A syllable consists of separate sounds, but it is not a simple and mechanical sum of these sounds, but a kind of new quality, in the light of which we understand the individual sounds of the syllable (Theaet. 203e, 204a, 205d). There is no going beyond the limits of corporeality, but only the fixation of those general models which form the discrete and mutually isolated moments of this corporeal reality. Nor do I find anything supersensible in those places where it is not a syllable that appears, but a shuttle, in the same generative-model sense of the word (Crat. 389 ab, 390 a), or a bench (R. P. X 596 b, 597 a, c), or a beautiful body (Conv. 210 b; Phaedr. 251a), or a single eidos of the earth's appearance with the diversity and variegation of its individual elements (Phaed. 110d), or a thing in general (Gorg. 503e).

Nor does the matter change in the least in such texts, which refer not merely to the sensual body, but to some phenomena of moral, social, or political life. There is no doctrine of the transcendence of ideas either in the definition of the eidos of the king in terms of more particular moments (Politic. 278e), or in the idea of the constitution of the state (R. P. VIII 544a), or in the eidos of war (Lach. 191d), or in the definition of such concepts as piety (Euthyphr. 6d), beauty (Hipp. Mai. 289 d, 298 b), virtue (Men. 72 c-e), knowledge (Crat. 440 ab; Theaet. 148 d), useful (178 a), justice (R. P. IV 435 b, V 476 a), one and many (X 596 a), greater and lesser (II 369 a), madness (Phaedr. 265e, 266 a), the whole and parts in the more general sense of the word (Politic. 262 ab, 263 b, 306 c), the striving for the whole eidos (R. P. V 475 b), nor in considering everything under two eidos (Politic. 258c). When one of the branches of the logical series is fixed by eidos (258c), there is nothing transcendental about it, just as there is nothing transcendental in saying that "in the idea of a father" there is as yet no reference to the son (Hipp. Mai. 297b), or in the idea of duty, although duty is a kind of good, there is as yet no indication of the good itself (Crat. 418e). A certain number of texts emphasize in an idea its definiteness, form, and clarity of structure, when it is, as it were, a seal for something (Politic. 257c), or when it is impossible to go beyond it (Crat. 439e), or when it embraces a certain set (Phaedr. 273a, 265d; Phileb. 16d), or when one idea is derived from many sensations (Theaet. 184d), or when memory, sensation, knowledge, etc., belong to one and the same idea (Phileb. 60d), or when one idea is guessed at everything (64a), or when good is grasped in one idea (64e), or when reason and pleasure give way to a new idea (67a), or when, as a result of a correct division, one can arrive at one idea (Politic. 262b), or when knowledge constructs one idea out of many (380c), or when one idea out of many is spoken of at all (Legg. XII 965 p).

In total, there are approximately 90 texts with this descriptive model-generative meaning of our two terms, i.e. 16.6%.

7. "Dialectical" meaning

Let us now come to that area of Plato's terminology which we are studying which is the easiest to interpret transcendentally, and which, properly speaking, is the only thing that figures when it comes to Plato's doctrine of ideas. These are the passages from Plato's works in which the philosopher makes use of dialectics, because dialectics requires precise categories, and in the field of exact categories there is always a tendency to isolate the conceivable from all that is material and material. Is Plato to blame for this? An accurate philological examination of the texts, in any case, does not yield certain results here, and the doctrine of hypostatized ideas in the extreme case manifests itself only in the form of a certain kind of possibility, and even then rarely.

In the first place, investigators hasten to establish a doctrine of ideas, ignoring the much more comprehensible and philologically much more reliable interpretations of both our terms, as mere references to certain fields of study. In the Timaeus (35a) the single "idea" is treated as consisting of indivisible, divisible, and mixed being. One never changes and is eternally self-identical; the other is eternally changing and becoming; and the third is a being that is at the same time eternally in itself and is eternally changing, becoming. In the above-mentioned passage of the Timaeus it is stated that out of these three spheres of existence God created one "idea". The question is: what is this idea? Obviously, this is the unification of the three spheres of being into one general sphere of being. Again, I cannot find any "doctrine of ideas" here, since the "idea" in the text is nothing but the sum total of all the principal domains of being. The "idea" here cannot be interpreted in the form of traditional dualism with its metaphysical or conceptual hypostasis, that it includes everything that is becoming, changeable, that is, everything material and material. In exactly the same sense it is necessary to understand the other passages in the same dialogue (50e, 51a, cd, 52a, to which we can also add Soph. 258d), where the 'idea' is also simply the realm of the thinkable, as distinct from the realm of the sensuously becoming, which also forms an 'idea', only with a different content. When it is said that God has divided all things into four eidos, namely, gods, birds, aquatic gods, and terrestrial gods (Tim. 39e-40a), then even in this case "eidos" is not a spiritualistic idea at all, but simply an indication of this or that region of animate beings.

