Kitap 1
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Again, they are no help towards the knowledge of other thingsThis objection, like the next, is chiefly directed against the transcendence of the Ideas. It is anticipated by Plato in Plat. Parm. 134d.(for they are not the substance of things, otherwise they would be in things), nor to their existence, since they are not present in the things which partake of them. If they were, it might perhaps seem that they are causes, in the sense in which the admixture of white causes a thing to be white;
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but this theory, which was first stated by AnaxagorasAnaxagoras Fr. 12ad fin. and later by EudoxusSee note on Aristot. Met. 12.8.9. Apparently he was a Platonist who regarded the Ideas as immanent in particulars. and others, is very readily refutable, for it is easy to adduce plenty of impossibilities against such a view. Again, other things are not in any accepted sense derived from the Forms.
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To say that the Forms are patterns, and that other things participate in them, is to use empty phrases and poetical metaphors; for what is it that fashions things on the model of the IdeasPlato says the Demiurgus?Plat. Tim. 28c, Plat. Tim. 29a. Besides, anything may both be and become like something else without being imitated from it; thus a man may become just like Socrates whether Socrates exists or not,
