Unity and Development in Plato's Metaphysics, and: Image and Reality in Plato's Metaphysics (review)

Book Reviews William J. Prior. Unity and Development m Plato's Metaphysics. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, x985. Pp. 2o2. $24.95Richard Patterson. Image and Reality in Plato's Metaphysics. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1984. Pp. 2~7. $a2.5 o. The focal point of these two studies of Plato's metaphysics is the familiar proof in the first part of Plato's Parmenides of the inadequacy of the original/image model of participation of things in Forms: If the thing copies the Form, it is like the Form. But then the Form must be like the thing, and we must posit another Form above the original Form to explain the shared property. We face the notorious Third Man regress. The proof has been devoted much attention in recent discussions of the development of Plato's thought, especially since 1953 when, in a seminal paper, G. E. L. Owen cited it as important evidence for an early (pre-Parmenidean) dating of the Timaeus with its original/image model of participation? Prior and Patterson believe that this proof is not persuasive. They further agree in their central reason for finding the argument unpersuasive: The original/image model leads to no regress for the original and its image share no property: an image is not an approximation of its original, but a completely different sort of thing. The point is not an original one? The contribution of these studies lies in what the authors do with the point. Here their treatments diverge: Prior paints a developmental picture of Plato's metaphysics; Patterson focuses on the original/image model to develop a detailed account of this metaphysics. Prior does not merely reject Owen's use of the Third Man argument to date the Timaeus early. He finds in the Timaeus, particularly in the roles of the Demiurge and the Receptacle, the late developments that clarify the uncertainties of the metaphysical scheme which Plato developed in the Middle Dialogues, the uncertainties that provide weight to the arguments of the first part of the Parmenides. Prior claims that in the Middle Dialogues Plato wavered between two contrasted characterizations of the Forms--immanent and transcendent--and two related characterizations of the participation of things in Forms--sharing and resemblance. In the causal role of the Demiurge who links the model and the copy and in the provision of a separate place ' G. E. L. Owen, "The Place of the Timaeus in Plato's Dialogues," ClassicalQuarterlyN. S. 3 (a953): 8~-84. See, e.g., R. E. Allen, "Participation and Predication in Plato's Middle Dialogues," PhilosophicalReview 69 (196o): 16o-64. [289] 290 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 25:2 APRIL 1987 for things in the Receptacle, Plato definitively opts for a scheme of transcendent Forms and a resemblance model for participation, thus effectively undercutting the arguments of the Parmenides. Patterson takes a very close look at the imaging relationship in order to distinguish Forms, things, and their interrelationship from the numerous interpretations of Plato's metaphysics that have been suggested. Thus, for example, Patterson distinguishes Forms as paradigmatic models from other sorts of paradigms---illustrative examples, standard instances, patterns, and structures; he shows how the incompleteness of sense objects is prior to their being characterized as F and un-F; he shows why Forms are not universals but are limited in scope to the separate, abstract, intelligible functions that gain their warrant from the Good. Perhaps the most original facet of his analysis is the suggestion that the fundamental causal relationship between particular and Form is analogous to the relationship "being (an image) of (its model)" that makes the image an image. Patterson tips his hat to a developmental scheme, but his thrust is essentially non-developmental. Thus he underscores the presence in the Phaedo of central features of the image analogy, including the "being of" relationship which he finds in the "safe" account of causation of the last argument for immortality. The themes of the "scatteredness" of things and the central role of goodness are explicitly developed in the Receptacle and the activity of the Demiurge in the Timaeus, but they are clearly adumbrated in the earlier dialogue. These studies are aimed...