Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 4 (Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist)

The transcendental theory of pre-existent ideas, which is discussed chiefly in the Meno, the Phaedo, and the Phaedrus, has given way to a psychological one. This omission is made more significant because he has occasion to speak of memory as the basis of desire. Regarding the "ideas" themselves, he treats them with the same skeptical spirit (15 A, B) that appears in his criticism of them in the Parmenides (131 ff.). He touches on the same difficulties and offers no answer to them. His method of speaking of the analytical and synthetical processes may be compared with his discussion of the same subject in the Phaedrus; here, he dwells on the importance of dividing the genera into all their species, while in the Phaedrus he conveys the same truth figuratively, speaking of carving the whole—described under the image of a victim—into parts or members, "according to their natural articulation, without breaking any of them." There is also a difference to be noted between the two dialogues: whereas in the Phaedrus, and also in the Symposium, the dialectician is described as a sort of enthusiast or lover, in the Philebus, as in all of Plato’s later writings, the element of love is absent. The topic is only introduced, as in the Republic, by way of illustration (cp. 53 D, Rep. v. 474 D, E). On other subjects they treat in common, such as the nature and kinds of pleasure, true and false opinion, the nature of the good, and the order and relation of the sciences, the Republic is less advanced than the Philebus, which contains, perhaps, more metaphysical truth—more obscurely expressed—than any other Platonic dialogue. Here, as he expressly tells us, Plato is "forging weapons of another make"—meaning new categories and modes of conception—though "some of the old ones might do again."

But if it is superior in thought and dialectical power, the Philebus falls very far short of the Republic in fancy and feeling. The development of reason, undisturbed by the emotions, seems to be the ideal Plato aims for in his later dialogues. There is no mystic enthusiasm or rapturous contemplation of ideas. Whether we attribute this change to the feebleness of old age, the development of the quarrel between philosophy and poetry in Plato’s own mind, or perhaps in some degree to a carelessness about artistic effect when he was absorbed in abstract ideas, we can hardly be wrong in assuming that the Philebus belongs to the later period of his life.