The Dialectic of Essence: A Study of Plato's Metaphysics (review)

This book is a comprehensive interpretation of Plato's metaphysics in the analytic tradition. Its progenitors include Vlastos and Owen, but Silverman's approach arguably originates with Aristotle. His methodology is traditional: he begins with the claim that the Theory of Forms is at "the core of Plato's entire philosophy" (1). He accepts the tripartite division of the dialogues into early, middle and late (11-12), a chronology which was virtually Holy Writ when discussion of this issue was at its height, but which is now under scrutiny. Silverman's account of the development of Plato's metaphysics is a conservative one. He agrees with Vlastos that the Socrates of the early dialogues is not a metaphysician, though those dialogues contain the basis of a metaphysics of properties. Platonic metaphysics proper begins with the separation of the Forms in the Phaedo. The story after that is one of Plato's growing recognition, particularly in the Parmenides and Sophist, of the complexity of relations among Forms. The Philebus and Timaeus (which Silverman regards as late) offer theories of the nature of particulars that are an advance over anything in earlier dialogues. Plato's ontology, Silverman thinks, undergoes development but no radical changes of direction. The audience at which Silverman avowedly aims is "the expert who is familiar with the primary metaphysical passages in the dialogues, as well as the secondary literature" (9).

For Silverman the main problems of Plato's metaphysics are problems of predication, and in particular, self-predication. The term "F" is predicated both of the Form of F and of the many particulars that fall under that Form. The particulars are F in that they participate in the Form, but in what sense is the Form itself "F"? To answer this question Silverman introduces the distinction between two sorts of predication: Being and Having (a distinction he traces to Grice, Code, and Nehamas; p. 313, n. 3). Having corresponds to Plato's participation; Being is the relation between a Form and its essence. According to Silverman, Being is a "non-characterizing" relation, but a "logicizing" one. He strives to distinguish his view of self-predication from two standard alternatives: the view that the Form possesses, is characterized by, the property for which it is named, and the view that statements of the form "F-ness is F" are really identity statements. This requires a distinction between a Form and its essence (The Form "Is" its essence) and between a particular and the "Form-copy" that it contains. Particulars lack essences; Form-copies, like Forms, do not.

A brief review cannot do justice to the many issues raised in this book. Silverman's approach is detailed and systematic. He blends discussion of the primary sources with discussion of recent interpretations. His prose is lucid but the argument is dense. The book will primarily interest scholars who are committed to the analytic approach to Plato's ontology. This area is so fraught with disagreement that Silverman's claims cannot help but be controversial. Scholars will disagree about where Plato's metaphysics begins; about the existence of "Form-copies"; about the correct analysis of his self-predicational statements; and about Silverman's chronology of the dialogues, especially his late placement of the Timaeus. I wondered whether Form and essence [ousia] are distinguishable in the way Silverman's approach requires. I was also puzzled by his relative neglect of paradigmatism in Plato.

Silverman's discussion raises questions that are not peculiar to his interpretation alone, but which characterize the analytical approach to Plato's ontology in general. This approach seems to require a commitment to developmentalism and the tripartite division of dialogues, both of which are today under attack. Despite occasional references to ethics, psychology, and other areas of Platonic philosophy, Silverman, like other analytical...