he informs her that it is
no concern of hers—that she is not his wife, their marriage having
been a feigned one. "She would have cried him through the city for
a villain," (Dust ho!—she should have advertised him) but he swears
that, in that case, he will never sleep until he has taken the life of
both the lady and her child, which assurance puts an end to the
debate. "He then frankly confesses"—says Mrs. Rinaldo, in the letter
which we have before quoted,—"that his passion for Miss Temple
was only a mask—he loved her not. Me he said he loved. It was his
intention to fly when he could raise a large sum of money, and he
declared that I should be his companion." His designs, however,
upon Miss Temple fail—that lady very properly discarding the rascal.
Nothing daunted at this mishap our Count proceeds to make love to
a certain Miss Rosalie Romain, and with somewhat better success.
He prevails upon her to fly, and to carry with her upon her person a
number of diamonds which the lover hopes to find sufficient for his
necessities. He manages also to engage Mrs. Rinaldo (so we must
call her for want of a better name) in his schemes.

It has so happened that for some time prior to these occurrences,

Clairmont and Norman Leslie, the hero of the novel, have been
sworn foes. On the day fixed for Miss Romain's elopement, that
young lady induces Mr. Leslie to drive her, in a gig, a short distance
out of town. They are met by no less a personage than Mrs. Rinaldo
herself, in another gig, and driving (proh pudor!) through the woods
sola. Hereupon Miss Rosalie Romain very deliberately, and to the
great astonishment, no doubt, of Mr. Leslie, gets out of that
gentleman's gig, and into the gig of Mrs. Rinaldo. Here's plot! as
Vapid says in the play. Our friend Norman, finding that nothing
better can be done, turns his face towards New York again, where
he arrives, in due time, without farther accident or adventure. Late
the same evening Clairmont sends the ladies aboard a vessel bound
for Naples, and which is to sail in the morning—returning himself, for
the present, to his hotel in Broadway. While here he receives a
horse-whipping from Mr. Leslie on account of certain insinuations in
disparagement of that gentleman's character. Not relishing this
treatment he determines upon revenge, and can think of no better
method of accomplishing it than the directing of public suspicion
against Mr. Leslie as the murderer of Miss Romain—whose
disappearance has already created much excitement. He sends a
message to Mrs. Rinaldo that the vessel must sail without him, and
that he would, by a French ship, meet them on their landing at
Naples. He then flings a hat and feathers belonging to Miss Romain
upon a stream, and her handkerchief in a wood—afterwards
remaining some time in America to avert suspicion from himself.
Leslie is arrested for the murder, and the proofs are damning against
him. He is, however, to the great indignation of the populace,
acquitted, Miss Temple appearing to testify that she actually saw
Miss Romain subsequently to her ride with Leslie. Our hero, however,
although acquitted, is universally considered guilty, and, through the
active malice of Clairmont, is heaped with every species of
opprobrium. Miss Temple, who, it appears, is in love with him, falls ill
with grief: but is cured, after all other means have failed, by a letter
from her lover announcing a reciprocal passion—for the young lady
has hitherto supposed him callous to her charms. Leslie himself,
however, takes it into his head, at this critical juncture, to travel;
and, having packed up his baggage, does actually forget himself so
far as to go a-Willising in foreign countries. But we have no reason
to suppose that, goose as the young gentleman is, he is silly enough
to turn travelling correspondent to any weekly paper. In Rome,
having assumed the alias of Montfort, he meets with a variety of
interesting adventures. All the ladies die for him: and one in
particular, Miss Antonia Torrini, the only child of a Duke with several
millions of piastres, and a palace which Mr. Fay thinks very much like
the City Hall in New York, absolutely throws herself sans ceremonie
into his arms, and meets—tell it not in Gath!—with a flat and
positive refusal.
Among other persons whom he encounters is a monk Ambrose, a
painter Angelo, another painter Ducci, a Marquis Alezzi, and a
Countess D., which latter personage he is convinced of having seen
at some prior period of his life. For a page or two we are entertained
with a prospect of a conspiracy, and have great hopes that the
principal characters in the plot will so far oblige us as to cut one
another's throats: but (alas for human expectations!) Mr. Fay having
clapped his hands, and cried "Presto!—vanish!" the whole matter
ends in smoke, or, as our author beautifully expresses it, is "veiled in
impenetrable mystery."

