A01=Mary Margaret McCabe
Absurdity
Ambiguity
Analogy
Antithesis
Aristotle
Author_Mary Margaret McCabe
Begging the question
Cambridge change
Category=QDHA
Cebes
Charmides (dialogue)
Concept
Conflation
Contradiction
Counterexample
Cratylus
Dialectic
Dialectician
Eo ipso
Epistemology
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Existence
Explanation
Fallacy
First principle
Generosity
Hypothesis
Idealism
Identity (philosophy)
Individual
Individuation
Inference
Inherence
Inquiry
Materialism
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
Monism
Natural kind
Nominalism
Objectivity (philosophy)
Ontological commitment
Ontology
Parmenides
Phaedrus (dialogue)
Phenomenon
Philebus
Philosopher
Philosophy
Plato's Problem
Premise
Premises
Princeton University Press
Principle
Principle of individuation
Protagoras
Reality
Reason
Relativism
Richard Sorabji
Socratic
Sophist
Subjectivism
Suggestion
Teleology
The Soul of the World
Theaetetus (dialogue)
Theory
Theory of Forms
Thought
Timaeus (dialogue)
Understanding
Verb
Zeno's paradoxes
Product details
- ISBN 9780691029399
- Weight: 510g
- Dimensions: 197 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 31 Oct 1999
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Contradicting the long-held belief that Aristotle was the first to discuss individuation systematically, Mary Margaret McCabe argues that Plato was concerned with what makes something a something and that he solved the problem in a radically different way than did Aristotle. McCabe explores the centrality of individuation to Plato's thinking, from the Parmenides to the Politicus, illuminating Plato's later metaphysics in an exciting new way. Tradition associates Plato with the contrast between the particulars of the sensible world and transcendent forms, and supposes that therein lies the center of Plato's metaphysical universe. McCabe rebuts this view, arguing that Plato's thinking about individuals--which informs all his thought--comes to focus on the tension between "generous" or complex individuals and "austere" or simple individuals. In dialogues such as the Theaetetus and the Timaeus Plato repeatedly poses the question of individuation but cannot provide an answer. Later, in the Sophist, the Philebus, and the Politicus, Plato devises what McCabe calls the "mesh of identity," an account of how individuals may be identified relative to each other.
The mesh of identity, however, fails to explain satisfactorily how individuals are unified or made coherent. McCabe asserts that individuation may be absolute--and she questions philosophy's longtime reliance on Aristotle's solution.
Mary Margaret McCabe is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at King's College, London. She is the author of Plato on Punishment (California) and co-editor (with Christopher Gill) of Form and Argument in Late Plato (Oxford).
