Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

The Meaning of `Justice' and the Theory of Forms

Author(s): Charles H. Kahn
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 69, No. 18, Sixty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the
American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 5, 1972), pp. 567-579
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2025374
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MEANING OF JUSTICE

567

AND THEORY OF FORMS

cover for themselveswhat justice requires, it is by so much the

more importantthat the laws be good. It is no accident that the
Socraticlegacyissuesin a school of jurisprudence.But the criterion
of wrongfulnesslies ultimatelynot in any set of rules, however
skillfullyframed,but in a single self-consistent
standardof justice,
fixedin the nature of things,by which the worthof rules, and all
else, is to be judged, and whose use is essentialto genuine virtue,
based on knowledgeand allied to art.
Socrates never claimed to have attained certain knowledge of
thatstandard.The man who in the Apologyknew only that he did
not know does not in the Crito lay claim to full knowledge of
justice and virtue.The Crito presentsnot demonstration,but dialectic,with the provisionalquality that dialectic entails. But when
dialectichas been carriedthroughas far as possible and when such
degree of clarityhas been attained as human limitation permits,
one must act-act on the conclusionsthat appear true and good.
This conceptionof human rationality,loftyin its aim, is tentative
and modestin its estimateof attainment;but, in its insistenceon
the sovereigntyof reason, it is immodestin its rejection of a contraryview: the view, namely,that reason is, and of a rightought
to be, only the slave of the passions. That is the doctrineof Callicles,and it is the underlyingand unstatedassumptionof popular
rhetoric,the image of statesmanship.In the depths of that image
lay disintegration,both personal and social. The Gorgias,as ProfessorMorrow once remarked,is an account of the descent into
hell.
R. E. ALLEN

UniversityofToronto

THE MEANING OF 'JUSTICE' AND THE

THEORY OF FORMS *

'LATO'S theoryof Forms,as expoundedin the middleand

pre-middle dialogues, is among other things a theory of

meaning.' By a theoryof meaning I understanda verygeneral answerto the question: What do wordsmean, and how do they
apply truly to things?In the firstsection of this paper I briefly
* To be presented in an APA symposiumon Plato on the Language of Justice,
December 29, 1972; R. E. Allen will be cosymposiast; see this JOURNAL, this
issue, pp. 557-567.
1 For present purposes I make no distinctionbetween the classical theory of
the Phaedo and the "earlier theoryof Forms" of pre-middle dialogues such as
the Euthyphro and Meno. I count the Cratylus (together with Symposium,
Phaedo, and Republic) among the middle dialogues.

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568

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

sketch Plato's theoryof meaning. In the second section I apply

this theoryto the discussionof Justicein the Republic. In sections
between my view and the
iii and iv I consider some differences
interpretationproposed by GregoryVlastos in two papers on the
Republic in 1968/69.Finally, in sectionv I presentsome speculative suggestionson the role of Justiceamong the Forms and on
the problem of self-prediction.
I. THE THEORY OF MEANING

Plato's theoryof meaning is essentiallya theoryof general terms

or predicates. He speaks simply of onomata, which is naturally
translatedas "names." Hence we are led to say that in his theory
predicateslike 'beautiful' (or 'is beautiful') are regardedas naming
Forms, or that the abstract term 'beauty' is treated as a proper
name for the correspondingForm. Of course there is nothing
wrongwith translatingonoma as 'name' and onomazo as 'to name'.
But the implicationsof this renderingcan be misleading,unless
we keep a close grip on the followingpoints. (1) Plato has no terminologicaldistinctionbetweenname, on the one hand, and word,
expression,or predicate on the other. Nor does his terminology
distinguishin any systematicway between the name relation and
othersemanticacts or relationssuch as referringto, describingas,
or predicatingof. (2) But this does not mean that he conceives
predicationafterthe patternof proper names in our sense. Plato
has no theoryof propernames as such. Like most Greeks,he seems
to thinkof any name as a kind of condensed description.(3) Furthermore,his theorytakes no account of the formaldifferencebetween a predicate adjective or verb and the correspondingnominalization. That is to say, he treats paronymy-the transformational relation between 'beauty' and 'beautiful','justice' and 'just'
as a phenomenonof surfacegrammaronly,withoutconsequence
for the theoryof meaning. No importancewhatsoeveris attached
to the grammaticalcategoryof abstractsingularterms.The Forms
are designated equally well by nominalized adjectives like '(the)
beautiful' as by abstractnominals like 'beauty'.
As a result,if it is true to say that Plato regards'justice' as the
name of a Form,it is equally true to say that he regardsthis Form
as a predicate concept correspondingto the predicate '(is) just'.
Plato makes no such distinction.But we are free (and perhaps
bound) to do so forhim in articulatinghis theoryin modernterms.
The termsI choose are those of a classical tripartitetheoryof
meaning. By a classical theoryI mean one which distinguishes
sign, sense, and denotation. The general pattern I have in mind

