Plato 2: Opposites Generating Opposites

[koganbot]

dubdobdee asked on yesterday's thread:

isn't the "form of largeness" another way of saying "the idea of size"*

*ie there wouldn't be a separate "form of largeness" and "form of smallness" -- "largeness" is (in this particular context) a synonym for size or scale?

No. Unless I'm misunderstanding, Plato is saying that there is a separate form of largeness

Comments

The Grebt and The Small

[koganbot]

Socrates cocked his head on one side and listened.

"You have spoken up like a man," he said, "but you do not observe the difference between the present doctrine and what we said before. We said before that in the case of concrete things opposites are generated from opposites; whereas now we say that the abstract concept of an opposite can never become its own opposite, either in us or in the world about us. Then we were talking about things which possess opposite qualities and are called after them, but now about those very opposites the immanence of which gives the things their names. We say that these latter can never be generated from each other."

OK, wait a cotton pickin' minute. Where did you say that the opposites you were discussing were only the qualities of concrete things? [Looks.] Hah! I can't find it. Er. Hmmm. Maybe this: "Do not consider the question with regard to men only, but with regard to all animals and plants, and, in short, to all things which may be said to have birth." OK. I guess. Being born and dying makes you less than immanent. (Def'n of "immanent" I'm going with is "inherent" and "self-sufficient.")

So there are two types of greatness and two types of smallness. There is greatness that is a quality of a concrete thing (presumably they're all alterable and mutable) and there is smallness that is also a quality of a concrete thing. But then there is greatness as an abstract concept and smallness as an abstract concept; and being immanent, neither would be generated by the other, since they don't get generated. Rather, they do the generating (the text doesn't say this, actually, but it would likely be Plato's reasoning). So, the greatness in a concrete thing - a greatness that can become smaller but then the smallness can in turn regenerate greatness - is generated as a quality of that concrete thing from that thing's (previous) quality of smallness, but is fundamentally caused by its participation in the abstract concept (or form?) of greatness.

This is hard for me to grasp, since greatness, abstract or not, only makes sense when contrasted with something not as great.

Interesting phrases: "Then we were talking about things which possess opposite qualities and are called after them, but now about those very opposites the immanence of which gives the things their names." He seems to be saying that names can only be gotten from an immanent abstraction (is that right, "gotten from"?) (from the abstraction or from its immanence? same dif, I guess) but that the names can be applied to qualities of concrete things. But the names would come from and - is this right to say? - belong to the abstract concepts. [I wonder if the translator is saying "abstract concepts" where other translators might say "ideas"/"forms."]