Mr. Leslie now pays a visit to the painter Ducci, and is astonished at
there beholding the portrait of the very youth whose life he saved,
together with that of his mother, from the horses in New York. Then
follows a series of interesting ejaculations, among which we are able
to remember only "horrible suspicion!" "wonderful development!"
"alack and alas!" with some two or three others. Mr. Leslie is,
however, convinced that the portrait of the boy is, as Mr. F. gracefully
has it, "inexplicably connected with his own mysterious destiny." He
pays a visit to the Countess D., and demands of her if she was, at
any time, acquainted with a gentleman called Clairmont. The lady
very properly denies all knowledge of that character, and Mr. Leslie's
"mysterious destiny" is in as bad a predicament as ever. He is
however fully convinced that Clairmont is the origin of all evil—we do
not mean to say that he is precisely the devil—but the origin of all
Mr. Leslie's evil. Therefore, and on this account, he goes to a
masquerade, and, sure enough, Mr. Clairmont, (who has not been
heard of for seven or eight years,) Mr. Clairmont (we suppose
through Mr. L's "mysterious destiny") happens to go, at precisely the
same time, to precisely the same masquerade. But there are surely
no bounds to Mr. Fay's excellent invention. Miss Temple, of course,
happens to be at the same place, and Mr. Leslie is in the act of
making love to her once more, when the "inexplicable" Countess D.
whispers into his ear some ambiguous sentences in which Mr. L. is
given to understand that he must beware of all the Harlequins in the
room, one of whom is Clairmont. Upon leaving the masquerade,
somebody hands him a note requesting him to meet the unknown
writer at St. Peter's. While he is busy reading the paper he is
uncivilly interrupted by Clairmont, who attempts to assassinate him,
but is finally put to flight. He hies, then, to the rendezvous at St.
Peter's, where "the unknown" tells him St. Peter's won't answer, and
that he must proceed to the Coliseum. He goes—why should he not?
—and there not only finds the Countess D. who turns out to be Mrs.
Rinaldo, and who now uncorks her bottle of gratitude, but also Flora
Temple, Flora Temple's father, Clairmont, Kreutzner, a German friend
from New York, and, last but not least, Rosalie Romain herself; all
having gone there, no doubt, at three o'clock in the morning, under
the influence of that interesting young gentleman Norman Leslie's
"most inexplicable and mysterious destiny." Matters now come to a
crisis. The hero's innocence is established, and Miss Temple falls into
his arms in consequence. Clairmont, however, thinks he can do
nothing better than shoot Mr. Leslie, and is about to do so, when he
is very justly and very dexterously knocked in the head by Mr.
Kreutzner. Thus ends the Tale of the Present Times, and thus ends
the most inestimable piece of balderdash with which the common
sense of the good people of America was ever so openly or so
villainously insulted.

We do not mean to say that there is positively nothing in Mr. Fay's

novel to commend—but there is indeed very little. One incident is
tolerably managed, in which, at the burning house of Mr. Temple,
Clairmont anticipates Leslie in his design of rescuing Flora. A cotillon
scene, too, where Morton, a simple fop, is frequently interrupted in
his attempts at making love to Miss Temple, by the necessity of
forward-twoing and sachezing, (as Mr. Fay thinks proper to call it) is
by no means very bad, although savoring too much of the farcical. A
duel story told by Kreutzner is really good, but unfortunately not
original, there being a Tale in the Diary of a Physician, from which
both its matter and manner are evidently borrowed. And here we
are obliged to pause; for we can positively think of nothing farther
worth even a qualified commendation. The plot, as will appear from
the running outline we have given of it, is a monstrous piece of
absurdity and incongruity. The characters have no character; and,
with the exception of Morton, who is, (perhaps) amusing, are, one
and all, vapidity itself. No attempt seems to have been made at
individualization. All the good ladies and gentlemen are demi-gods
and demi-goddesses, and all the bad are—the d—l. The hero,
Norman Leslie, "that young and refined man with a leaning to
poetry," is a great coxcomb and a great fool. What else must we
think of a bel-esprit who, in picking up a rose just fallen from the
curls of his lady fair, can hit upon no more appropriate phrase with
which to make her a presentation of the same, than "Miss Temple,
you have dropped your rose—allow me!"—who courts his mistress
with a "Dear, dear Flora, how I love you!"—who calls a buffet a
bufet, an improvisatore an improvisitore—who, before bestowing
charity, is always ready with the canting question if the object be
deserving—who is everlastingly talking of his foe "sleeping in the
same red grave with himself," as if American sextons made a
common practice of burying two people together—and, who having
not a sous in his pocket at page 86, pulls out a handful at page 87,
although he has had no opportunity of obtaining a copper in the
interim?

