Platos's Theory of Ideas: An Introduction to Idealism
 9783896652508

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International Plato Studies Published under the auspices of the International Plato Society Series Editors: Luc Brisson (Paris), Christopher J. Rowe (Durham), Maria Isabel Santa Cruz (Buenos Aires), Mauro Tulli (Pisa), Thomas A. Szlezak (Tiibingen)

Volume18

PAULNATORP

PLATO'S THEORY OF IDEAS AN INTRODUCTION TO IDEALISM

EDITED wrru AN INTRODUCTION BY VASILIS POLITIS TRANSLATION BY VASILIS POLITIS AND JOHN CONNOLLY POSTSCRJPT BY ANDRE LAKS

Academia Verlag

A Sankt Augustin

Illustration on the cover by courtesy of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Ashmole 304, fol. 31 v.

, Printed with the s~pport of The Dublin Centre for the Study of the Platonic Tradition The Programme for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies at Trinity College Dublin The Trinity College Dublin Association and Trust The Trinity College Dublin Arts arid Social Sciences Benefactions Fund

Acknowledgements

J;Jibliografische Information Der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Interneti.iberhttp://dnbddb.de abrufbar.

Most special thanks are due to my co-translator, John Connolly, for a truly rewarding collaboration. I am particularly grateful to John Dillon, the original motive force for this project-who has also translated chapter II. Many thanks also to: Werner Beierwaltes, David Charles, Andre Laks, Jaines Levine, Brendan O'Byrne and, not least, Cordula. And to Martine Maguire-Weltecke for her tireless assistance in formatting the text.

ISBN :H9665-250-8

For their generous assistance, I would like to thank: The Dublin Centre for the Study of the Platonic Tradition

1 1. Auflage 2004 © Academia Verlag

Bahnstnille 7, D-53757 Sankt Augustin Jnternet: www.academia-verlag.de E-Mail: [email protected]

The Programme for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies at Trinity College Dublin

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The Trinity College Dublin Association and Trust

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The Trinity College Dublin Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund

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Printed in Germany Ohne schriftliche Genelunigung des Verlages ist es nicht gestattet, das Werk unter Verwendung mechanischer, elektronischer und anderer Systeme in irgendeiner Weise zu verarbeiten und zu verbreiten. Jnsbesondere vorbehalten sind die Rechte der Vervielraltigung- auch von Teilen des Werkesauf fotomechanischem oder ahnlichem Wege, der tontechnischen Wiedergabe, des Vortrags, der Funk- und Femsehsendung, der Speicherung in Datenverarbeitungsanlagen, der Obersetzung.und der literarischen und anderweitigen Bearbeitung.

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Special thanks also to the Editorial Committee of the International Plato Society, and in particular: Luc Brisson, Michael Erler, Orristopher Rowe, Maria Isabel Santa Cruz, Thomas Szlezak and Mauro Tulli.

Contents VASILIS POLITIS

An Introduction to Paul Nator_p's Plato's Theortj of Ideas .......... ....................................... 9 1. Nato:rp's reading of Plato: a summary ........................................... ,................................... 9 2. Natorp's response to Kant .................................................................................................. 15 3. Natorp's conception of Plato's ideas as laws and explanations,not substances ...... 21 4. Natorp's transcendental interpretation of the theory of ideas ..................................... 29

PAULNATORP Plato's Theory of Ideas. An Introduction to Idealism Preface to the first edition .................................................................................................. 47

Preface to the second edition ............................................................................................. 51 I Apology and Crito. Protagoras. Laches. Charmides ...................................................... 53 II Meno and Gorgias .............................................................................................................. 75 Ill Phaedrus .............................................................................................................................. 93 IV Theaetetus. Euthydemus. Cratylus ................................................................................ 121 V Phaedo and Symposium .................................................................................................. 149

VI Republic ............................................................................................................................. 185 VII Parmenides ........................................................................................................................ 217

VIII Sophist... ............................................................................................................................. 259 IX Philebus and Statesman ................................................................................................... 285 X Timaeus and Laws ............................................................................................................ 319

XI Aristotle and Plato ............................................................................................................ 341 XIl The Aristotelian Critique of the Theory of Ideas .......................................................... 367

Metacritical Appendix (1920). Logos - Psyche - Eros ..................................................... 395 Notes .......................................................................................................................................... 437

