Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/15

 NEW SERIES. No. 45.] [JANUARY, 1903. MIND

A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY I. ON THE FIRST PART OF PLATO'S PAR- MBNIDES. BY A. E. TAYLOE. I THINK I shall not stand alone among readers of Plato when I say that I was a little startled by Mr. Benn's article on "The Later Ontology of Plato," in MIND, N.S., No. 41. The interpretation given in that article to the Parmenidez and TimcBus was, from my own point of view, so revolu- tionary, and yet the known learning and ability of the inter- preter so great, that my first impulse was to rub my eyes and ask myself whether, in the language of Plato himself,. I had been " dreaming with my eyes open " in all my previous study of the dialogues. As I read on, however, I thought I could detect one or two significant indications that the learned author of The Greek Philosophers had for once written, as the psalmist spoke, in his haste. For instance, at page 40 of Mr. Benn's article I read of the " refusal " of Plato in the Timc&us, "to acknowledge an independent and isolated existence of the Ideas "^ But in the Timceus itself (51 B-52 A) I found the strongest and most emphatic declaration of the "separation," in some sense or other, of Idea and sensible thing to be met with in the whole of the dialogues. So 1 1 entirely fail to see how the second footnote on the same page, according to which Plato would " not have agreed with Descartes . . . that the idea of perfection involves that of existence," is to be reconciled with Sophistes, 245 d, TO yfvo^fvov del yeyovev oXoi/ wore oi/'re oixriav ovre yeveo-iv a>$ ovo~av del Trpo&ayopeveiv TO oov fv Tols ovo~i p-rf Tidlvra KT.