As regards Mr. Fay's style, it is unworthy of a school-boy. The "Editor

of the New York Mirror" has either never seen an edition of Murray's
Grammar, or he has been a-Willising so long as to have forgotten his
vernacular language. Let us examine one or two of his sentences at
random. Page 28, vol. i. "He was doomed to wander through the
fartherest climes alone and branded." Why not say at once
fartherertherest? Page 150, vol. i. "Yon kindling orb should be hers;
and that faint spark close to its side should teach her how dim and
yet how near my soul was to her own." What is the meaning of all
this? Is Mr. Leslie's soul dim to her own, as well as near to her own?
—for the sentence implies as much. Suppose we say "should teach
her how dim was my soul, and yet how near to her own." Page 101,
vol. i. "You are both right and both wrong—you, Miss Romain, to
judge so harshly of all men who are not versed in the easy elegance
of the drawing room, and your father in too great lenity towards
men of sense, &c." This is really something new, but we are sorry to
say, something incomprehensible. Suppose we translate it. "You are
both right and both wrong—you, Miss Romain, are both right and
wrong to judge so harshly of all not versed in the elegance of the
drawing-room, &c.; and your father is both right and wrong in too
great lenity towards men of sense."—Mr. Fay, have you ever visited
Ireland in your peregrinations? But the book is full to the brim of
such absurdities, and it is useless to pursue the matter any farther.
There is not a single page of Norman Leslie in which even a school-
boy would fail to detect at least two or three gross errors in
Grammar, and some two or three most egregious sins against
common-sense.

We will dismiss the "Editor of the Mirror" with a few questions. When
did you ever know, Mr. Fay, of any prosecuting attorney behaving so
much like a bear as your prosecuting attorney in the novel of
Norman Leslie? When did you ever hear of an American Court of
Justice objecting to the testimony of a witness on the ground that
the said witness had an interest in the cause at issue? What do you
mean by informing us at page 84, vol. i, "that you think much faster
than you write?" What do you mean by "the wind roaring in the air?"
see page 26, vol. i. What do you mean by "an unshadowed Italian
girl?" see page 67, vol. ii. Why are you always talking about
"stamping of feet," "kindling and flashing of eyes," "plunging and
parrying," "cutting and thrusting," "passes through the body,"
"gashes open in the cheek," "sculls cleft down," "hands cut off," and
blood gushing and bubbling, and doing God knows what else—all of
which pretty expressions may be found on page 88, vol. i.? What
"mysterious and inexplicable destiny" compels you to the so frequent
use, in all its inflections, of that euphonical dyssyllable blister? We
will call to your recollection some few instances in which you have
employed it. Page 185, vol. i. "But an arrival from the city brought
the fearful intelligence in all its blistering and naked details." Page
193, vol. i. "What but the glaring and blistering truth of the charge
would select him, &c." Page 39, vol. ii. "Wherever the winds of
heaven wafted the English language, the blistering story must have
been echoed." Page 150, vol. ii. "Nearly seven years had passed
away, and here he found himself, as at first, still marked with the
blistering and burning brand." Here we have a blistering detail, a
blistering truth, a blistering story, and a blistering brand, to say
nothing of innumerable other blisters interspersed throughout the
book. But we have done with Norman Leslie,—if ever we saw as silly
a thing, may we be —— blistered.
 THE LINWOODS.

The Linwoods; or, "Sixty Years Since" in America. By the Author of

"Hope Leslie," "Redwood," &c. New York: Published by Harper and
Brothers.

Miss Sedgwick is one among the few American writers who have
risen by merely their own intrinsic talents, and without the a priori
aid of foreign opinion and puffery, to any exalted rank in the
estimation of our countrymen. She is at the same time fully
deserving of all the popularity she has attained. By those who are
most fastidious in matters of literary criticism, the author of Hope
Leslie is the most ardently admired, and we are acquainted with few
persons of sound and accurate discrimination who would hesitate in
placing her upon a level with the best of our native novelists. Of
American female writers we must consider her the first. The
character of her pen is essentially feminine. No man could have
written Hope Leslie; and no man, we are assured, can arise from the
perusal of The Linwoods without a full conviction that his own
abilities would have proved unequal to the delicate yet picturesque
handling; the grace, warmth, and radiance; the exquisite and
judicious filling in, of the volumes which have so enchanted him.
Woman is, after all, the only true painter of that gentle and beautiful
mystery, the heart of woman. She is the only proper Scheherazade
for the fairy tales of love.

