Plato's Discovery of Predication

FAIN: FT-13220-77

Alexander Nehamas
Princeton University (Princeton, NJ 08540-5228)

To examine Plato's theory of forms which aim at explaining how predication is at all possible, that is, how we can succeed in applying descriptive terms to the world. This question is forced on Plato because he accepted certain metaphysical principles first stated by Parmenides which imply that no more than one word can really apply to any object, while in predication we need to apply many words (and their corresponding properties) to each thing. The theory of Forms is Plato's effort to justify our practice without denying these principles.