What the forms are not: Plato on conceptualism in Parmenides 132b–c

Abstract

How comes [the mind] to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety?Locke (Essay II.1. ii)1 For why the Theory of Forms is not a conceptualist theory of universals see for instance Cherniss (1944) pp. 214-216. That Socrates' suggestion in this part of the text amounts to conceptualism is defended, for example, by Allen (1983) and Helmig (2007), among many others, and seems to be the dominant view. One exception is the view defended in Bossi (2005), which I discuss in §2.2 The Parmenides is an immensely rich dialogue, and all of its difficulties cannot be addressed in one paper. I set aside speculation about the target of Plato's anti-conceptualism, as well as questions about the dramatic and philosophical allusions or qualifications Plato might intend in making Parmenides the main interlocutor in this dialogue. I also set aside the question of whether the Parmenides of this dialogue is deploying a sincere criticism of the Theory of Forms. 3 The language of numerical and predicational unity belongs to Curd (1986). I will use 'unity' and 'oneness' interchangeably. The language of 'bearing' and 'acquiring' a Form, or 'bearing', 'holding', and 'expressing' a predicate is also deliberately ambiguous so as to not beg questions.