True, each god has his own idea (Phaedr. 253b), but, first, the idea here denotes only one or another specificity of the deity, that is, it has a mythological meaning; and secondly, the demiurge created the "idea (idean) of the divine" from fire, "so that it might be something most brilliant in appearance and most beautiful" (Tim. 40a). Where is the doctrine of ideas as something otherworldly in relation to matter and matter? Nor does that passage from the Phaedrus (246a) which speaks of the philosopher's intention to treat the "idea" of the soul in the form of the myth of the movement of chariots instead of difficult philosophical discussions, has nothing to do with the supposed doctrine of ideas. The "idea" here is merely an "illustration," and not at all the absolute spiritualistic idea which tradition has imposed upon Plato. In the same way, if the dramatist uses the material elements as auxiliary means for the realization of the "idea of the best" (Tim. 46c), then the "idea" here is "appearance", "solidity", "beauty", "lightness", etc., but not an idea in the transcendental-spiritualistic sense of the word.

In all these texts we have just quoted, Plato has his dialectic in mind, but he does not yet reveal it in an explicit sense. We shall now quote passages from Plato which have as their object a conscious dialectical doctrine; but here it is hardly necessary to interpret "eidos and ideas" as ordinary logical categories. Such are the passages from the Sophist (255 cd, 261 d) and Parmenides (149e, 157e, 158c, 159e, 160a). In the "Sophist" we are talking about the categories of identity, difference, rest, movement and being, and in the indicated passages from the "Parmenides" - about greatness and smallness, about the whole and parts, about the boundless becoming of pure multiplicity, about similar and dissimilar. In the same way, to trace all that is scattered to a single idea, so as not to leave it in a discrete and therefore incomprehensible state, but also to comprehend the ability to divide the general generic concept into particular species and ideas (Phaedr. 265 de, 273 e, 277 bc; Soph. 253 d, 254 c) is, according to Plato, a specific feature of dialectics; And thus the one and the many, the general, the particular and the singular, the genus and the species, are here simply dialectical categories, that is, above all purely logical categories. It goes without saying that Plato's whole dialectic is not subjective idealism, but the only objective idealism that he understands. However, Plato's objective being itself does not consist of ideas alone. Ideas here are only one of the infinite aspects of reality itself, they are certain methods of its comprehension, but not of it itself.

8. Texts that allow for transcendental interpretation

Next, we will enumerate those texts from Plato that allow the interpretation of ideas as a special kind of reality. However, this assumption is by no means obligatory and does not have complete reliability. Strictly speaking, the "idea" in these texts is rather one of the aspects of reality than the only permissible reality itself. These texts belong almost exclusively to the Republic.

Here the doctrine of the good develops, which embraces all kinds of being as if at one point, and which therefore gives everything the power to see and to be visible, that is, to be subject and object (VI 607a). Dialectically, this means that if there is distinctiveness, then there is also indistinguishability. However, the very fact that Plato's good is "above essence" (509c) shows that it is also above all ideas, both subjective and objective. Therefore, even if Plato taught about the reality of ideas, then neither these ideas nor their reality are at all for him the last, highest and final full-fledged being. Every thing is understood on the basis of some other thing and with the help of its own idea inherent only to it. For Plato, the good is such an all-embracing and condensed being that he directly calls it a "presuppositionless principle" (arche anypothetos). If you like, here you can find the doctrine of ideas as a special kind of reality. But it is clear that the reality of ideas in this case is something secondary. The eidos of which Plato speaks here occupy a middle place between this presuppositionless principle and those principles which require their own substantiation, their own "fundamentals" (R. P. VI 510b-511c).

The only thing that must be accepted, both philologically and philosophically, is the doctrine of ideas as generative models or as methods of constructing things. In fact, the old Platonic idea is carried out here that if we recognize the existence of a thing, it means that this thing has some properties that distinguish it from all other things, that it has some meaning of its own, that it is precisely it. After all, if we call this plant a birch, it means that we know the birch in general. Not knowing what a birch is in general, we cannot call this tree a birch, because this birch is only the embodiment of manifestation and a singularity of a certain general kind. In these cases Plato uses the expressions 'greatness-in-itself', 'smallness-in-itself', 'even-in-itself', 'odd-in-itself', 'beautiful-in-itself', 'being-in-itself', etc., etc. In some places he himself calls these objects in themselves 'ideas', but it is clear that ideas here do not designate a special being existing separately from things, but this being itself, these things themselves. By making this addition "in himself," Plato simply wants to define the condition of the possibility of thinking and cognizing a given thing, without which this thinking and cognition are impossible.