Aristotle book A · chapter 9 · bekker 991a8-991b9

πάντων δὲ μάλιστα διαπορήσειεν ἄν τις τί ποτε συμβάλλεται τὰ εἴδη τοῖς ἀϊδίοις τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἢ τοῖς γιγνομένοις καὶ φθειρομένοις· οὔτε γὰρ κινήσεως οὔτε μεταβολῆς οὐδεμιᾶς ἐστὶν αἴτια αὐτοῖς. ἀλλὰ μὴν οὔτε πρὸς τὴν ἐπιστήμην οὐθὲν βοηθεῖ τὴν τῶν ἄλλων (οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐσία ἐκεῖνα τούτων· ἐν τούτοις γὰρ ἂν ἦν), οὔτε εἰς τὸ εἶναι, μὴ ἐνυπάρχοντά γε τοῖς μετέχουσιν· οὕτω μὲν γὰρ ἂν ἴσως αἴτια δόξειεν εἶναι ὡς τὸ λευκὸν μεμιγμένον τῷ λευκῷ, ἀλλ’ οὗτος μὲν ὁ λόγος λίαν εὐκίνητος, ὃν Ἀναξαγόρας μὲν πρῶτος Εὔδοξος δ’ ὕστερον καὶ ἄλλοι τινὲς ἔλεγον (ῥᾴδιον γὰρ συναγαγεῖν πολλὰ καὶ ἀδύνατα πρὸς τὴν τοιαύτην δόξαν)· ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδ’ ἐκ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐστὶ τἆλλα κατ’ οὐθένα τρόπον τῶν εἰωθότων λέγεσθαι. τὸ δὲ λέγειν παραδείγματα αὐτὰ εἶναι καὶ μετέχειν αὐτῶν τἆλλα κενολογεῖν ἐστὶ καὶ μεταφορὰς λέγειν ποιητικάς. τί γάρ ἐστι τὸ ἐργαζόμενον πρὸς τὰς ἰδέας ἀποβλέπον; ἐνδέχεταί τε καὶ εἶναι καὶ γίγνεσθαι ὅμοιον ὁτιοῦν καὶ μὴ εἰκαζόμενον πρὸς ἐκεῖνο, ὥστε καὶ ὄντος Σωκράτους καὶ μὴ ὄντος γένοιτ’ ἂν οἷος Σωκράτης· ὁμοίως δὲ δῆλον ὅτι κἂν εἰ ἦν ὁ Σωκράτης ἀΐδιος. ἔσται τε πλείω παραδείγματα τοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὥστε καὶ εἴδη, οἷον τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τὸ ζῷον καὶ τὸ δίπουν, ἅμα δὲ καὶ τὸ αὐτοάνθρωπος. ἔτι οὐ μόνον τῶν αἰσθητῶν παραδείγματα τὰ εἴδη ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτῶν, οἷον τὸ γένος, ὡς γένος εἰδῶν· ὥστε τὸ αὐτὸ ἔσται παράδειγμα καὶ εἰκών. ἔτι δόξειεν ἂν ἀδύνατον εἶναι χωρὶς τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ οὗ ἡ οὐσία· ὥστε πῶς ἂν αἱ ἰδέαι οὐσίαι τῶν πραγμάτων οὖσαι χωρὶς εἶεν; ἐν δὲ τῷ Φαίδωνι οὕτω λέγεται, ὡς καὶ τοῦ εἶναι καὶ τοῦ γίγνεσθαι αἴτια τὰ εἴδη ἐστίν· καίτοι τῶν εἰδῶν ὄντων ὅμως οὐ γίγνεται τὰ μετέχοντα ἂν μὴ ᾖ τὸ κινῆσον, καὶ πολλὰ γίγνεται ἕτερα, οἷον οἰκία καὶ δακτύλιος, ὧν οὔ φαμεν εἴδη εἶναι· ὥστε δῆλον ὅτι ἐνδέχεται καὶ τἆλλα καὶ εἶναι καὶ γίγνεσθαι διὰ τοιαύτας αἰτίας οἵας καὶ τὰ ῥηθέντα νῦν.

Above all, one might raise the difficulty what on earth the Forms contribute to the eternal among sensible things, or to the things that come to be and pass away; for they are not causes to them of any motion or change. Nor, again, do they help at all toward the knowledge of the other things (for they are not the substance of these; if they were, they would be in them), nor toward their being, since they are not present in the things that participate in them. If they were, they might perhaps be thought to be causes, as white is the cause of a white thing by being mixed in it; but this argument, which Anaxagoras first and Eudoxus later and certain others used, is very easily upset, for it is easy to collect many impossibilities against such a view. But neither are the other things from the Forms in any of the usual senses of 'from'. And to say that they are patterns and that the other things participate in them is to speak emptily and to use poetic metaphors. For what is it that works, looking to the Ideas? Anything whatever can both be and come to be like another without being copied from it, so that whether Socrates is or is not, a man like Socrates might come to be; and plainly the same would hold even if Socrates were eternal. And there will be several patterns of the same thing, and so several Forms: of man, for instance, animal and two-footed, and at the same time man-himself as well. Again, the Forms will be patterns not only of sensible things but of Forms themselves, as the genus is, as genus of species; so that the same thing will be pattern and image. Again, it would seem impossible that the substance and that of which it is the substance should be apart; how, then, could the Ideas, being the substances of things, be apart from them? In the Phaedo it is said that the Forms are causes both of being and of coming to be. Yet though the Forms exist, the things that participate in them do not come to be unless there is something to set them moving; and many other things come to be, a house and a ring for instance, of which we say there are no Forms. So it is plain that the other things too can both be and come to be through causes of the same kind as those of the things just mentioned.

The Forms and the Ideas are capitalised here because Aristotle is naming Plato's theory; the glossary's 'form' (εἶδος) and 'idea' (ἰδέα) are otherwise unchanged. ὡς γένος εἰδῶν is 'as genus of species', εἶδος in its logical sense. οὐσία is 'substance', which the glossary does not fix for the Greek. παράδειγμα is 'pattern'. ὁ λόγος is 'this argument', the ordinary sense (glossary). The house and the ring are the passage's answer to which things have Forms: things made by art do not, and yet they come to be.

Greek collated against the Ross plates 2026-09-29; no departures beyond the elision character.

In the crux Ennead III.8 [30], On Nature and Contemplation and the One, chapter 2