We think The Linwoods superior to Hope Leslie, and superior to

Redwood. It is full of deep natural interest, rivetting attention
without undue or artificial means for attaining that end. It contains
nothing forced, or in any degree exaggerated. Its prevailing features
are equability, ease, perfect accuracy and purity of style, a manner
never at outrance with the subject matter, pathos, and verisimilitude.
It cannot, however, be considered as ranking with the master novels
of the day. It is neither an Eugene Aram, nor a Contarini Fleming.

The Linwoods has few—indeed no pretensions to a connected plot of

any kind. The scene, as the title indicates, is in America, and about
sixty years ago. The adventures of the family of a Mr. Linwood, a
resident of New York, form the principal subject of the book. The
character of this gentleman is happily drawn, but we are aware of a
slight discrepancy between his initial and his final character as
depicted. He has two children, Herbert and Isabella. Being himself a
tory, the boyish impulses of his son in favor of the revolutionists are
watched with anxiety and vexation; and, upon the breaking out of
the war, Herbert, positively refusing to drink the king's health, is, in
consequence, ejected from his father's house—an incident upon
which hinges much of the interest of the narrative. Isabella is the
heroine proper; a being full of lofty and generous impulses,
beautiful, intellectual, and spirituelle—indeed a most fascinating
creature. But the family of a widow Lee forms, perhaps, the true
secret of that charm which pervades the novel before us. A matronly,
pious, and devoted mother, yielding up her son, without a murmur,
to the sacred cause of her country—the son, Eliot, gallant,
thoughtful, chivalrous, and prudent—and above all, a daughter,
Bessie, frail-minded, susceptible of light impressions, gentle, loving,
and melancholy. Indeed, in the creation of Bessie Lee, Miss
Sedgwick has given evidence not to be disputed, of a genius far
more than common. We do not hesitate to call it a truly beautiful
and original conception, evincing imagination of the highest order. It
is the old story of a meek and trusting spirit bowed down to the dust
by the falsehood of a deceiver. But in the narration of Miss Sedgwick
it becomes a magical tale, and bursts upon us with all the freshness
of novel emotion. Deserted by her lover, (Jasper Meredith, an
accomplished and aristocratical coxcomb,) the spirits of the gentle
girl sink gradually from trusting affection to simple hope—from hope
to anxiety—from anxiety to doubt—from doubt to melancholy—and
from melancholy to madness. She escapes from her home and her
friends in New England, and endeavors to make her way alone to
New York, with the object of restoring, to him who has abandoned
her, some tokens he had given her of his love—an act which her
disordered fancy assures her will effect, in her own person, a
disenthralment from passion. Her piety, her madness, and her
beauty stand her in the stead of the lion of Una, and she reaches the
great city in safety. In that portion of the novel which embodies the
narrative of this singular journey, are some passages of the purest
and most exalted poetry—passages which no mind but one
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the beautiful could have
conceived, and which, perhaps, no other writer in this country than
Miss Sedgwick could have executed. Our readers will find that what
we say upon this head is very far from exaggeration.

Jasper Meredith, considered as an actual entity, is, as we have

already said, a heartless, calculating coxcomb—with merely a spice
of what we may call susceptibility to impressions of the beautiful, to
redeem him from utter contempt. As a character in a novel, he is
admirable—because he is accurately true to nature, and to himself.
His perfidy to Bessie (we shall never forget Bessie) meets with
poetical justice in a couple of unsuccessful courtships, (in each of
which the villain's heart is in some degree concerned,) and in a final
marriage with a flirt, Helen Ruthven, who fills him up, with a
vengeance, the full measure of his deserts. Mrs. Meredith is a
striking picture of the heartless and selfish woman of fashion and
aristocracy. Kisel, the servant of Eliot Lee, is original, and, next to
Bessie, the best conception in the book. He is a simple, childish, yet
acute and affectionate fool, who follows his master as would a dog,
and finally dies at his feet under circumstances of the truest pathos.
While Miss Sedgwick can originate such characters as these, she
need apprehend few rivals near the throne.

