Martin, Gottfried: Plato s doctrine of ideas [Platons Ideenlehre]. Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1973

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1 Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg RAINER MARTEN Martin, Gottfried: Plato s doctrine of ideas [Platons Ideenlehre]. Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1973 [Rezension] Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Philosophy and history 11 (1978), S

2 Philosophy 31 MARTIN, GOTTFRIED Plato's Doctrine of Ideas ["PlatonsIdeenlehre"] Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1973; 296 pp. Plato's definition of the idea is particularly topical in German philosophy today, and the work here under review by Gottfried Martin, the professor of philosophy at Bonn who died in October 1972, is not the only book with this title to appear during the seventies. But it differs from the others in being aimed at a wider readership among the non-plato specialists. Martin has no intention to philosophize with Plato and work with him on his problems. He quotes Plato and Plato scholarship to identify for beginners important problems of Plato's doctrine of ideas. For Martin there is, by a process of systematic simplification, such a thing as the doctrine of ideas, although readers of Plato will quickly recognize that the word `idea' (Greek idea, eidos) in Plato covers a variety of concepts. In the first part of his book Martin demonstrates that there is (and in what sense there is) a doctrine of ideas, while in the following section he enters in greater detail into its multifarious problems. Of particular importance is the fundamental decision to search for Plato's philosophy in his dialogues and not, as K. Gaiser and H. J. Kramer (`the Tübingen school') have done, in his unwritten doctrine. Among the dialogues he attaches central importance to the `Symposium', Phaedo', 'Phaedrus' and `Republic'. When Martin wishes to fall back on an authority in his attitudes to Plato he is fond of quoting Hegel. Even today many German philosophers consider him as the most reliable speculative force when it is a question of avoiding the historical relativity of philosophical truths. A somewhat out-of-date feature is the frequent appeal to the doyen of classical philology U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorf. As to Plato's doctrine of ideas itself, Martin frequently has recourse to P. Natorp and W. D. Ross. He also knows specialized literature from as far afield as the Anglo-Saxon school of Plato studies based on linguistic analysis. His own studies in the history of philosophy, particularly on Odtham, Leibniz and Kant, come to life wherever possible in this study of Plato. They serve among other things as the basis for a comparison of idealism and nominalism, for a discussion of the problems of conceptualization and for a consideration of a formal ethic for Plato. In this way Martin is following a general trend towards consciously renouncing historicism and linking Plato on factual grounds (and not simply out of an opportunist desire to be up-to-date) with present-day philosophical questions. There is a growing awareness that Plato has given unsurpassed formulation to many questions. While no developed logic or ethic is to

32 Philosophy be found in his works, his views on formal logic and moral philosophy are being found again to have great factual competence. He is more.than merely stimulating.

3 32 Philosophy be found in his works, his views on formal logic and moral philosophy are being found again to have great factual competence. He is more.than merely stimulating. Martin teaches us how much efforts goes into a correct understanding of Platonic terminology. Words like phainomenon (phenomenon') and ousia ('being', `essence'), while on the one hand semantically overburdened as the result of a long philosophical tradition, were also, on the other, subject to polysemy in the Greek of Plato's own day. The first requirement is therefore to read Plato himself and to develop intrinsic criteria which will enable a relatively reliable and firm interpretation of individual passages. An essential requirement is some detachment from Aristotle. The Latin word substantia, for instance, may be all very well for Greek ousia in Aristotle, but not in Plato: the Platonic idea as true being is not a substance. Those more familiar with Plato, however, will also learn from Martin how difficult it is to follow intelligently Plato's conception of the idea as true being (ousia ontos ousa). This can best be demonstrated by the example of the `Sophistes' dialogue, where Plato treats of megista gene, literally `largest genera' (whereby Plato does not yet distinguish, as Aristotle does, in a biological sense between genos 'genus' and eidos 'species'). Three of the five `genera' adduced by Plato are being, identity and difference. Martin asks whether these are concepts or ideas, settling after some hesitation for ideas. But all he can claim in justification is that Plato himself speaks of them as ideas. But what is an idea? Although Martin puts this question as a paragraph heading, we look in vain for a satisfactory answer. In accepted Aristotelian manner he holds firm to the belief that ideas are general concepts. These 'largest genera' are therefore for him `very general concepts', `widest concepts', 'concepts of greatest generality'. But since, as is generally accepted, the actual misunderstanding of Plato's doctrine of ideas a misunderstanding that goes back to Aristotle lies in this very interpretation of ideas as concepts, Martin tries to transfer his own hesitation to Plato. Martin takes into account the Greek manner of hypostatizing and personifying in order to rescue Plato's conception of the idea more or less plausibly. This makes the idea of the Beautiful not into a general concept but (sound Greek thinking) into something like the goddess Aphrodite. But here caution must be exercised. The reader of Plato will be aware of how Plato imposed his ideas on current thought precisely in opposition to the prevailing idea of divine individuals. The very fact that the idea of the Beautiful is 'in every respect' and 'alone' beautiful should be enough to discredit the thesis of personification. In order not to give up prematurely the attempt to conceive of `idea' as something different from `concept' one would have to be prepared to accept patiently the fact that from the `Republic' to the Seventh Est e