Postscript ANDRELAKS

Plato Between Cohen and Natorp .................................................................................. 453 Kant and the "moderate interpretation" of the Platonic Idea ............................... 457 The Young Hermann Cohen's Plato (1866) .............................................................. 458 Plato and the neo-Kantian Programme ................................................................... .464 Cohen's 1878 Interpretation ....................................................................................... 467 PaulNatorp's Plato ..................................................................................................... 473 Natorp's account of Cohen's Logik der reinen Erkenntnis ....................................... .480

VASILIS POLITIS

An Introduction. to Paul Natorp's Plato's Theory of Ideas 1. Natorp's reading of Plato: a summary In general, Plato's theory of ideas, as we find it in the dialogues, asserts that thefe ar_e certain primary ahd independent entities, the ideas, which file changeless, and that the changing things with which we are directly familiar from e:Xperience are dependent, for their existence and nature, on the ideas. Further, it asserts that the changeless ideas are knowable through reas;ning :whereas changing things are knowable, if they can be known at all, through sense perception (see e.g. Phaedo 78-79). Thus two claims are cenb:al to Plato's theory: a purely metaphysical claim, about reality, and an epistemological claim, about knowledge. This double aspect of the theory of ideas-its metaphysical and its eflistemological sides-from the outset gives rise to a basic question of interpretation: how are these two aspects related and which is fue more fundamental? While critics have on the whole emphasized the metaphysics as primary, Paul N atorp' s monumental work, Plato's Theory of Ideas. An Introduction to Idealism (1903, 2nd ed. 1921) challenges this reading and argues that Plato's theory is primarily a theory of thought and knowledge and only as a consequence a theory Of reality. The Kantian roots of this radical re-interpretation are signall~d in the sub-t_itle's appeal to idealism. "Idealism", as Natorp uses the term here, refers not simply to Plato's introduction of the ideas, nor to subjective idealism, i.e. the view, commonly associated with the philosophy of J3erkeley, that only subjective states are real; it refers rather to transcendental idealism, i.e. the view that the nature of reality is derivable from the nature of thought and knowledge. However, the Kantian roots of Natorp's re-inte~pretation are not as obtrusive as one might "fear. For Natorp takes issue with Kant on two crucial points. First, when he speaks of the nature of thought and knowledge, he does not, unlike Kant, mean something subjective, but rather something more fundamental than even the distinction between subject and object: something that explains how subjects can think and know and how objects can be thought of and known. Second, when he speaks of reality, whose nature, he argues, Plato wants to derive from the nature of thought and knowledge, he means reality itself, and not, unlike Kant, reality merely as it appears to thinking and

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An Introduction to Paul Natorp's Plato's Theory of Ideas

Plato's Theory of Ideas

situates it the broader context of German and in particular Marburg Neokantianism, I refer the reader to the admirable essay by Andre Laks at the end of this volume. We may begin with a concise summary of Natorp's interpretation, which contains two major claims, a purely metaphysical and a transcendental claim: 1. Plato's ideas are laws, or explanations, not substances. This means that the ideas are not so much substances capable of causing and explaining, but purely and simply, explanations. These explanations, however, are objective, i.e. elements of reality; they are not explanations merely. in the sense of what we state in our theories. 2. Plato's ideas, or at any rate the most fundamental and general ones, determine primarily the nature of thought and knowledge, and only as a consequence the nature of reality-the reality which is subject to thought and knowledge. The first is a purely metaphysical thesis and makes no reference to thought or knowledge. What it asserts is that, for Plato, the primary and independent entities, the changeless ideas on which all other things depend for their existence and nature, are not substances, but objective explanations-"laws of nature", as Natorp also calls them. This is how he understands Plato's claim that the ideas are aitiai-"causes", "reasons", "explanations". On Natorp's interpretation it follows directly that Plato's ideas are not transcendent substances. For they are not substances at all. So they are not inhabitants of a world of changeless substances beyond this spatio-temporal world of changing ones. In this way Natorp wants, at a stroke, to rescue Plato's theory from a criticism first levelled against it by Aristotle and one that it has been difficult to shake off ever since. The criticism is that Plato's ideas are nothing but changeless and everlasting duplications of the familiar world of changing and perishable things. It is worth quoting Aristotle's polemical statement of this objection:

