Abstract

Flux and the Forms is an inquiry into the metaphysical and epistemological motivations which drive Plato to hypothesizing the middle period theory of Forms. Various related interpretations of Plato's motivation to posit Forms are considered and rejected and suggestions are made and developed for a more faithful reading of the texts. ;Chapter One locates the origin of a certain conception of Plato's motivation to posit Forms in G. E. L. Owen's seminal paper "A Proof in the Peri Ideon." Owen argues that Plato posits Forms as a means of dissolving referential problems associated with incomplete predications. I argue against Owen that a concern with incomplete predication is not central to the argument of the Peri Ideon, and that Plato's concern is with the mutable nature of the sensible world. ;In Chapter Two I trace the development of Plato's metaphysics from out of the problems, issues, and assumptions found in Socratic inquiry . I argue that Plato can be seen as providing metaphysical underpinnings for many unargued and unanalyzed assumptions which he had inherited from Socrates. ;Chapter Three attacks the view, , that Plato held there to be sensible particulars which possess essential properties in their own right, by being the sort of thing they are, and not in virtue of participating in Forms. F. C. White and Alexander Nehamas are proponents of this view, and both of their readings are considered and rejected. I suggest that there is ample evidence to believe that Plato held to an exclusively "Formist" explanatory scheme. ;Chapter Four traces and analyzes the influence of Heraclitus on Plato's conception of Forms. I argue that Heraclitus' influence on Plato's middle period has been largely ignored to the detriment of our understanding of Plato's middle period theory of Forms, and I examine T. Irvin's and Robert Bolton's understanding of Plato's Heracliteanism. Finally I briefly examine the influence of Parmenides and Anaxagoras on Plato's intellectual development. ;In the Postscript I offer a brief overview of the argument and address historiographical issues raised by my interpretative method.