CRITIQUE OF PLATOS THEORY OF IDEAS OR FORMS

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2016.

Platos Theory of Ideas or Forms

One of the most influential philosophers of all time, Plato (427-347 B.C.) 1 is most known
for his Theory of Ideas (also called the Doctrine of Forms or Theory of Forms). He was an ultra1

Studies on Plato: E. ZELLER, Plato and the Older Academy, Longmans, London, 1876 ; W. PATER, Plato and
Platonism, London, 1893 ; R. L. NETTLESHIP, Lectures on the Republic of Plato, Macmillan, London, 1898 ; P.
SHOREY, The Unity of Platos Thought, Chicago, 1903 ; J. A. STEWART, The Myths of Plato, Oxford University
Press, London, 1905 ; J. A. STEWART, Platos Doctrine of Ideas, Oxford University Press, London, 1909 ; R.
ROBIN, La physique de Platon, Paris, 1919 ; A. E. TAYLOR, A Commentary on Platos Timaeus, Oxford
University Press, London, 1928 ; A. E. TAYLOR, Plato, the Man and His Work, The Dial Press, New York, 1929 ;
C. C. FIELD, Plato and His Contemporaries, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1930 ; A. DIS, Platon, Flammarion, Paris,
1930 ; P. E. MORE, Platonism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1931 ; P. SHOREY, What Plato Said,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1933 ; C. RITTER, The Essence of Platos Philosophy, George Allen and
Unwin, London, 1933 ; F. CORNFORD, Platos Theory of Knowledge, Kegan Paul, London, 1935 ; W. F. R.
HARDIE, A Study in Plato, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1936 ; F. CORNFORD, Platos Cosmology, Kegan
Paul, London, 1937 ; R. DEMOS, The Philosophy of Plato, Scribners, New York, 1939 ; F. CORNFORD, The
Republic of Plato, Oxford University Press, London, 1941 ; H. F. CHERNISS, Aristotles Criticism of Plato and the
Academy, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1944 ; J. WILD, Platos Theory of Man, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Mass., 1948 ; L. STEFANINI, Platone, 2 vols., CEDAM, Padua, 1949 ; C. C. FIELD, The Philosophy
of Plato, Oxford, 1949 ; W. D. ROSS, Platos Theory of Ideas, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1951 ; R. HACKFORTH,
Platos Phaedo, University Press, Cambridge, 1952 ; P. FRIEDLNDER, Plato, 3 vols., Pantheon, New York,
1958-1969 ; W. F. LYNCH, An Approach to the Metaphysics of Plato, University Publishing Co., Georgetown,
1959 ; P. SHOREY, The Unity of Platos Thought, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960 ; I. M. CROMBIE,
An Examination of Platos Doctrines, 2 vols., Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1962-1963 ; L. ROBIN, La thorie
platonicienne de lamour, PUF, Paris, 1964 ; J. PIEPER, ber die platonischen Mythen, Munich, 1965 ; G. RYLE,
Platos Progress, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1966 ; G. C. FIELD, Plato and His Contemporaries,
Methuen, London, 1967 ; C L. ROBIN, Platon, PUF, Paris, 1968 ; V. GOLDSCHMIDT, La religion de Platon,
PUF, Paris, 1971 ; A DIS, Autour de Platon, 2 vols., Beauchesne, Paris, 1972 ; J. C. B. GOSLING, Plato,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1973 ; R. H. WEINGARTNER, The Unity of the Platonic Dialogue, BobbsMerrill, Indianapolis, 1973 ; J. N. FINDLAY, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, Humanities Press, New
York, 1974 ; FESTUGIRE, Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon, Vrin, Paris, 1975 ; E. N.
TIGERSTEDT, Interpreting Plato, Almquist & Wiksell International, Uppsala, 1977 ; G. M. A. GRUBE, Platos
Thought, Hackett, Indianapolis, 1980 ; G. VLASTOS, Platonic Studies, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,
1981 ; H. KRAMER, Platone e i fondamenti della metafisica, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1982 ; G. REALE, Per una
rilettura e una nuova interpretazione di Platone, CUSL, Milan, 1984 ; M. C. STOKES, Platos Socratic
Conversations: Drama and Dialectic in Three Dialogues, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986 ; G. R.
LEDGER, Re-counting Plato: A Computer Analysis of Platos Style, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989 ; L.
BRANDWOOD, The Chronology of Platos Dialogues, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 ; M. F.
SCIACCA, Platone, LEpos, Palermo, 1991 ; T. A. SZLEZAK, Come leggere Platone, Rusconi, Milan, 1991 ; M.
ERLER, Il senso delle aporie nei dialoghi di Platone, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1991 ; K. ALBERT, Sul concetto di
filosofia in Platone, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1991 ; L. CECCARINI, Il mito in Platone, Marietti, Genoa, 1991 ; G.
DROZ, I miti platonici, Dedalo, Bari, 1994 ; M. M. McCABE, Plato and His Predecessors: The Dramatization of
Reason, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000 ; A. SILVERMAN, A Dialectic of Essence: A Study of
Platos Metaphysics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002 ; W. A. WELTON, Platos Forms: Varieties of
Interpretations, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2003 ; J. ANNAS, Plato: A Very Short
Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003 ; G. FINE, Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays,
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2003 ; C. BOBONICH, Platos Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2004 ; T. C. BRICKHOUSE and N. D. SMITH, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to