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MEANING OF 'JUSTICE' AND THEORY OF FORMS

569

can be illustratedby Benson Mates's conspectusof the semantic

schemeof Chrysippuswith that of Frege and Carnap.2 For Plato,
the onomataor terms;
the threeelementsof the theorywill be, first,
of a given term,which is the corsecond,the sense or significatum
respondingForm; and third,the denotation or extension of the
term,which is the whole range of things that participatein the
Form. Note that the denotation of any given term is determined
to the Form), which
by its sense (i.e., by the participation-relation
is as it should be. (Note also that the distinctionbetweensense and
denotationwill collapse at one point, if Plato admits that a Form
participatesin itself.But I see no evidence for this in the middle
dialogues.) If I have correctlyinterpretedwhat Plato says about
the Form of Name in the Cratylus,he understandsthe true name
or termforany conceptto be the sign-relationitself,as determined
i.e., by the Form. The particularlinby the sense or significatum,
guisticor phoneticshape of a termis irrelevant,as long as it functions to signifya given Form. On thisview, the true name for Justice is unique and unequivocal, regardlesswhetherwe pronounce
In Plato's theorythe
it as dikaiosyne,justitia, or Gerechtigkeit.3
Forms are the primitiveconcept. In semantic terms,the sense is
given first;it uniquely determinesits own name (whose concrete
manifestationwill, however,vary fromone language to another),
just as it determinesits own extension. Names, as meaningful
units of language, and things,as phenomenalproperties,classes,or
individuals of a given type,are both functionsof Forms.
In order to definethe meaningof a term,then,we mustidentify
the Form that it signifiesor "intends." "Explain to me," says Socrates to Euthyphro,"that very Form (eidos) by which all pious
things(i.e., actions) are pious. . . . Explain to me what this Form
call an action
(idea) is, so that I may consultit as a model and thusg
'pious' when it is of this kind, and deny that it is pious if it is not
such" (Euthyphro6D-E). In this early statement,the relation between the Form and its extensionis loosely describedin termsof
similarityor being "of this kind" (toiouton). In the fullerdoctrine
of the Phaedo, the relation is conceivedas participationor sharing
in the Form, for which the semanticanalogue is what Plato calls
'eponomy': the thingswhich participatein a Form bear its name
eponymously,that is to say, theyare named afterit (Phaedo 102B,
2

Stoic Logic (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1961), p. 20.

8 For a fuller statementof this view, see my article "Language and Ontology

in the Cratylus" in Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos,Phronesis Supplement Volume, forthcomingin 1973.