knowing subjects. So Natorp argues that it was Plato that originally fashioned the transcendental project, i.e. the project of deriving the nature of reality from the nature of thought and knowledge, but that this original transcendental project is not, as it appears to be in Kant, associated with any subjectivist connotations. It would, therefore, be wrong to assess Natorp's re-interpretation as no better than an enthusiastic projection of Kant back onto Plato. Indeed, there may be some truth in the interpretation. For Plato's theory of ideas appears to derive much of its motivation from considerations about the nature and possibility of thought and knowledge, and it may not be going too far to suggest that Plato wants to derive the nature of reality from the nature of thought and knowledge -provided, of course, that this can be reconciled with the absolute objectivity of his metaphysics and can be dissociated from any form of subjectivism. Plato, after all, expressly rejects the suggestion that the ideas may be subjective states (Parmenides 132b-c). There are, certainly, straightforward historical reasons for taking up a study of Paul Natorp (1854-1924). As an important figure in Neokantianism, the dominant philosophical movement in Germany during the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century, he deserves a share of the currently renewed interest in this movement. We will touch on this aspect later, when we consider the significant ways in which he, like other Neokantians in different and often opposed ways, consciously takes issue with Kant. Also, the disagreement with Kant is important for understanding how Natorp can read Plato as a transcendental idealist, a reading that would be absurd from an orthodox Kantian perspective. Furthermore, Plato's Theory of Ideas is a valuable commentary on Plato not least because of its unusual and fascinating approach,

even if we should come to the conclusion that it cannot be taken seriously as literal interpretation. The synthesis of Plato and Kant is impressive in its conception and execution, even if we think that it does not directly contribute to the understanding of Plato. Thus Natorp stands in a long tradition of philosophers that have seen themselves as true Platonists without, perhaps, being true to the letter of Plato. In this respect Plato's Theory of Ideas may even be compared to the great Neaplatonist commentaries-as in fact Na.tarp himself compares it: "This is how Plotinus could believe he was a Platonist" (appendix to the 2nd edition of 1921 [462]). 1 However, it can be argued that Natorp's interpretation of Plato's theory of ideas contributes to the understanding of Plato's work-this at least is what I want to convey in what follows (see esp. §§3-4). Natorp's relation to Kant is important here (see §2), for it is because he takes issue with Kant on certalll crucial points that he can, his roots in Kant notwithstanding, interpret Pl.ato as he does. Also important is Aristotle's traditional interpretation of the theory of ideas, for it is to a large extent in reaction to Aristotle's interpretation that Natorp develops his own. For a more historical account of Natorp's interpretation, which 1

Numbers inside square brackets refer to the 2nd edition of Platas Ideenlehre as published by Meiner in 1994 (Hamburg). This also corresponds with the pagination of the original publication of the 2nd edition. The pagination is included in our translation (below), in square brackets.

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There are many difficulties [that arise if one thinks that there are separate ideas], but the greatest absurdity is that while they [i.e. the Platonists] claim that there are certain natures besides those in the material universe, they at the same time claim that these [i.e. the separate ideas] are the same as the sense-perceptible things, except that while the former [i.e. the separate ideas] are everlasting, the latter [i.e. the sense-perceptible

particulars] are perishable. For they [the Platonists] drum that there is a human himself [i.e. a separate idea of the human being} and a horse itself and health itsell-and this is

all they say. But this is to behave very much like those who believe that there are gods l

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but that gods are like humans. For all they do is postulate everlasting humans, and so too the Platonists make of the forms [or ideas] nothing but everlasting sense-

perceptible things. (Metaphysics ID. 2, 997b5-12; see also XIII. 4, 1078b34-36) . But Natorp argues that we must not understand Plato's ideas as separate substances, i.e. separate from the changing ones with which we are directly familiar; for they are not substances at all. However, he emphasizes that Plato's ideas, Which he understands to be explanations, are indeed, in a different sense, separate. For they are independent of what they explain, namely, changing things, and changing things depend, for their existence and nature, on the ideas that explain them. So Plato is committed to the general principle that what

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An Introduction to Paul Natorp's Plato's Theon; of Ideas

Plato's Theory of Ideas

It is this objective transcendental idealism that Natorp attributes to Plato-he atguesthatthis idealism is "native" to Plato ("urwilchsig", "autochthon", [VIII-IX]).

explains is primary and independent-and, in this sense, "separate"-whereas what it explains is derivative and dependent. But he is not, Natorp argues, committed to two separate worlds of substances, this world here, made up of changing ones, and that world beyond, made up of changeless ones.