realist or exaggerated realist, believing that universal ideas really exist in extra-mental reality as
universals. Plato taught, for example, that if we are able to talk about sacrifice and explain its
timeless demands on persons in a way that transcends the individuals who ought to live by this
admirable virtue, it is because sacrifice, as universal, really exists in itself extra-mentally as an
eternal, absolute and immutable Idea or Form in a world of Ideas or Forms, knowable not by the
senses but by the intellect.
The things in the world that our senses behold, Plato teaches, are but faint copies or
replicas of their exemplars, the Ideas or Forms, which are eternal, immutable, and absolute,
existing in a world of Ideas or Forms. It is the world of the Ideas or Forms, and not the changing
world of things that we see around us by means of the senses, that constitutes the true world. Our
senses can only give us opinion (doxa), whereas our intellect, contemplating the Ideas or Forms,
gives us true knowledge or science (epistme). For Plato the objects of our concepts were the
Ideas. These are not constructs of human thought, but are mind-independent realities which the
mind knows. They are not in the mind; they have their being above and beyond this world of
sense in the world of the Ideas. To every concept we can have there corresponds a reality
which is abstract and universal an Idea, and it is this latter which our concept represents to
us.2

Plato and the Trial of Socrates, Routledge, London, 2004 ; V. HARTE, Plato on Parts and Wholes: The
Metaphysics of Structure, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2005 ; G. SANTAS, The Blackwell Guide to Platos Republic,
Blackwell, Oxford, 2006 ; M. SCHOFIELD, Plato: Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006 ;
D. SCOTT, Recollection and Experience: Platos Theory of Learning and Its Successors, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 2007 ; M. STOCKHAMMER, Plato Dictionary, Philosophical Library, New York, NY, 2007 ;
D. ROOCHNIK, Of Art and Wisdom: Platos Understanding of Techne, Penn State University Press, University
Park, PA, 2007 ; M. McCOY, Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2007 ; R. M. DANCY, Platos Introduction of Forms, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007 ;
G. R. F. FERRARI (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Platos Republic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
2007 ; G. A. PRESS, Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed, Continuum, London, 2007 ; T. K. JOHANSEN, Platos
Natural Philosophy: A Study of the Timaeus-Critias, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008 ; R. KRAUT,
How to Read Plato, Granta, London, 2009 ; H. H. BENSON (ed.), A Companion to Plato (Blackwell Companions to
Philosophy), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2009 ; A. MASON, Plato (Ancient Philosophies), University of California
Press, Berkeley, 2010 ; I. VASILIOU, Aiming at Virtue in Plato, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011 ; G.
R. CARONE, Platos Cosmology and its Ethical Dimensions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011 ; S.
PETERSON, Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013 ; G.
FINE (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011 ; J. M. RIST, Platos Moral
Realism: The Discovery of the Presuppositions of Ethics, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C.,
2012 ; D. S. ALLEN, Why Plato Wrote, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2012 ; C. H. ZUCKERT, Platos Philosophers:
The Coherence of the Dialogues, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2012 ; A. G. LONG, Conversation and SelfSufficiency in Plato, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013 ; W. H. F. ALTMAN, Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of
the Republic, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2013 ; S. BRILL, Plato on the Limits of
Human Thought, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2013 ; C. H. KAHN, Plato and the Post-Socratic
Dialogue: The Return to the Philosophy of Nature, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014 ; A. OPHIR,
Platos Invisible Cities: Discourse and Power in the Republic, Routledge, London, 2014 ; R. BARNEY, T.
BRENNAN, and C. BITTAIN (eds.), Plato and the Divided Self, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014 ; R.
BARROW, Plato, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2014 ; J. H. FRITZ, Plato and the Elements of Dialogue,
Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2015 ; G. A. PRESS (ed.), The Bloomsbury Companion to
Plato, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2015 ; D. DIENER, Plato: The Great Philosopher-Educator, Classical
Academic Press, Camp Hill, PA, 2015 ; C. MEINWALD, Plato (The Routledge Philosophers), Routledge, London,
2016.
2
J. T. BARRON, Elements of Epistemology, Macmillan, New York, 1936, p. 92.