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570

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103B7). Thus a given term signifiesor names primarilythe correspondingForm; it denotesor names derivatively(or trulyapplies
thatparticipatesin thisForm. And a sentenceof the
to) everything
form'x is F' will be true if and only if the given value for'x' falls
withinthe extensionof 'F', that is, if and only if the x in question
participatesin the Form F.
II. THE MEANING OF 'JUSTICE'

If we apply this semantictheoryto the concept of Justice,the implicationsare obvious. To specifythe meaning of 'justice' is to definea Form that can serve as a model for predication,so that we
trulyapply the term 'just' only if-and to the extent that-tlle
subject in question participatesin the Form of Justice,or resembles the Form,or is "of this sort."Now the ontologicaltheorythat
underlies this semanticsis unmistakablypresentin the Republic.
The Form of Justice is mentioned as soon as the doctrine of
Formsis introduced(476A4,479A5, 479E3, etc.) and a clear distinction is immediatelydrawn between a given Form and the things
that participatein it (476D1-3). But the semantic theoryitselfis
scarcelynoticed in the Republic. Socratesoffersa definitionof the
just city and the just man; he never even asks for a definitionof
Justiceitself.Can Plato have abandoned the view that to know
the meaning of 'justice' is to know the Form of Justice?Or does
he have a motive for leaving this doctrine more or less in the
background?
Some of Plato's reasons forreticenceare clear. The whole structure of the Republic (throughBook VII) is ingressiveand heurisIt is like a slow mountic,ratherthan deductiveor demonstrative.
tain climb out fromthe Cave and up the Divided Line. But the
final perspectivefrom the summit-a full discussion of Dialectic
and the Form of the Good-is expresslyomitted from the work.
The theoryof Formsas such is introducedonly at the end of Book
V, afterthe discussionof justice in cityand in man.
The strategicadvantages of this procedure are also clear. The
Republic is primarilyconcernedwith moral theoryand political
reconstruction.
The moral argument(that "justice pays") and the
political schemefor a good societyare presentedin such a way as
to be maximallyindependentof Plato's metaphysics.One need not
accept the doctrineof Forms,one need not even have heard of it,
in order to followhis defenseof justice as an intrinsicgood of the
soul and to be attractedby his vision of a harmonioussocietywith
a rulingelite trainedas servantsof the communityand deprivedof
all economic advantages and special class interests.Plato repeat-

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MEANING OF 'JUSTICE' AND THEORY

OF FORMS

571

edly insists that the account of justice he has given is a rough

draft or mere sketch (504D6), and that "a longer and a harder
way" would have to be traveledforan adequate treatmentof these
matters(IV.435D, VI.504B-D). This is a clear enough indication
that the whole storyhas not been told. But if he were to present
his account of justice in the soul and in the state in the metaphysically correctlight, as an insight derived from the more difficult
and problematicknowledgeof Forms, the effectwould be to seriously weaken the cogencyof his moral and political argumentin
the eyes of the broader public to which the Republic is addressed.
From the philosophicalpoint of view,however,thereis no doubt
thatPlato does envisagethejustice of man and cityas derivedfrom
the more abstractor intelligiblepatternof the Form. Let us, exempli gratia,generalizethe definitionsPlato does give in order to
see what formula he might have given for the Form itself. We
may suppose that it runs as follows.
whole.
(J) Justiceis a well-ordered
Or, more fully:
parts,each withits own na(J')Justiceis a unityof differentiated

thateach one performs

ture,and thesepartsare so interrelated
thetaskforwhichit is bestfitted.

The specification'well-ordered'in J and 'best fitted'in J' point

beyondJusticeitselfto the Form of Good on which it depends. A
full analysis of Justicewould thus require, at the minimum,an
analysis of the concepts of Unity, Plurality,and Good, and perhaps of Whole and Part as well. Furthermore,the definitionsin
J and J' derive whatever intuitive plausibility they have from
the concreteaccount of the just cityand the just man which Plato
actuallygives. (See below, definitionsJC and JM.) So it is easy to
see that Plato had nothing to gain, rhetoricallyspeaking, from
pressinghis definitionon to the level of Forms. And, philosophically, the resultwould have entailed an intricateanalysis that has
no real parallel in the dialogues,although the Parmenides,Sophist,
and Philebus can give us some idea of how Plato mighthave proceeded.
My claim is that we must bear in mincl this unwrittenbut
clearly indicated extrapolationof the dialogue if we are to give
an a(lequate plhilosophicaccount of what we actually fincltlhere.
We mustbear in mind,that is, thatJC and JM as given below are
offeredby Plato as "images" of, or approximationsto, something