We cannot pass over in silence a little episode in which a blind child

is torn away at night from a distracted mother, by one of the
notorious bands of Skinners infesting the country. The mother's
house is set on fire by the robbers, in their search after plunder; but
her most valuable property having been previously removed to New
York, the exasperated ruffians seize and bear off the fainting child,
with the view of extorting money for its ransom. Eliot Lee, aided by
General Putnam, rescues the child, and restores it to the mother.
This whole incident is worthy of Miss Sedgwick.

We have mentioned the name of Putnam,—he as well as

Washington, Lafayette, Clinton, and some other well-known
personages are familiarly introduced in the narrative, but are simply
accessories to the main interest, and very little attempt is made at
portraying their historical characters. Whatever is done, however, is
well done.

So much real pleasure have we derived from the perusal of The

Linwoods, that we can hardly find it in our hearts to pick a quarrel
with the fair author, for the very few trifling inadvertences into which
she has been betrayed. There were, we believe, some points at
which we intended to cavil, but hot having pencilled them down in
the course of perusal, they have now escaped our recollection.
Somewhat more energy in occasional passages—somewhat less
diffuseness in others—would operate, we think, to the improvement
of Miss Sedgwick's generally excellent style. Now and then, we meet
with a discrepancy between the words and the character of a
speaker. For example: page 38, vol. i. "'No more of my contempt for
the Yankees, Hal, an' thou lovest me,' replied Jasper; 'you remember
Æsop's advice to Croesus, at the Persian court?' 'No, I am sure I do
not. You have the most provoking way of resting the lever by which
you bring out your own knowledge, on your friend's ignorance.'"
Now all this is very pretty, but it is not the language of school-boys.
Again: page 226 vol. i. 'Now out on you, you lazy, slavish, loons,'
cried Rose, 'cannot you see these men are raised up, to fight for
freedom, for more than themselves? If the chain is broken at one
end, the links will fall apart sooner or later. When you see the sun on
the mountain top, you may be sure it will shine into the deepest
valleys before long.' Who would suppose this graceful eloquence,
and these impressive images to proceed from the mouth of a negro-
woman? Yet such is Rose. And at page 24, vol. i. we have the
following. "True, I never saw her; but I tell you, young lad, there is
such a thing as seeing the shadow of things far distant and past,
and never seeing the realities though they it be that cast the
shadows." The speaker here, is an old woman who a few sentences
before talks about her proficiency in telling fortins.

There are one or two other trifles with which we have to find fault.
Putnam's deficiency in spelling is, perhaps, a little burlesqued; and
the imaginary note written to Eliot Lee, is not in accordance with
that laconic epistle subsequently introduced, and which was a bonâ
fide existence. We dislike the death of Kisel—that is we dislike its
occurring so soon—indeed we see no necessity for killing him at all.
His end is beautifully managed, but leaves a kind of uneasy and
painful impression, which a judicious writer will be chary of exciting.
We must quarrel also, with some slight liberties taken with the King's
English. Miss Sedgwick has no good authority for the use of such
verbs, as "to ray." Page 117, vol. i. "They had all heard of Squire
Saunders, whose fame rayed through a large circle"—Also, in page
118, vol. i. "The next morning he called, his kind heart raying out
through his jolly face, to present me to General Washington." Nor is
she justifiable in making use of the verb "incense," with the meaning
attached to it in the following sentence. Page 211, vol. i. "Miss
Ruthven seemed like an humble worshipper, incensing two
divinities." We dislike also, the vulgarity of such a phrase as "I put in
my oar"—meaning "I joined in the conversation"—especially in the
mouth of so well-bred a lady, as Miss Isabella Linwood—see page
61, vol. i. We do not wish either to see a marquee, called a
"markee," or a dénouement, a denoeument. Miss Sedgwick should
look over her proof-sheets, or, be responsible for the blunders of her
printer. The plural "genii" at page 84, vol. ii. is used in place of the
singular genius. "Isabella is rather penseroso" is likewise an error—
see page 164, vol. ii.; it should be penserosa. But we are heartily
ashamed of finding fault with such trifles, and should certainly not
have done so, had there been a possibility of finding fault with any
thing of more consequence. We recommend The Linwoods to all
persons of taste. But let none others touch it.
 WESTMINSTER REVIEW.

The Westminster Review, No. XLV, for July, 1835. American Edition,
Vol. IV, No. 1. New York: Theodore Foster.