Natorp's lack of sympathy for subjective idealism is conspicuous even on a superficial reading of Plato's Theory of Ideas, as is his insistence that the idealism which ):le attributes to Plato and indeed advocates himself is of a contrasting, objective kind. His commentary on the passage from Plato's Parmenides.(l32b-c) in .which Plato rejects the suggestion that ideas may be thoughts and hence

The second, transcendental thesis is about the relation between thought and

knowledge, on the Or\e hand, and reality, on the other. Natorp argues that, in Plato, the primary and independent entities, the ideas, are elements in the nature of thought and knowledge. They are also, certainly, elements in the nature of reality, the reality that is subject to thought and knowledge, but only because, in general, the nature of reality is derivable from the nature of thought and knowledge. This directly implies that the nature of reality is dependent on the nature of thought and knowledge whereas the nature of thought and knowledge is independent of, and explanatory of, the nature of reality. It is in just this sense that Natorp's interpretation is idealist. Is not the transcendental thesis absurd as an .interpretation of Plato? For it seems to make the ideas dependent on something subjective, namely, the thoughts and cognitions of thinkers and knowers. But, we may object, Plato expressly rejects the suggestion that the ideas may be something subjective or dependent on something subjective when he argues that the ideas are not thoughts (noemata) or merely in the mind (psuche). 2 This objection, however, is based on a misunderstanding. For when Natorp argues that Plato's ideas deter-

subjective entities, is equally clear on this point:

an independent and indeed multiple existence is attributed to ideas (according to the suggestion that Plato goes on to dismiss in this passage}, namely in the many .Nconsciousnesses" ...-the phrase here is E'V'\VUXati;; whereas this existence ought in fact to be sought only in "consciousness in general", that is, in the method of uniting a manifold. For in the former case everything becomes thought, becomes indeed thinking (the object of thought will exist only in thinking), and a psychological idealism somewhat like Berkeley's threatens to displace the transcendental, or method-based, idealism that alone is Plato's. [238]

ht· spite of Natorp's protestations, however, Plato's Theory of Ideas has been understood to attribute to Plato some form of subjective idealism, and this mis-

understanding. no doubt contributed to the confident dismissal of the interpretation as "obviously mistaken"-this was the early verdict of Eduard Zeller. In his essay of 1913, "Uber Platas Ideenlehre", which he wrote to clarify his interpretation in the face of such criticisms, Natorp replied with a touch of resentment:

mine the nature of thought, he means that they are what accounts for the nature

of object-directed thought and, as a consequence, of the objects of thought. He does not mean that the ideas are thoughts or dependent on thoughts, if by 11 thoughts1r we mean, as does· Plato in the above passage from the Parmenides, individual acts of thinking by individual thinkers. In his essay of 1912, "Kant und die Marburger Schule", which Natorp wrote to clarify the relationship in which he and Hermann Cohen, the original founders of the Marburg school of Neokantianism, stand to the historical Kant, he is at pains to explain that transcendental idealism, i.e. the thesis that the nature of reality is derivable from the nature of thought and knowledge, must not, whatever Kant may have thought, be associated with any trace of subjectivism: Any relation at all to an object, any concept _of an object, hence also oj a su11ject, originates purely in knowledge, according to the law of knowledge; for objects must conform to knoWledge, not knowledge to objects, if a lawful relation between the two is to become at all intelligible.3 Transcendental idealism is permanently insured against all danger of ~elapsing into any kind of subjectivism, if only because the entire assumption of a subject that is beyond, prior to or outside cognition is just as unacceptable as the assumption of an object that is beyond, prior to or outside cogniti.On. (KMS, 207-8) 2

Parmenides 132b-c. For Plato's express rejection of subjective idealism, see Myles Bumyeat, "Idealism and Greek Philosophy: what Descartes saw and Berkeley missed",

Philosophical Review XO (1982), pp. 3-40. But Bumyeat goes too far when he infers that 3

not only subjective idealism, but any kind of idealism is absent from Plato. ''.Kant und die Marburger Schule" [abbreviated KMS], Kant Studien, 17 (1912), p. 202, emphasis added.

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Any shadow of subjectivism, therefore, is strictly ruled out here, and those who thought they could find even a trace of it in my work [Plato's Theory of Ideas] did not read me correctly . ... ff, in accordance with the common linguistic usage of the ancients and especially Plato, I continued to speak of "thinking", what I meant (as I

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repeatedly pointed out) was always only the realm of what is thought [des Gedachten]

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;cV-1-d in general what is capable of being thought [zu .Denkenden], and not the occurrence at any particular time, or indeed in general, of particular acts of tl_,.ought. 4

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But what if we avoid this misunderstanding and accept that when Natorp claims that Plato's ideas are primarily elements in the nature of thought and knowledge, he does not mean, and it does not follow, that the ideas are, mental

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entities or dependent on mental entities? What is there positively to recommend the transcendental interpretation? It is, arguably, based on a genuine insight.

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For "l!"hile, obviously, Plato's ideas are not dependent on particular minds and thinl