4 Philosophy 33 Plato differentiates between knowledge as definition and knowledge as idea. It would be doing an injustice to Plato to designate knowledge as idea simply as intuition and then to leave it to initiation rites and evidence based on inspiration of a kind no reasonable person could share. One need only read `Republic', VI, 511 b-c, VII, 534 b-d. Martin offers explanations for quite remarkable consequences of Plato's doctrine of ideas. If according to Plato the idea of the Beautiful is itself beautiful, then self-predication or self-participation is taking place (these being terms used by Anglo-Saxon scholars as an argument against Plato). But Plato did not believe that the concept `Beautiful' must itself be beautiful, nor is this an (unintended) consequence of his theory. To appreciate this it is necessary to depart more convincingly and circumspectly than Martin does from substance and concept as a basis for understanding the Platonic idea. Martin also discusses in some detail the relationship of the idea to things determined by it (idea of the Beautiful - beautiful people, beautiful clothes). As a reaction to this relationship the Academy developed an argument against Plato called tritos anthropos, an argument that Plato himself mentions in his 'Parmenides': if the thing determined by an idea resembles the idea, then the idea also resembles the thing. If both resemble each other, then they resemble a third, and so on indefinitely. Here it is essential to take into account the non-substantial character of things determined by ideas. Something beautiful is, strictly speaking, according to Plato not a beautiful thing, but something beautiful to the extent that. The idea of the Beautiful guarantees the beautiful nature of something and nothing else. It follows that one has to interpret the relationship of the idea of the Beautiful and that which is `beautiful to the extent that' as an assymetrical one. Then it becomes more plausible why Plato, regardless of this argument (which he was quite familiar with) should have held firm to the conception of the idea. Martin points to the special significance of the idea of Equality, but does not mention that this idea is surprisingly formulated in the plural (ta isa auta). In the discussion of negative ideas (ugliness) there is no reference to the Not-Beautiful in the `Sophistes'. Nor does Martin adequately draw on dialectics (for example the dihairetic unfolding of pure eide) for an explanation of the doctrine of ideas. Instead he speaks - anachronistically - of a `pure dialectic'. The dialectic discussion in Germany is basically determined straight across the board by Hegel, and neither word nor concept seems to be applicable to Plato's dialectic as a multifarious philosophical method. Aristotle himself did his share to bring this method into scientific discredit. More recent experiments in practical philosophy in German (for example the Erlangen School) have, however, introduced a rehabilitation

34 Philosophy on a broader base of Plato's dialectic as a philosophic-scientific method. Martin saw himself throughout his life as an advocate of ontology.

5 34 Philosophy on a broader base of Plato's dialectic as a philosophic-scientific method. Martin saw himself throughout his life as an advocate of ontology. He was open to philosophical innovations, only they ought not to expect him to sacrifice traditional philosophy as a doctrine of being in favour of a purely scientific philosophy in the manner of the early Vienna Circle. But an emphatic avowal of ontology such as is still common in German philosophical provinces easily results in self-deception. Thus Martin has fallen victim to his own creed (not, however, to his own undisputed knowledge of Plato) in believing that the question `What is being?' is Plato's 'highest question'. Being (ousia) is, it is true, defined by Plato in his `Sophistes' as an idea, just as Not-Being is; but that should not prevent us from seeing how Plato for the first time comes up against special theoretical questions of predication and existence which cannot simply be pigeon-holed under the heading of philosophical `questions of being'. It is here that one sees how fraught with peril it is that for Martin idea equals idea even when there are different kinds of ideas. An idea like that of the Beautiful in the `Symposium' and an idea like that of Being in the `Sophistes' are not merely different kinds of ideas, but must be categorized differently as ideas. This is where new questions arise, such as whether for example Plato has with ideas occasionally struck on the problem of meaning and whether he has in mind intellectual forms based on reflexion. Professor Dr. Rainer Marten

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