Article I is "Philanthropic Economy; or the Philosophy of Happiness,

practically applied to the Social, Political, and Commercial Relations
of Great Britain. By Mrs. Loudon, Author of 'First Love,' 'Fortune
Hunting,' and 'Dilemmas of Pride.' London: Churton, 1835. 8vo. pp.
312."

Mrs. Loudon's Economy has excited great attention in England, and

her work is highly lauded in the present instance. As an able and
chivalrous champion of the cause of the people, she deserves all the
encomiums which she has received, and we are not in any degree
disposed to pick a quarrel with her Ethics, which, to say the truth,
are as little to the purpose as her political, or if she pleases, her
philanthropic Economy, is most effectually to the point. We have not
seen her entire publication, but merely judge of it from the copious
extracts in the article before us. Her answer to the objections to the
ballot is forcible, and coming as it does from a lady, its value is
quadrupled in our eyes. The Notice of her book concludes as follows.
"It is plain that Mrs. Loudon is a splendid woman, and has, at one
effort, taken her place in line, among the political economists upon
the people's side. She is fortunate too in having fallen upon times
when 'the spread of education is, in fact, rendering the peaceable
continuance of abuses impossible.'"

Article II is "Venetian History. Family Library, No. XX—London,

Murray, 1833." A compendious History of Venice, and apparently
forced into the service of the Review "will I, nill I," without any
object farther than the emptying of some writer's portfolio, or
common-place book. It is nevertheless an invaluable paper.

Article III is "Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston, his Lineage,

Life, and Times, with a History of the Invention of Logarithms. By
Mark Napier, Esq. Blackwood, Edinburgh; Cadell, London, 1834. 4to.
pp. 534."

This is a Review of exceeding interest, and evidently from a mind

thoroughly imbued with a love of science. It enters largely into the
subject matter of the book reviewed, and defends Napier from the
often repeated accusation of having derived his principle from the
works of Archimedes, Ditmarsus, and Byrgius. A short account of the
philosopher's treatises on Arithmetic and Algebra, as they appear at
the end of the Memoirs, is given in the conclusion of the Notice. We
perceive that Mr. Napier has here taken occasion to observe that
Horsley, Hutton, Leslie, and Playfair, are mistaken in supposing
Albert Girard the first who made use of the expressions majores
nihilo and minores nihilo in relation to positive and negative
quantities.

Article IV is "An Essay on Musical Intervals, Harmonics, and the

Temperament of the Musical Scale, &c. By W. S. B. Woolhouse, Head
Assistant of the Nautical Almanac Establishment."

This is a short article in which the book under review is condemned

for inaccuracy and misrepresentation. The Essay itself is another
instance of the interest now taken in the mathematics of music.

Article V is "A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Artists: comprising

Painters, Sculptors, Engravers and Architects, from the earliest ages
to the present time. By John Gould—Second Edition, 2 vols. 12mo.
Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1835."

The work in question is spoken of as having been composed

—"conceived, planned, and probably in part executed among lowing
herds and obstinate swine." It is preceded by an historical,
biographical, and professional introduction, apparently of no very
great merit. The Dictionary is called a most laborious, and on the
whole a very successful compilation. "The chief matter of some
hundreds of volumes is condensed into two small duodecimos. As
this is all it aims to do, by this only can it be fairly judged, and not
by any standard of original criticism."

Article VI. "History of Scotland. By Patrick Fraser Tytler, Esq. F. R. S.

E. and F. A. S. Edinburgh. Vols. i–v. 1828–1834."

This critique speaks of Tytler's Scotland as displaying much research,

and considerable skill, as well as impartiality, but the greater part of
the article is taken up in reviewing some of the leading features in
Scottish History.

Article VII.—1. "The Forms of Deeds and Documents in England and

France, compared and exemplified, in a Letter to the Lord
Chancellor. Paris: Galignani. London: Saunders and Benning, 1835."

2. "The Mechanics of Law-making. Intended for the use of

Legislators, and all other persons concerned in the making and
understanding of English Laws. By Arthur Symonds, Esq. London:
Churton, 1835."

The authors of the works here reviewed have attempted to unfold,

and to show the worthlessness of, those technical mysteries which
have so long enveloped the science of Law. The "Forms of Deeds,
&c." is from the pen of Mr. Okey. He gives several examples of
English and French Deeds—printing them on opposite pages. The
difference in conciseness is said to be four to one in favor of the
French, while in clearness they admit of no comparison. The greater
brevity of the French documents is attributed to the existence of a
Code. "The Mechanics of Law making" insists upon the necessity of
reform in the arrangement, language, classification, and contents of
the British Acts of Parliament, and in the agency by which the laws
are 'prepared, made, promulgated, superintended, enforced, and
amended.' The Review is brief—but concurs heartily in the necessity
alluded to.

