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.

5. Texts with a vague meaning

The instability of Plato's terminology is such that it is necessary to note a mass of texts about which it is impossible even to say which shade of the previous one we have in mind here. I would beware even of understanding Plato's specific expression cat'eide diairein as an indication of the division of concepts. Indeed, when it is said, for example, of the two eidos megethos and smicrotes ("greatness" and "smallness"; Parai. 149a) or about eidos apeiron (158c), then it is probably the concepts that are meant. However, in view of the extreme terminological variety, of course, in such cases it is often permissible in Plato to divide not into concepts in the proper sense of the word, but into some images, ideas, things, etc.

In 1930, I counted in 1930 about 100 such texts in Plato with an indefinitely-general meaning of both terms, that is, 19.8%. At the present time, however, I think such calculations are hardly possible in the exact sense, since in the forty years that have passed since then I have found an incredible variety in Plato's use of his terms, so that in science we do not yet possess such a subtle methodological apparatus as to take into account all this diversity and calculate it mathematically.

6. Model-generative value

Now, finally, it is necessary to touch upon the meaning of our two terms which can no longer be reduced to material or only corporeal significance, but which in Plato speaks of pure ideality - this meaning is usually inflated for Plato to incredible proportions by virtue of age-old tradition. I will now list these few examples; But it is necessary to warn the reader that he will be very disappointed if he tries to find pure transcendence everywhere. It is clear that an idea in this sense is not a thing. However, it was only the neo-Kantians who discovered the regulative, or transcendental, character of this ideality (although also with great exaggeration). At the present time, after several decades of work on Plato, I have come to the conclusion that what Plato is preaching here is what might be called a generative model. An idea is quite transcendental if it is taken in an abstract form, but even if every thing is taken in isolation from other things (this table or this chair), then every thing will be transcendental. Is it worth doing, however, and is it not empty nonsense?

Let us take Plato's idea in its purest ideal form. It will turn out to be nothing more than a generative model of this or that thing, this or that sphere of existence. This alone introduces something material or corporeal into Plato's idea. With the greatest intensity of idealism, we could find in Plato's ideas no more than the laws of material being. It is here that it turns out that Plato is precisely an ancient, and not a medieval or modern European philosopher; it turns out that, for all his idealism, he is chained to corporeal material reality.