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like J' above. Limitations of space preventany full discussion of

this claim here. I turn instead to certain special problems in the
defenseand definitionof justice in the Republic. Before doing so,
I must make clear what is meant here by 'ordinaryjustice' and
'Platonic justice'.
For the remainderof this paper 'ordinaryjustice' and 'behavioral justice' will be used interchangeablyas a title for the common-senseGreek notion of justice as the quality of a man's action
or overtbehavior that respectscertain normsof socially approved
conduct in dealing with other men: honesty;truthfulness;obedience to law; refrainingfrom theft,fraud, violence, adultery,and
the like.
For our present purposes the meaning of 'Platonic justice' is
specifiedby the parallel definitionsof just cityand just man given
in Book IV:
(JC) Justicein thecityis the doingof its properworkby the busiclass,and theguardianclass,wheneach
nessclass,themilitary
repeatedat
of thesedoes whatis its own in thecity(434C7-10,
435B4and 441D9).
(JM) Justicein the individualis the doing of its properworkby
the rationalpowerruleach of the threepsychicconstituents:
ing and caringforthe wholesoul, the spiritedelementas its
obedientally,and theappetitiveas itswillingsubject(441D12E6; cf.443D-E).
III. THE LINK BETWEEN PLATONIC

JUSTICE AND ORDINARY JUSTICE

As David Sachs pointed out a number of years ago, Plato's argumentin defenseof justice cannot count as a valid answer to Glaucon and Adeimantus unless some very close connection is established between the Platonic conception (or conceptions)of justice
defended as an intrinsicgood for the soul, and the ordinarybehavioral notion of justice for which the challenge was raised.
Sachs claimed that Plato's argumentmustsatisfytwo requirements:
(1) he must prove that no man who is Platonicallyjust, according
to JM, will commitacts of injusticein the usual sense,and (2) that
everyman who is just accordingto the vulgar conceptionwill also
be Platonicallyjust.4Sachs asks, in effect,for a biconditionallinking Platonic and ordinaryjustice. By way of responseto this criticism,GregoryVlastos has formulatedjust such a biconditional.
4 "A Fallacy in Plato's Republic," Philosophical Review, LXXII, 2 (April 1963):
141-158; the claim in question is on pp. 152f.

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MEANING OF 'JUSTICE' AND THEORY OF FORMS

573

in theman'sdispositionto a cerJV) "The soul is just,[relatively,

tain kind of conducttowardsothermen] if and only if it is
in thesenseof psychicharmony]."'
just2[absolutely,
Sachs doubted that Plato could have defended such a biconditional by a convincing argument,but Vlastos provides one on
Plato's behalf by drawing upon the moral psychologyof Books
VIII and IX. He thinksthat Plato did not see the need for such
an argumentsince he had not noticed the equivocation between
'just,' and 'just2' on which his own argumentdepends, and hence
had not realized "the utterinadequacy" of this argumentwhich he
actuallygives.6
I have no objection to Vlastos' reconstructedargument as an
account of what Plato mighthave said and would have been justifiedin sayingon the basis of his own doctrine.But I would point
out that Vlastos' biconditional is not exactly the one Sachs had
required and that it is not entirelysatisfactoryas an answer to
his criticism.For JV connects two psychic states or dispositions,
whereas ordinaryjustice is specifiedin termsof concreteactions
of honesty,fair treatment,and the like. If the biconditional were
interpretedas an "exceptionlessgeneralization" (to use Elizabeth
Anscombe's phrase) linking acts of ordinaryjustice and Platonic
justice in the soul, it could not be convincing.For Plato and everyone else will agree that we can findjust behavior (in the ordinary
sense) in the absence of psychicharmony.The biconditional (JV)
is plausible only if we insist that the left-handmember expresses
not the capacty to performoccasional acts of justice but a constant disposition to ordinary justice in every action; and that
is how Vlastos interpretsit. But in that case we have already
moved beyond the common-sensenotion of just conduct with
which Glaucon and Adeimantuswere concerned.Insofar as JV is
plausible, it does not establish the link the argument requires.
Even granting(with Sachs) the rest of Plato's argument,JV does
not serveto show that it is in a man's own interestto performjust
actions,but only thatit is in his interestto be disposedto act justly.
Plato's own connectionbetween ordinaryand psychicjustice is
I submit that his treatmentof this
less neat but more satisfactory.
LXV, 21
5 "The Argument in the Republic that 'Justice Pays'," this JOURNAL
(Nov. 7, 1968): 665-674, p. 670. I have added the bracketed clarificationsto
Vlastos' thesis (H).
6 Ibid., pp. 669 and 671 (where Vlastos' substitute argument is spelled out).
The argument criticizedis the one Vlastos finds at 441C-E, where I find not a
genuine argument but the straightforwardconstructionof definitionsfor the
individual virtues by analogy with the previously defined virtues of the city,