Article VIII. 1. "Sur les Créances réclamées de la France par la

Russie au nom du Royaume de Pologne. Paris, 1835."

2. "On the Russo-Polish Claims on France. (From the periodical Le

Polonais, published monthly in Paris, by a member of the Polish Diet.
Number for February 1835.")

3. "A few more words on the Polish question, (From Le Polonais—

number for March 1835.")

The author of the work Sur les Créances, enters into an examination
of the titles of which the Russian government avails itself "either to
effect a final settlement, or to claim payment of sums which might
ultimately be proved to be due to the kingdom of Poland." The editor
of Le Polonais is of a family to which Poland is indebted for "several
brilliant exploits, not only in the field of battle, but in the tribute of
the National Assembly." His journal is devoted to the history and
literature of Poland—but more especially to its political interests. The
Review enters into some discussion on the Russo-Polish Claims, and
makes it apparent that the policy of Great Britain is materially
involved, in the Russo-French liquidation. "She has joined"—says the
critic—"in refusing to uphold Russia in the violation of the
constitution and nationality of Poland; Lord Palmerston gave
lengthened and clear explanations on this point to Parliament on the
9th of April, 1833. Tranquilly to stand by, and witness the Russo-
French liquidation, an act which would be equivalent to a passive
acknowledgment on the part of France, of the usurpations of Russia,
would be contrary to the dignity and interest of the British nation."

Article IX—1. "Thoughts upon the Aristocracy of England. By Isaac

Tompkins, Gent. Fifth Edition. London: Henry Hooper, 1835, pp. 23."

2. "A letter to Isaac Tompkins, Gent., author of the Thoughts upon

the Aristocracy. From Mr. Peter Jenkins. Fifth Edition, with a
Postscript. London: Henry Hooper, 1835, pp. 11."

3. "A letter to Isaac Tompkins, and Peter Jenkins on Primogeniture.

By Timothy Winterbottom. Fourth Edition. London: William Pickering,
1835."

From the specimens of these Pamphlets, given in the Review before

us, we are inclined to think them excessively amusing. Mr. Isaac
Tompkins busies himself with the House of Lords, and Mr. Peter
Jenkins gives the lash to the House of Commons. Mr. T's account of
patrician taste in literature and wit—of courts, courtiers, court-
jesters, buffoonery, &c. are not a little edifying. His book has created
a great sensation. In a note appended to the fourth edition, occur
the following significant remarks. "The Quarterly Review, the organ
of the Aristocratic Church, and of the Lay Aristocracy, has taken the
opportunity of printing the greater part of the work, under pretence
of giving a Review of it. Pretence it plainly is; for there is hardly one
remark added, and not one syllable of censure or objection! Can any
thing more plainly demonstrate that the cause of the Aristocracy is
hateful, even to the very writers who affect to support it? Can any
thing better prove its decline among all educated and sensible men?
Mr. Canning's abhorrence of it is well known, and so is the hatred
with which he was repaid. But in our time, the advocate of
establishments can think of nothing better than giving a very wide
circulation to Mr. J. Tompkins' observations. These Quarterly
Reviewers would not for the world, that these observations were not
generally known." Peter Jenkins concludes his pamphlet with some
remarks on the new liberal government. Winterbottom's letter treats
chiefly of the evils resulting from the accumulation of wealth in a few
hands. "The whole family of Tompkins &c. is good"—says the
Reviewer—"and the public, will be glad to see more of their kin and
kind."

Article X. "The History of Ireland. By Thomas Moore, Esq. In three

volumes. Vol. i. London: Longman & Co. 1835."
This is an excellent and very laudatory notice, of a work which
cannot be too highly commended. The difficulties Mr. Moore has
overcome, in reducing to order a chaotic discordance of materials,
with a view to this History, will, perhaps, never be fully appreciated.
It cannot indeed be asserted that every portion of his subject has
been hitherto uninvestigated, or, that all the questions he has
discussed have been satisfactorily settled; but that, under existing
circumstances, such a book should have been written at all, is a
matter for admiration—and that it has been so rationally, so lucidly,
and so critically written, is a fact which cannot fail to elevate its
author immeasurably in the estimation of his friends. The future
volumes of The History of Ireland, will be looked for with intense
interest. In them we may expect to find the records of a dark and
troubled period. Moore will speak fearlessly, or we are much
mistaken.

