100 Influential Philosophers - Sayed Badar Zaman Shah

7 The 100 Most Influential Philosophers of All Time 7
resemblance. Each form is approximated by the sensible
particulars that display the property in question. Thus,
Achilles and Helen are imperfect imitations of the
Beautiful, which itself is maximally beautiful. On this interpretation,
the “pure being” of the forms consists of their
being perfect exemplars of themselves and not exemplars
of anything else. Unlike Helen, the form of the Beautiful
cannot be said to be both beautiful and not beautiful—
similarly for Justice, Equality, and all the other forms.
This “super-exemplification” interpretation of participation
provides a natural way of understanding the notion
of the pure being of the forms and such self-predication
sentences as “the Beautiful is beautiful.” Yet it is absurd. In
Plato’s theory, forms play the functional role of universals,
and most universals, such as greenness, generosity, and
largeness, are not exemplars of themselves. (Greenness
does not exhibit hue; generosity has no one to whom to
give; largeness is not a gigantic object.) Moreover, it is
problematic to require forms to exemplify only themselves,
because there are properties, such as being and unity, that
all things, including all forms, must exhibit. (So Largeness
must have a share of Being to be anything at all, and it must
have a share of Unity to be a single form.) Plato was not
unaware of the severe difficulties inherent in the superexemplification
view; indeed, in the Parmenides and the
Sophist he became the first philosopher to demonstrate
these problems.
The first part of the Parmenides depicts the failure of
the young Socrates to maintain the super-exemplification
view of the forms against the critical examination of the
older philosopher Parmenides. Since what Socrates there
says about forms is reminiscent of the assertions of the
character Socrates in the middle dialogues Symposium,
Phaedo, and Republic, the exchange is usually interpreted
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