GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

43*
ETHICS
the particulars which manifest or exemplify them. I
think that Plato was right in taking this view. The reasons
for this opinion belong to metaphysics and cannot be
given here; they arc, however, presented at some length
in my Gvidt to Philosophy. 1
That A Knowledge of Universal is Entailed by the
Recognition of Particulars. Plato maintained that all
men possess by nature a certain knowledge of universal*.
If they did not, they would not, he held, be able to recog-
nize that certain particulars exemplify them. In holding
this view I think that Plato was also right. Let me take as
an example the universal, whiteness, ami ask the question,
" How do we come to know of a particular thing that it is
white? " The answer which would normally be given to this
question is, I think, as follows. When a baby is learning to
talk, a particular white thing is pointed out to it and it
is told, "That is white." Presently, another white thing,
different from the first, is seen and the baby is told, "That,
too, is white." When a number of different white things
has been seen, the baby is supposed to abstract the quality
which is common to each of them, the quality, that is to
say, of being white, to hold it, as it were, in front of his
mind independently of the things which exemplify it,
and so to form the general concept of whiteness. Whiteness
does not, on this view, exist apart from the things that are
white. Whiteness is merely a conception of the mind which
has been formed by abstracting the quality which a number
of white things have in common. Whiteness is for this
reason often called an abstract idea or concept.
Plato would have demurred to this view for the following
reasons! Let us go back to the first occasion on which a
baby sees a white thing and is told, "That is white." Now
either the expression "That is white" was for it a meaningless
noise or it was not If it was for the baby a meaningless
noise, as meaningless as a grunt or a Greek polysyllable,
it would leave no impression of meaning on its mind.
1 See my Gvuh to Philosophy, Chapter X, pp. 262-270.