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question reflectsan accurate awareness of the problem to which

Sachs has called attention,and that it does not sufferin any essential respectfromthe confusionVlastos detects.This will emerge
if we look at what followsthe statementof the Platonic definitions
of virtuein the soul at 441C-442D.
the psychologicaldefinition-of
(i) Immediatelyafterreaffirming
justice (JM), Plato proceeds to confirmit by attributingthe "vulgar" propertiesof just conduct to the man so defined (442D 10).
That is, he gets his interlocutorto agree that such a man will not
commitany of the ordinaryacts of injustice (442E-443A). And he
explains that the possession of psychicjustice will be the cause
(aition) of just action (443B1-5). Thus he explicitly defends a
conditionallike JV in one direction(fromrightto left) as a causal
statementin moral psychology,but with ordinaryjustice substituted for 'just1'. To paraphrase the text slightly;if a man is Platonicallyjust accordingto JM, it will be impossiblefor him to act
unjustlyin the ordinarysense,that is, it will be necessaryfor him
to act toward others accordingto behavioral justice.7But his true
justice-which is an intrinsicgood-will lie in the internalactivity
of his soul and not in the external actions which are a kind of
image of this psychicstate. (Compare 443C4-D5.)
(ii) Just actions in turn are so described because they tend to
produce and preservethis psychic condition, whereas unjust actions are those which tend to destroyit (443E2-8). This is what
Plato offersby way of a causal implication in the other direction,
frombehavioral to psychicjustice. It is Plato's versionof the paradox that Aristotleformulatesin differentterms:virtuous actions
are by definitionsuch as a good man would do; but a man acquires
virtue by acting virtuously.The man who regularlyacts unjustly
will neverbecome just in the sense of JM.
Plato has not tried to show that everyjust action (in the ordinary sense) is its own reward,and he surelydoes not believe this
to be so. What he does claim is that true justice in the soul is its
own reward,and that such justice is a regular (probably an inevitable) cause of ordinaryjustice in action. The good man is happy
because he is just, in the sense of JM. And because he is just in
thissense,he will also act justlyin the ordinarysense.The man who
7 Sachs would reply that Plato must "prove" this connection and not merely
assert it (op. cit., pp. 154f).But proof in moral psychologyis hard to come by. I
agree with Vlastos that in the Republic as a whole (supplemented by the Phaedo
and by the concrete portrayal of Socrates as a just man) Plato has done what
can be done to make this claim plausible.

