The Problem of Universals
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Plato and his argument in The Meno: the doctrine of recollection and the idea of metempsychosis
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However, let us first examine Plato's doctrine further. Since meanings cannot be copied from experience, then there must be some other source of our knowledge of them. Plato calls meanings, Ideas or Forms (translations of the Greek, logos) and he claims that Forms are abstract entities not located in space and time, and our experience of them explains how we can have knowledge of the general terms of our language. He does not believe that our knowledge of Forms could be derived from our experience during our life-time. He is, therefore, led to conclude that we must have be born with this knowledge. If we are born with the knowledge, then we must have pre-existed our birth. Here is an indicator of the kind of conclusions that Plato is prepared to draw regarding the existence and nature of the soul as a consequence of this argument. Plato: The Meno: "Men's souls are immortal. Souls pass through death and are reborn, but they are never really annihilated. The soul, since it is immortal, has been born many times, and has seen all things both here and in the other world. It has already learnt everything that is. So we should not be surprised if we discover that the soul can recall the knowledge of virtue or any other matter that it formerly possessed. Nature forms one whole, and the soul has already learned everything, so when a man has recalled a single part of knowledge – that is, what we commonly call learnt it – there is no reason why he should not go on to discover everything else, especially if he is courageous and does not tire in his researches; for discovery and learning are in fact both forms of recollection." This is called the doctrine of recollection.
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Contents of
The Problem of Universals
1 Hume, Empiricism - that ideas are copies of impressions
2 Plato and his argument in The Meno: the doctrine of recollection and the idea of metempsychosis
3 Plato - forms, universals, ideas - the problem of universals
4 Universals and realism
5 Empiricism and nominalism - Hobbes
6 The problem of participation and the infiinte regress in the third man argument
7 Wittgenstein and his attack on universals
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