In fact, the very motley and ill-formed semantics of the two basic terms which are usually regarded as central to Plato's doctrine of ideas, namely, the terms eidos and idea, are striking. Attention is also drawn to the surprising rarity for the entire Platonic text of those cases where the term idea is used. There are only 96 such cases for all of Plato's authentic dialogues. This is an amazingly small figure. But there are also not so many texts containing the term eidos, namely only 408. These two figures alone, before any consideration of each text separately, make us suspect that these terms are hardly technical for Plato in the philosophical sense of the word. But it seems even more striking that even among this small number of texts which point to the "idea," the vast majority have no specific meaning in Plato.
The statistics of these terms were once studied by Konstantin Ritter. Ritter's research is not the only one. Personally, when I was young, I decided to revise all these statistics of K. Ritter in their entirety, introducing various new principles of Plato's research for that time, and I believe that K. Ritter's theoretical attitudes are too abstract and formalistic. I will now quote some data from this old study of mine,* but I do not at all think that my qualification of each particular text of Plato is absolutely infallible, and I admit a wide possibility of other interpretations. On the contrary, many of Plato's texts are now interpreted quite differently by me, and I consider my former statistics to be generally outdated. It can only be a question of putting forward the most general semantic lines.
* A.F.Losev, Essays on ancient symbolism and mythology, vol. I, Moscow, 1930, pp. 135-281.
3. External, internal, external-internal meaning of terms
With an external-sensory meaning, according to my calculations at that time, there are from 63 cases to 99, with a more probable figure of 83, that is, 16.5% (of the total number of 504). It is very characteristic that both of our terms refer for the most part to a living body, denoting either its figure, or its frame, or some of its other physical properties. Of the 27 texts with an externally sensual eidos, 21 refers to the human and animal body, four are about the beautiful body of a boy (Charm. 154 d, 159 e; Lys. 222 a; Phaed. 73 d), two texts on the appearance of Socrates (Men. 80a; Conv. 215 b), two texts on the appearance of the androgyne (189e), one text each very expressively on the flexible body of Eros (196 a), on the Hippocentaurs and Chimeras (Phaedr. 229 d), on the physical constitution of one of the horses of the soul (253 d), on the appearance of people in the sky (R. P. X 618 b; Phaedr. 249b), on the state of the soul in the body (Phaedr. 73a, 87a, 92b), two texts simply about the naked body of man (Prot. 352a; Theaet. 162 b). The remaining six cases with the external-sensual eidos refer to mathematical figures (sensual, R. P. VI 510 d), to stones and animals (Theaet. 157 bc), to chiaroscuro (Soph. 266 c), to the "eidos of the part" (Tim. 30 c), to the appearance of the temple (Critias. 116 d) and the country (118 a). Of the 14 cases with idea in the external-sensory sense, 11 also refer to the body (Charm. 157d, 158a, 175d; Prot. 315 e; R. P. IX 588 c; Politic. 291 b; Alcib. I 119c and partly Tim. 70 c, 71 a). Of these, about the boy in Charm., about Chimera and Scylla in R. R., texts with an external-sensible idea - about the appearance of the earth (Phaed. 108 d, 109 b) and about the coin, seal, etc. (Politic. 289 b). At present, it seems to me surprising that many researchers take very little account of this huge factor in Plato's terminology. If these two terms are really specific to Plato's doctrine of ideas, then, in any case, the texts already quoted do not say so at all. Here we have in mind the most ordinary physical body, predominantly alive and animate, and predominantly in one respect or another surprising or remarkable. However, I cannot find any "doctrine of ideas" here.
The external-sensuous meaning of the two terms is opposed to the internal meaning, when both terms we are studying denote an internal state, quality, property, action or organization. According to rough estimates, both of our terms taken together are contained in 50 texts, that is, in 9.9% (of 504). What is meant here is what Plato calls the "soul," understanding now its well-known faculties, now various separate states, pleasures, vices, etc. To say that both these terms, in such their internal use, can in any degree resemble the "doctrine of ideas," is also absolutely impossible.
In Plato, furthermore, one can observe such a category of the meaning of these terms, which combines in itself an indication of both an internal property and its external manifestation. Texts with such an internal-external value, again in an approximate calculation, we find 74, that is, 14.8%. Here, too, we have in mind mainly the soul, but already externally manifested, for example, in its various forms during the celestial journey, here the gods appear in their various forms; For example, dialectics, rhetoric, speech, and syllable in their various external qualities and manifestations appear here. It is said about the imitation of some object, as a result of which it also manifests itself externally in one way or another. I do not find any "doctrine of ideas" here either.
4. Mythological, natural-philosophical and conceptual meaning
More saturated in its content is the meaning of both terms which I call mythological-natural-philosophical, and which, obviously, is the result of the greater complexity of the same internal-external meaning. In total, I find 32 such texts in Plato, that is, 6.3%; and all of them are contained in the Timaeus: the "cubic eidos" of earth, the eidos of water, each eidos of the body has depth, the pyramidal eidos of fire, fire passes into the "idea" of air, and so on.
A comparatively large section of the semantics under consideration in our country is the meaning of both terms in which Plato abstracts himself from both the internal content of objects and their external expression, and fixes simply the object as such, that is, its most general meaning or, if you like, its concept. The total number of such texts in the conditions of an approximate calculation of software is 26.9%. As the most typical example here, one could cite the famous dialectia of concepts in the Sophist (219 a, cd, 220 a, e, 222 e, 223 c, 225 c, 226 c, e, 235 cd, 236 c, 264 c, 266 a). It speaks of eidos, that is, of the concept of being (Crat. 386e; Phaed. 79 ab, d; R. P. VI 509 (d), causes (Phaed. 97 e, 100 b; Tim. 68 e), words, reasoning, speech (Phaedr. 265 cd; R. P. II 363 c, 376 c, III 392 a, 396 bc, 397 bc, V 449 c). Probably, something like a concept is "eidos" and "ideas" in such texts that deal with the life of the state (Politic. 291e, 304e; Legg. IV 714 b, V 735 a, VIII 842 b), war (R. P. IV 434 b; Legg. I 629 c), people (VI 759 a, X 908 d), motion and change (R. P. V 454 c; Legg. VII 814 de), virtue and goodness (R. P. II 357 c, IV 445 a), work (II 358 a), illegality (III 406 c), sorcery (III 413a). Nowhere in these texts is there any hint of a "doctrine of ideas." The terms we are studying are used here in the most primitive sense of the word, such as "species", "variety", "area", "sphere". Even such an understanding as "sense" or "meaning" is hardly applicable here; And in most cases it is absolutely impossible to talk about the meaning of "concept" here. All these are concepts, but in a primitive and philistine sense, and not in a scientific or scientific-logical sense.