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MEANING OF 'JUSTICE'

AND THEORY OF FORMS

575

regularlyacts unjustlywill neverbecome just, and so will neverbe

happy.
IV. JUSTICE' AND HOMONYMY

Plato's definitionof psychicjustice (JM) by analogy with the preceding definition(JC) of justice in the good citydepends upon the
principle that the two cases "will not differat all accordingto the
veryformor property(eidos) of justice" (435B1). Let us call this
the principle of univocity.Vlastos regards this as a fundamental
logical erorr which underlies the flaw in Plato's argument.8He
suggeststhat Plato could easily have avoided the fallacyif he had
seen the importanceof what Aristotledescribedas homonymyand
more particularlypros hen homonymyor (in G. E. L. Owen's
uses
phrase) "focal meaning." If he had seen, that is, that different
of the same predicate may have a common semantic core or a
common point of referencewhile differingconsiderably in the
cases, Plato could have avoided
propertytheyattributein different
the mistake in his defenseof justice. Now this objection can be
understoodin two ways,and the Platonic answer to it will differ
accordingly.
(i) If the objection means that the principleof univocityshould
theoryof
be sacrificedfor an open-textureor family-resemblance
heart
it
to
of
Plato's
view
of
language
and
the
meaning, goes
reality.If the meaning of basic evaluative predicates like 'just',
'good', and 'beautiful' is to be understood as a functionof the
shiftsin connotation,speaker's intention,points of contrast,and
other variable featuresof particularuses of the term in different
contexts,then the doctrine of Forms must be abandoned as an
account of the fixedsense or significationof general terms.But a
criticismof univocityalong these lines would seem to misconstrue
the principle as a false empirical claim about ordinarylanguage
as ordinarilyused. Plato is not concernedwith lexicography,not
even with the philosophical lexicographyof Metaphysics Delta.
His principleof univocityis an epistemologicalpostulate,a device
forgettingfromordinarylanguage to the true meaning of justice,
beauty,and the like, the meaning that is fixed in the nature of
thingsby an invariantForm. For Plato, the key termsin ordinary
language mustsignifysuch a Form if theyare to signifyrealityand
8 "Justice and Psychic Harmony in the Republic", this JOURNAL, LXVI, 16
(Aug. 21, 1969): 516-520. As already indicated, I do not agree that Plato's argument here depends upon this assumption, though of course not only the definition of psychic harmony by analogy with justice in the city, but in fact the
whole theoryof Forms does depend upon this principle of univocity.Note that
this and the previouslycited paper of Vlastos are published in a revised formas
"Justice and Happiness in the Republic" in Vlastos, ed., Plato, ii (New York:
Doubleday Anchor, 1971),pp. 66-95.

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convey truth at all-regardless of the phonetic variation in the

words actually used and regardlessof the psychologicalvariation
in the intentionsof speakerswho use these words.It is not for me
to defendthisprinciple.But I do not see how it could be attacked
on empirical grounds,as a kind of errorof fact, any more than
one can so attackFrege'ssomewhatcomparable theoryof a thought
as the timeless,eternal, and unchangeable sense of an indicative
sentence. The principle of univocity is a thesis in philosophy
proper, not in empirical linguistics; and Plato cannot abandon
this principlewithoutjeopardizinghis whole philosophicposition.
(ii) If the objection is understoodas a request not that the principle of univocitybe abandoned but that it be supplementedby
a recognitionof obvious linguistic facts-such as the fact that
'healthy' does not have preciselythe same sense in 'healthyman'
as in 'healthy food', 'healthy climate', or 'healthy complexion'then Plato can easilygrantthe request,and tacitlydoes so at many
points. For this modificationof the principle amounts to little
more than a recognitionof the phenomenon of ellipse, which
leaves the principle itself intact. Thus 'healthy',which typically
means 'possessinghealth' (or, in Platonic terms,'participatingin
Health'), may in some uses, e.g., in 'healthy food' or 'healthyclimate', be regardedas an abbreviationfor 'promotinghealth' (Platonically speaking, 'causing or facilitating the participation in
Health'). In other uses, as in 'healthycomplexion',it may be read
as short for 'reflectinghealth' or 'indicating health' ('indicating
the participation in Health'). As long as the focal meaning of
'health' is left invariant,as naming or signifyinga single Form
of Health, the recognitionof ellipse or homonymyin this sense
presentsno challenge to the principle of univocity.Indeed, Plato
shows an awareness of preciselythis phenomenon when he compares 'doing just deeds' to 'healthythings'(ta hygieina)and 'acting
unjustly' to 'unhealthythings' (ta nosode) at 444C-D. For, in his
own words,"healthythingsproduce health, unhealthythingsproduce disease," and, by analogy,"acting justly produces justice, acting unjustly produces injustice" (444C8-D1). Plato did not need
Aristotle'sexample to discover homonymyin this rather trivial
sense.
V. CONCLUDING

