Plato's Individuals Mary Margaret McCabe

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCabe, Mary Margaret

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 339 pages)

Edition:

2. print., and 1. paperback print

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. Princeton Univ. Press 1999

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Contradicting the long-held belief that Aristotle was the first to discuss individuation systematically, Mary Margaret McCabe argues that Plato was concerned with what makes something a something and that he solved the problem in a radically different way than did Aristotle. McCabe explores the centrality of individuation to Plato's thinking, from the Parmenides to the Politicus, illuminating Plato's later metaphysics in an exciting new way. Tradition associates Plato with the contrast between the particulars of the sensible world and transcendent forms, and supposes that therein lies the center of Plato's metaphysical universe. McCabe rebuts this view, arguing that Plato's thinking about individuals--which informs all his thought--comes to focus on the tension between "generous" or complex individuals and "austere" or simple individuals. In dialogues such as the Theaetetus and the Timaeus Plato repeatedly poses the question of individuation but cannot provide an answer. Later, in the Sophist, the Philebus, and the Politicus, Plato devises what McCabe calls the "mesh of identity," an account of how individuals may be identified relative to each other. The mesh of identity, however, fails to explain satisfactorily how individuals are unified or made coherent. McCabe asserts that individuation may be absolute--and she questions philosophy's longtime reliance on Aristotle's solution.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

One. The Problem of Individuation

Part One. Preliminary: Plato's Middle Period Metaphysics

Two. Particulars

Three. Forms

Part Two. The Problem Emerges

Four. The One and the Others

Five. Bundles and Lumps

Six. Slices and Stuffs

Seven. Being and Talking

Part Three. Two Answers

Eight. Resolving Relations

Nine. The Unity of Persons

Ten. Conclusion

Appendix A. On the Order of the Dialogues

Appendix B. Arguments from First Principles

Select Bibliography

Index Locorum

Index of Persons

General Index

Notes:

Bibliographie S.[315] - 323

Includes bibliographical references (pages [315]-323) and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691029399

0691029393

OCLC:

1273307591