|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: be said with truth that the conception of the Idea predominates in the
first half of the Dialogues, which, according to the order adopted in this
work, ends with the Republic, the 'conception of Mind' and a way of
speaking more in agreement with modern terminology, in the latter half.
But there is no reason to suppose that Plato's theory, or, rather, his
various theories, of the Ideas underwent any definite change during his
period of authorship. They are substantially the same in the twelfth Book
of the Laws as in the Meno and Phaedo; and since the Laws were written in
the last decade of his life, there is no time to which this change of
opinions can be ascribed. It is true that the theory of Ideas takes
several different forms, not merely an earlier and a later one, in the
|