SPECULATION

ON THE FORMS

A. Is the realm of Forms as a whole a case of Justice?

There are occasional hints of this in the dialogues, the clearest
of which is perhaps the passage at 500C, where the virtuousorder
in the philosopher'sown soul is described as an assimilation to

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MEANING OF 'JUSTICE'

AND THEORY OF FORMS

577

and imitationof the eternalorder of the Forms "which neitherdo

injustice to nor sufferinjustice from one another." It is at least
plausible to suppose that Plato thought of the entire realm of
Forms as a well-orderedwhole, a unity of differentiatedparts,
each with its own nature, such that each performsthe task for
which it is best or uniquely fitted,accordingto J'. In that case the
philosopher's soul would become just not by imitation of the
Form of Justicealone, as it were in splendid isolation, but by assimilation to the entire ordered pluralityof the Forms. And on
this view the Form of Justicewould function twice: it will be
counted firstas one Form among others,the opposite of Injustice
(which is itselfmentionedas a Form at 476A4); and it will function again as the unifiedsystemof all Forms, including Injustice
Form). We would
(and perhaps including itself as a first-order
ordinaryformand
as
Justice
of
thus finda bifurcationin the role
as super-Form,or Form of Forms, which is comparable to that
which can be noted for the so-called categorial Forms like Unity,
these also apply
Good, and Rest or Changelessness.(As super-Forms,
to their opposites: Many, Bad, and Motion). But whereas categorial Forms may apply to other Forms one by one, Justice as
super-Formwould apply to them as a system,within which each
Form would functionas a part. What the justice of the whole system might mean, in termsof the functionof the parts, can be
seen by takingpreciselythis pair in which we are interested:firstorder Justiceand Injustice. Theoreticallyconsidered,the function
for which this pair of opposite natures is uniquely fittedis to
articulatethe entireconceptual fieldwe have been considering,by
servingas the sourceof all justice and injusticein the phenomenal
world. Practicallyconsidered,the functionof this pair is to serve
*as paradigms "established in reality" to articulate a fundamental
moral choice confrontingeveryman, who must decide how to live
his life. (Compare Theatetus 175C and 176E.)
B. How is theForm of Justicedependentupon the Form of Good?
On this I can offeronly an impreciseguess. Consider the purely
conceptual or theoreticalnotions of Unity,Plurality,Part, Whole,
and distinctiveNature (which can perhaps be analyzed in terms
of Samenesswith itselfand Differencefromothers).To construct
the definitionof Jusice suggestedin J', we must add the notions
of performinga work or function(ergon) and of doing so well.
Now the notion of functionitselfinvolves the notion of aim or
goal (to hou heneken) and hence of Good (Rep. 505DII). So the

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578

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Form of Justice could be seen as a particular configurationof

