Logical Quantification and Plato's Theory of Forms

Authors

  • John Ian Boongaling Department of Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18012/arf.2016.24905

Keywords:

being, false statements, negation, Plato, possibility of knowledge, quantification, Sophist, theory of Forms

Abstract

Contemporary philosophers find Plato's discussion in the Sophist about the problem of negation and falsity as interesting and difficult. It is interesting in the sense that in this dialogue, and others that are considered by Plato scholars to belong to the late period dialogues, we seem to find a Plato who makes less use of the theory of Forms (a distinguishing feature of the middle period dialogues). It is difficult in the sense that It invites us to use the notational convention of modern symbolic logic to provide a coherent picture of Plato's view. Charlton prefers a Platonizing Interpretation on the issue and quantifies over Forms (and not over concrete objects). Given this context, the paper inquires whether logical quantification is the correct (or at the very least, the best) route to pursue in order to better understand the Forms. It will also discuss the crucial role of Plato's theory of Forms in the middle and late period dialogues in relation to knowledge and its very possibility.

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Author Biography

John Ian Boongaling, Department of Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños

John Ian K. Boongaling is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños. His researches include topics in analytic philosophy, Kant, Wittgenstein, and Quine. His research interests also include epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of the social sciences, and the philosophy of law.

References

BROWN, J. R. Philosophy of Mathematics: A Contemporary Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008.

CHARLTON, W. Plato’s Later Platonism. In: TAYLOR, C. C. W. ed. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Vol. XIII. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 111-133, 1995.

PLATO. Plato, Complete Works. J. M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson eds. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997.

QUINE, W. V. O. From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-philosophical Essays. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1961.

QUINE, W. V. O. Word and Object. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1960.

RYLE, G. Plato’s Progress. London: Cambridge University Press, 1966.

STOUGH, C. L. “Forms and Explanation in the Phaedo.” Phronesis, 21 (1): pp. 1-30, 1976.

Published

2015-08-15

How to Cite

Boongaling, J. I. (2015). Logical Quantification and Plato’s Theory of Forms. Aufklärung, 2(2), p.11–26. https://doi.org/10.18012/arf.2016.24905