AS1 Metaphysics In Comparative Perspective

Give an account of Plato's Eidos. Provide an alternative explanation of how we could understand
common traits in multiple things. Critique your own explanation.

Plato’s concept of the Eidos intends to encapsulate Being itself, and essentially defines the
Being of the ideas we can contemplate as humans.
The distinguishing attribute of the Eidos from these, however, is that it is not simply an idea or a
thought, but rather their ideal form, which exists apart from the perceptions which we gain
through the senses. In Plato’s view, sensory perceptions (which he calls the “sensible”1) are
clouded by appearances of coming-and-going and change. In contrast to this, the Eidos is
permanent and therefore transcendent over time-fixed occurrences.

An illustrative example of this is the notion of Beauty.

While the senses can grasp physical objects, such as a beautiful person or song, Plato
concluded that these refer to the Eidos that is Beauty itself, an exclusively mental object. While
the senses may pick up on traces of Beauty, he suggests that its Eidos only exists in a “noetic
space”. Therefore, some songs, people, or poems, are recognisably ‘beautiful’ when seen or
heard, but they refer to Beauty itself, which exists separately despite its consistency throughout.
So, It is the relationship between the sensible and the noetic space which is the main point of
interest for me in Plato’s descriptions. While it is said to be a somewhat flexible interaction in his
view, the sensible and intelligible are distinguished, if not separated, in that beautiful things only
partake of Beauty itself. Furthermore, it is specified that the human body is somewhat of an
obstacle or limitation — the opinions of the senses are at a lower level of understanding than
the sciences of the intellect. This implies therefore that the physical objects, which we
experience through the senses, are only participative of the greater Eidos, or mental objects,
which they refer to.

An interesting reference point given for this is Mathematics and Geometry. The intellectual ideal
of a triangle, for example, is the one which always has angles adding up to 180 degrees,
whereas no such ideal shape exists in the physical world. For its focus on higher ideals;
intelligible objects which cannot be perceived through the senses, Plato lauds mathematics as a
practice that “directs the soul upwards2” in its use as a teaching method. It is thus through the
permanence and consistency of the noetic space, in which these ideals exist, that one can have
a far greater degree of knowledgeable – scientific – certainty. In contrast, the certainty of the
sensible is relatively nonexistent, as its opinions change just like the impermanence it displays.

Something notable of this concept is its varying applicability to our lives. Take the notion that our
mental reference of a ‘dog’, for example, is something greater than the individual dogs of the
physical world. This is quite useful: we can often label dogs as dogs, and not-dogs as not-dogs
with confidence, even given their various sensible differences. Something like species, which
Eidos is often translated into, is a concept that is useful and practically applied to human life. On

1
Grondin, J. (2012). Introduction to metaphysics:from Parmenides to Levinas. New York: Columbia Univ. Pr.[pp.28-29]
2
Grondin, J. (2012). Introduction to metaphysics:from Parmenides to Levinas. New York: Columbia Univ. Pr.[pp.35]
the other hand, however, there are some non-scientific notions, such as Beauty, which are also
described in terms of Eidos but are a much greater struggle to categorise so concretely.

It is on this basis that I will propose the Buddhist view of common traits throughout multiple
things: namely, that these perceived differences are abstract and illusionary3. Furthermore, the
intellect they refer to is one with the senses that perceive them.
Regarding Plato’s “sensible”, Buddhists similarly value the notion that all sense perceptions are
impermanent and therefore illusory. It is through the noetic space (as differentiated from the
sensible by Plato), however, that these impermanent senses can be drawn upon; and
conversely, through these impermanent senses, that the intellect has any point of reference for
its own Being. If one is to separate them at all, it can at least be said that the ‘two’ must be one
for any ‘idea’ to arise, and more so for one to contemplate what these ‘ideas’ are. As this
stands, it is necessary that the noetic space of the mind is equally as impermanent and illusory
as the perceptions of the sensible. To clarify the two’s non-separation, Buddhists often propose
that the body(sensible) is just the mind(noetic) and the mind is just the body.4

Therefore, when we label common traits throughout various things, it is simply a method of
categorisation, which intellectualises our human experience. Ideas such as Beauty and
categories like species do not exist in themselves (outside of this experience). Regarding the
Eidos, it is not this mental reference point alone that is more real, or encapsulating of Being
when separate from its sensible manifestations. Regardless of the mental reference or the
physical occurrence, the real situation, of ‘Beauty’ or of ‘Dogs’, is in the oneness of the
conceptual and the concrete5. Our sense perceptions and intellect working together as one is
how we invent these categories to begin with.

To critique this alternative explanation, however, it can be said that the focus of Plato’s Eidos is
its role in intellectual knowledge. While the concepts encapsulated by the Eidos can be reduced
to abstractions, it is their differentiation which allows us at least to navigate the world without
overwhelming confusion, and at its best to gain confident scientific consensus about the
workings of the physical world; even of the mind and body themselves. Seeing these concepts
as abstractions on some level disregards the human intellect, where Buddhist wisdom is gained
not through thinking or intellectual activity, but through the natural intuition of physical practice.
From a platonic perspective, this could be seen as impractical, and not a valid route to the
‘science’ separate from opinion which he values.
Both the Buddhist perspective and Platonist perspective attempt to explore that beyond human
intellectual capability, however, and the repeatedly translated and interpreted accounts of both
perspectives may not convey their true wisdom, which both believe cannot be transmitted
through the limits of language.

3
Smith, K. (2022). Abruptly Dogen. California: Punctum Books [pp.15]
4
Smith, K. (2022). Abruptly Dogen. California: Punctum Books [pp.16]
5
Cross, C. and Gudō Wafu Nishijima (2006). Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Book 1. Booksurge, Lcc. [(Chapter 11: 有時
Existence-Time)(Note.38) pp.96]
Bibliography

1. Grondin, J. (2012). Introduction to metaphysics:from Parmenides to Levinas. New York: Columbia Univ. Pr
[pp.28-29]
“Plato not only knows one must start with the “sensible”(a word that has meaning only since Plato), he
also knows it is difficult to separate oneself from it when it comes time to think in general terms”
2. Grondin, J. (2012). Introduction to metaphysics:from Parmenides to Levinas. New York: Columbia Univ. Pr
[pp.35]
“Mathematics has the pedagogical merit that it “directs the soul upwards” and compels it to think of sizes
that cannot be perceived through the senses.

3. Dōgen and Smith, K. (2022). Abruptly Dogen. California: Punctum Books‌

“The Heart Sutra says that form is emptiness, and so emptiness is also form.”
4. Dōgen and Smith, K. (2022). Abruptly Dogen. California: Punctum Books‌
“Everyone is so different. Those with minds are beings. Those without minds are also beings, since beings
are mind. So all minds are beings, and all beings have buddhanature.”
5. Cross, C. and Gudō Wafu Nishijima (2006). Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Book 1. Booksurge, Lcc. [(Chapter 11:
有時Existence-Time)(Note.38) pp.96]
“It is not that the momentary passing of time is spring; rather, because spring is the momentary passing of
time, passing time has already realized the truth in the here and now of springtime.”
[Note.38]: “In the first clause, passing time and spring are separated; “the momentary passing of time”
means the concept of the season spring, and “spring” means the concrete individual situations of
spring—flowers blooming, birds singing, et cetera. In the second clause, Master Dogen suggested the real
springtime as the oneness of the conceptual and the concrete.”