Unity, Plurality,Part, Whole, and other conceptual (or "valuefree")Forms,as structuredin a certainway by the Form of Good.
The adequate definitionof Justicewould thus indicate how this
Form is to be analyzed in termsof the relations of other Forms.
we may
Generalizingthis insightnow at the level of super-Forms,
say that everyForm so analyzed would be seen as a Unityof Many
under the aspect of Good, a well-orderedunityof distinctparts or
conceptual factors.
C. The question of self-piredication.
If by self-predication
one means the harmlessdoctrinethat the
Form deservesits own name in adjectival form,there is no doubt
that Plato in the middle dialogues (and, I think,not only in them)
accepted this without question. For him, 'Justiceis just', 'Beauty
is beautiful', 'Equality is equal' are obvious truths-much truer
that the correspondingpredicationsfor non-Forms,such as 'Socrates is just', 'Phaedo is beautiful','These lines are equal', assuming
that the latterare also true. But fromhis acceptance of self-predication in this minimal sense it does not follow that Plato thought
of 'is just' as designatingsome projpertydistinctfrom the Form
itselfand attributingthis propertyto the formof Justiceand to
Socrates alike. Self-predicationin this sense is such a monstrosity
that it cannot be clearlystatedwithoutbeing rejectedon the spot.
The problem, then, is to find an interpretationof 'Justiceis
just' which makes it an interestingphilosophical claim, compatible
with Plato's general position, and somehow parallel to the interpretationof 'Socratesis just'. (To be interesting,the claim must be
more than a trivialstatementof identity,like "A is A".) Now we
know that,for Plato, 'Socrates is just' means that Socratesparticipates in the Form of Justice.Does 'Justiceis just' mean that the
Form participatesin itself?I am not sure that Plato would reject
the inference.Furthermore,in this case one can interpretselfparticipationas other than an emptyformula.For we can understand 'Justiceparticipatesin Justice' to mean that the first-order
Form of Justiceparticipatesin the super-Formof Justiceby being
one constituentpart in the well-orderedsystemof the Forms (and
also according to the last sentenceunder B above, by being, qua
analyzed Form, a well-orderedunity of many "constituents").But
this solution is not general enough to deal with the question of
in other cases, for example in 'Equality is equal'
self-predication
or 'Injustice is unjust', We must look then for another interpretation of 'Justiceis just'.
Consider once more 'Socratesis just'. This means not only that

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CONTENT AND CONSCIOUSNESS

579

Socrates participatesin the Form. It also means that he satisfies,

in some measureand in some respects,the definitionof Justice,say
J'. He does not do so in full measure or in all respects.This is,
I take it, what Plato means by saying that a particularF is deficientlyF: it is F in some respectsbut not in all, and that is why
it can be said to be both F and not F (Rep. 479A-C). The Form,
or fullyF: it satisfiesthe definitionentirely,
by contrast,is perfectly
withoutany qualificationwhatsoever.And this,I suggest,is what
Plato means by saying that Justiceis just. Indeed, it is perfectly
just. Notice that this suggestionpreservesstrictunivocityfor the
predicate 'is just'. In the last analysis there is only one meaning
weaker meanfor'justice' or 'just'. If the predicatehad a different,
ing in 'Socrates is just', then this statementcould be wholly true,
without qualification.It is preciselybecause a predicate 'F' has
the same meaningwhen applied to a Form and to a particularthat
Plato can say that a particularis not whollyor perfectlyF, that it
is both F and not F.
Making use of our earlier suggestions,we can spell out the
one step further.Suppose that the defimeaningof self-predication
nition of Justiceresolvesit into the concepts of Unity, Plurality,
and Goodness,among others.Then to say of x that it is just is at
least to say that it participatesin the Forms of Unity, Plurality,
and Good. This statementwill hold both for a Form that is just
and for a particular that is just. In this sense, and in this sense
alone, it will be true to say that the predicate 'just' attributesa
commonpropertyto the Form of Justiceand to a just man.
CHARLES H. KAHN

Universityof Pennsylvania

CONSCIOUSNESS: THE SECONDARY ROLE OF LANGUAGE*

have claimedthatit is impossibleto

ANY philosophers

paraphrase an intentionalsentencesuch as "A believes

it is raining" by an extensional sentence that captures
its full meaning, and have argued that this refutesa materialist
theoryof mind. In his recent book, Content and Consciousness,t
Dennett has argued that considerationsfrom the study of brain,
* To be presented in an APA symposium on Content and Consciousness by
D. C. Dennett, December 29, 1972; cosymposiastswill be Keith Gunderson and
D. C. Dennett; see this JOURNAL, this issue, pp. 591-604 and 604, respectively.
t London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities, 1969. All quotations in this paper are taken from Dennett's book, with the indicated paginations. Dennett and I have agreed to drop the distinctionbetween intention and
intension which he tried to maintain in his book.

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