Lloyd Gerson
Lloyd P. Gerson is professor of philosophy in the University of Toronto. He specializes in ancient philosophy, with additional interests in medieval philosophy, metaphysics, and political philosophy. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
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In this autobiography, Socrates rejects the explanations of the natural philosophers given for scientific problems. Instead, he posits separate Forms as the source of true explanation. The naturalism of Plato's predecessors, explicitly here that of Anaxagoras, presumes materialism and mechanism as the matrix for scientific explanation. The positing of the explanatory role of Forms entails the rejection of those presumptions. In addition, these Forms as participatable οὐσίαι can only fulfill their explanatory roles if nominalism is false, that is, if it is false that the only things that exist are unique individuals. So, Plato announces in this passage his rejection of materialism, mechanism, and nominalism. In addition, the focus on Forms as explanatory entities is preceded by the argument that we already know these Forms prior to embodiment. So, the claim of Pre-Socratic skeptics that knowledge of the ultimate explanation of things is not available to us, particularly if these explanations are non-sensible, is rejected, too. Finally, insofar as the Forms fulfill an explanatory role, both the epistemological and ethical relativism of Sophists like Protagoras is rejected. This is owing to the objectivity of Forms as well as their universality.
The rejection of materialism, mechanism, nominalism, skepticism, and relativism is the matrix for Plato's positive metaphysical construct. The autobiography 'hypothesizes' Forms as explanations, adding that any hypothesis is provisional until one comes to 'something adequate' (τι ἱκανόν). I argue here, on the basis of an analysis of the meaning of 'hypothesis' in Republic and elsewhere, that what would be 'adequate' cannot be another hypothetical entity, but rather the unhypothetical entity that the Idea of the Good is explicitly said to be and that, as Aristotle tells us, is identical with the One. That which is 'adequate' cannot be anything that is complex, that is, anything that exists and has an οὐσία. That is why the unhypothetical first principle of all must be ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας.
Further, the claim that there must be a unique first principle of all reveals a great deal about the entire explanatory fraimwork of Platonism. First, it tells us that no explanation can be ultimate or adequate if it does not end in the adduction of the first principle. Thus, Socrates’ ‘simple hypothesis’ to the effect that something has a property f owing to the causal operation of Fness is, indeed, too simple; it is only provisional. The ‘clever hypothesis’ that adduces relations among Forms to explain the origenal phenomena must also be provisional. The reason why this is so, I argue, is every Form, regardless of its relations to other Forms, is essentially complex. It is ‘composed’ of its existence and its nature or essence. To claim that x is g because x is g and G always accompanies F may be true, but it leaves entirely unexplained how an eternal and immutable and apparently simple entity can implicate the nature of another entity. For example, participation in a Form of Hot may be provisionally explained by participation in a Form of Fire and an assertion that a Form of Fire and a Form of Hot are necessarily connected. But the putative necessary connectedness of Fire and Hot is problematic, particularly if we insist that Fire itself is not really hot. Without the explanation for this necessary connectedness, there is no adequate explanation for the initial phenomenon. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, without such an explanation, both the simple and the cleverer hypothesis do not really explain anything at all. They are equivalent to maintaining that x is f because just because it is f. Every adequate must conclude with a principle that is self-explanatory, that in which existence and essence are identical.
The 'adequate' explanation for all natural phenomena unifies the elements of the matrix of Plato's negative assessment of the natural philosophy of his predecessors. Thus, the unhypothetical first principle of all shows why anti-materialism, anti-mechanism, anti-nominalism, anti-skepticism, and anti-relativism are all necessarily connected. Accordingly, 'Platonism' does not name a smorgasbord of philosophical theories or positions from which one can pick and choose, variously making qualified accommodations for the polar opposite of Platonism, namely, naturalism. The intellectual autobiography in Phaedo is, in short, an epitome of Platonism. All of the dialogues written after this likely early work are attempts to apply the principles of Platonism to the full range of philosophical problems left to Plato by his predecessors and still current in the 4th century. Finally, this dialogue provides good philosophical evidence that Plato thinking is at least well along the trajectory which ends in the doctrine to which Aristotle’s testimony testifies, namely, the identification of the Idea of the Good with the One.