Article XI. "A Bill for granting Relief in relation to the Celebration of
Marriages, to certain persons dissenting from the Church of England
and Ireland, 1835."

The Reviewer, here, seems to think that Sir Robert Peel's Bill, with
some little amendment, would meet the case of the Dissenters in the
manner most satisfactory, and, under all circumstances most
convenient. The Dissenters themselves have little to propose, and
that little impracticable.

Article XII. "Plantagenet.—3 vols. London: John Macrone, 1835."

Plantagenet is a novel: and the writer's object is stated by the critic

to be pretty nearly identical with that of Mr. Timothy Winterbottom,
of whom we have spoken before—viz: to lay bare the social evils of
primogeniture. The English system of education is detailed, and its
effect upon character analyzed. The writer's design is said not to be
very well carried into execution—nevertheless the Reviewer places
him in the first line of modern political novelists, and says there is
nobody, except the author of 'The Radical,' who, stands out as a
model for him to overtake or pursue.

Article XIII.—1. "Colonization of South Australia. By R. Torrens, Esq.

F. R. S. Chairman of the Colonization Commission, for South
Australia. London: Longman, 1835."

2. "Colonization; particularly in Southern Australia; with some

remarks on Small Farms and Over-population. By Colonel Charles
James Napier, C. B.—London: T. & W. Boone, 1835."

Colonel Torrens' book is bitterly and sarcastically reviewed. It is an

octavo of more than 300 pages, with an Appendix of about 20. The
first part of the body of the work is in the form of a letter, divided
into twelve parts, and addressed "To the author of the History of the
Indian Archipelago." This portion discusses the new scheme for
colonizing South Australia. Its style is called pamphleteering and
polemical. The second part is said to be "in the usual cold, cramped,
and unpopular manner of the author's politico-economical writings."
The Appendix consists of the Act of Parliament for the formation of
the Colony, of two letters signed Kangaroo, and of another from A.
B., approving of Kangaroo's opinions. Kangaroo is thought by the
Reviewer a better writer of English than his master. Colonel Napier's
book is favorably noticed. His views are in direct opposition to those
of Torrens.

Article XIV. "The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy. By Thomas

Keightley, Esq. 8vo. London, 1831." This is an interesting and able
paper, but has no pretensions to the name of Review. The position
of the Bacchanalians in Greek and Roman History, and their
progress, together with the dangers and impediments encountered
in their course, forms the subject of the Essay—for it is an Essay,
although an admirable one.
 LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW.

The London Quarterly Review, No. CVII. for July, 1835. American
Edition, Vol. III, No. 1.

Article I.—1. "Narrative of a Second Voyage in search of a North-

West Passage, and of a Residence in the Arctic Regions, during the
Years 1829–30–31–32–33. By Sir John Ross, C. B., K. S. A., K. C. S.,
&c. &c. Captain in the Royal Navy, London: 1835, 4to. pp. 740."

2. "The Late Voyage of Captain Sir John Ross, R. N. to the Arctic

Regions, for the Discovery of a North-West Passage; performed in
the Years 1829–30–31–32–33. From authentic information, and
original documents, transmitted by William Light, Purser's Steward to
the Expedition. By Robert Huish, author of the 'Memoirs of the
Princess Charlotte,' 'Treatise on Bees,' &c. &c. London: 1835, 8vo.
pp. 760."

3. "Report from a Select Committee of the House of Commons, on

the Expedition to the Arctic Seas, commanded by Captain John Ross,
R. N. 1834."

This is, in many respects, a clever and judicious Review, although

abounding with much vulgar abuse of Captain Ross, whom it
accuses, not only of gross ignorance and misrepresentation, but of
several minor indecorums, such for example, as "the opening of a
subscription shop in Regent Street—the sending of a set of fellows,
usually called trampers, but who call themselves agents, to knock at
every gentleman's door, in town and country, not humbly to solicit,
but with pertinacious importunity, almost to force subscriptions—the
getting up of Vauxhall and panoramic exhibitions, and some other
circumstances not worth detailing." It hints something also, of the
Captain's having procured the literary aid of "a practised embroiderer
of periods, one Dr. M'Culloch." Huish's book is treated with derision,
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