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Definitions: Eidos/Ontos On
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“Eidos” is Greek for ideas/forms. It does not have a direct translation into English, often passing between “thought of ideas” and “perception of forms.”
“Ousia” is Greek for substance.
“Ontos on” is Greek for the “really real,” or the “really being” (really “on”). When one has a theory of being (ontology) one postulates a theory of what is “really real.” (ref: “Ontology”)
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Theory of Being
What is the one substance (ousia) of the universe? What is “really being” (ontos on). How does one make a theory concerning everything being. For Plato, like Aristotle, this was a matter of subdividing the universe into “eidos” (forms seen, ideas thought) and “matter” (a common “thing” from which “things” are made). Aristotle chose matter as the “primary” of these two, in that matter pre-exists the form which we perceive of it. This seems logical: there is the “matter” of the tree existing in the real (ontos on) and in perceiving it we apprehend its form with our senses, with our eyes, nose, ears, mouth and skin, after the matter has finished “being” itself. In Kantian terms forms are “phenomena” (observable) while matter is “noumenon” (unseen, invisible, in-itself and not perceived). Unlike Kant Aristotle maintained that we could know the “noumenon,” the invisible, through “ontology.” (ref: “ontology”)
For Plato it is slightly more complex. It is true that there is matter, and that there is a form which the matter gives off (a thought, a perception, an eidos). However, if we are to have any true knowledge of the world we must assume that our “forms” contain in them something of the reality (ontos) of matter. We must assume that they are not just perceptions, but have access to the real (ontic). If our forms did not have something real of matter in them, then we would not have any true knowledge of the world.
Very simply, if there is a set of things called “trees” then each tree must belong equally to the set of things called “trees.” This “equal belonging” is the “one being” of trees, the one “Tree Being” by which all other trees may be defined. In this way we can develop a series of categories into which things belong (and other things do not). The word “tree” refers to trees and not to “rocks.” The word “thought” refers to thoughts and not “movements.” If we are able to have knowledge of this essence, this “one being” after the fact (in thought) as a kind of blueprint for the thing, as a sort of “way of knowing it,” then we might assume that this blueprint pre-existed matter on the other side. How could nature produce something which acted on us as a form, without a cause, without already knowing the form? Surely, that which has an action in us (a perception of matter) has a cause, a place of origin (a triadic logic, every 1) cause proceeds to its 2) action through a 3) mean point). This active principle, if there is an essential form, must have known this form before the matter which filled this form came into being. In this case the “eidos” proceeds matter, and may be said to be “really real” (ontos on) in a way that matter, and substance is not.
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Space and Time
For Plato and Socrates it is the “idea” (eidos) which is real, and ideas themselves seem to have a kind of existence, a kind of “being” which is separate from our own. In this case there are beings without “matter,” before matter. For Plato, unlike Aristotle, matter could not be held to be the “first action,” the primal substance for beings such as ideas have no “matter” as such. Being is not substance (divided into matter and form) but a matter-substance which is synthesised into forms. In this case the matter-substance must also begin in forms it must have its origin in this singular “form” of beings, the essential ideas which pre-exist all matter, and all forms of perception. It is the task of philosophy then to return the mind to the “real,” the the “eidos” of things, their “essential being” (of themselves). But, if all these things are being (the ideas) what holds these ideas together? For Plato there is one being (eidos) which has three essences. For Aristotle there is one being (ousia/substance) which has two essences (matter and form).
Hence, for Plato “beings” were not only physical, but encompassed the world of matter and forms, both of which originate in the “eidos.” For Aristotle the one being was substance, and this was divided into matter and form. Plato’s “eidos” proceeds matter and form (of they are understood as perceptions). In this case matter is not the substance of forms, and forms are not the substance of matter. They are the same thing being. If two such different things are both being, then the essence of being must be that which enables them to “be” in the same world, to exist to-gether (a gathering of the two into one). To be is to be “in something.” While Aristotle went into the object (essence is in you, matter) Plato maintained that all beings are in something, and these are the essences of the “eidos.” These essences were reduced to “one in three” (rather than the Aristotelian “one as two”: substance divided into matter and form). What was essential to all “eidos,” to all ideas (whether matter of form)? Firstly “space,” secondly “time,” and thirdly the “action” (the original eidos) which develops into the “cause” (our perceptions) through a mean point (matter). Plato, like Newton, held that space and time were “really real” (ontos on) and acted as a receptacle for being, as an “essential super-structure” rather than an “essential sub-stance.”
For a good introduction to Plato general thoughts visit the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Bibliography (Wayfarer Library)
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Vergilius Ferm (ed.)
Philosophical Systems
Plato
The Symposium
Meno
Protagoras
The Last Days of Socrates
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