Platos philosophy is centered around and dominated by his Theory of Ideas or Doctrine
of Forms wherein the specific object of human knowledge is the real world of Ideas or Forms, of
which the changing world of things perceived by the senses is but the shadow or the copy. Real
being, according to him, is not to be found in the particular sensible objects that make up what
we call Nature, but rather in the extra-mental universal essences. Particular beautiful persons or
things that we see in the world around us, for example, are not real Beauty; only the universal
essence or Idea or Form Beauty is. Particular sensible things only imitate the true reality insofar
as they imitate the Ideas or Forms. Particular horses in this world of becoming, for example, are
only imitations of the one, eternal, universal Idea or Form Horse. The very essence of Platos
Theory of Ideas or Doctrine of Forms is that the extra-mental universals are the true realities and
the particulars, the individual things that we experience in changing Nature, are only imitations
of these true realities. Platos Ideas or Forms are primarily objective realities in themselves
existing extra-mentally as universals. They are objective universal essences existing apart from
the phenomena of the sense world and apart from our conceptual representations. How did he
arrive at such a false conclusion, namely, that universal Ideas really exist apart from the human
mind, in extra-mental reality, as universals, in a world of Ideas or Forms? Maritain notes that
failing to analyze with sufficient accuracy the nature of our ideas and the process of abstraction,
and applying too hastily his guiding principle, that whatever exists in things by participation
must somewhere exist in the pure state, Plato arrived at the conclusion that there exists in a
supra-sensible world a host of models or archetypes, immaterial, immutable, eternal, man in
general or man in himself, triangle in itself, virtue in itself, etc. These he termed ideas, which are
the object apprehended by the intellect, the faculty which attains truth that is to say, they are
reality.3
In the metaphysics of Plato, the Ideas or Forms are existing in and for themselves, as
having the character of substantiality. They are substances, real or substantial forms, the original,
eternal transcendent archetypes of things, existing prior to things and apart from them, and thus
uninfluenced by the changes to which they are subject. The particular objects which we perceive
are imperfect copies or reflections of the eternal patterns. Particulars may come and go, but the
idea or form goes on foreverThe variety and diversity of independent forms, or ideas, is
endless, nothing being too lowly or insignificant to have its idea. There are ideas of things,
relations, qualities, actions, and values; ideas of tables and beds and chairs; of smallness,
greatness, likeness; of colors, odors, and tones; of health, rest, and motion; of beauty, truth, and
goodness4
For Plato, (1) Forms or ideas, defined as the objects corresponding to abstract concepts,
are real entities; the Platonic form is simply the reification or entification of the Socratic concept
endowed with the properties of the Eleatic being. (2) There is a great variety of forms,
including the forms of classes of things house, dog, man, etc.; of qualities whiteness,
roundness; of relations equality, resemblance, etc.; of values goodness, beauty, etc. (3) The
forms belong to a realma heaven of ideas, separable from concrete particulars in space and
time. The separation of the forms and their exemplifications is commonly referred to as the
Platonic dualism. (4) The forms are superior to particulars in degree of reality and value; the
forms are the realities of which particulars are mere appearances. The form is a model or
3
4

J. MARITAIN, An Introduction to Philosophy, Sheed and Ward, London, 1956, p. 57.

F. THILLY and L. WOOD, A History of Philosophy, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, pp. 80-81.

archetype of which the particular is a copy. (5) The forms are non-mental and subsist
independently of any knowing mindTheir mode of being is unique; they are neither mental nor
physical, but are none the less real. (6) Since they are non-temporal, as well as non-spatial, they
are eternal and immutable. (7) The forms are logically interrelated and constitute a hierarchy, in
which the higher forms communicate with lower or subordinate forms. The supreme form in
the hierarchy is the form of the Good. (8) The forms are apprehended by reason, not by sense
though sense may provide the occasion and the stimulus for the apprehension of the form which
it embodies. (9) Finally, the relation between a particular and the form which it exemplifies is
called participation; all particulars with a common predicate participate in the corresponding
form. A particular may participate simultaneously in a plurality of forms, and when it undergoes
change it participates successively in different forms.5
As was mentioned, Platos Theory of Ideas or Forms can be classified as an exaggerated
realism or ultra-realism, which holds that the universal Ideas or Forms are real, existing by
themselves in extra-mental reality as universal, in a world of Ideas or Forms. Bittle explains that,
for Plato, the Idea is the only reality which is permanent and unchangeable in the continuous
flux of concrete phenomena. The Idea is thus the very essence of the reality of being and of the
reality of scientific knowledge. The ideas are, therefore, not only objects of thought, but also
realities in themselves; they not only exist as universals in the mind, but also as universals in
nature. Subjectively and objectively they are truly universal. The concepts of our intellect are
universal, because they represent the universal Ideas which exist independently of the mind in a
world of their own. The Ideas are real things, beings, essences, which subsist entirely outside the
physical world of concrete phenomena which we see around us, in a transcendental world of
their own, in a heavenly sphere of unchangeable existence, where they have an eternal being.
The physical objects of the material universe are nothing but faint copies of these eternal
Ideas, and such objects, since they are singular in essence and in a continual state of change,
cannot account for the permanent and universal concepts in our minds; our universal concepts,
and the scientific knowledge based on them, can derive their origin only from the eternal and
universal Ideas. Man, therefore, must have had a previous existence in which he possessed a
direct intuition of these Ideas, and his present universal concepts are but the products of a
reminiscence of his former contemplation of these Ideas in the transcendental realm. There are,
then, three distinct worlds for Plato: the world of absolute and eternal Ideas, the world of
concrete, ever-changing phenomena (the universe), and the world of universal concepts in our
mind. For every single universal concept in our mind there exists a corresponding universal Idea
which has its own being in this noumenal world, because our concepts are merely intellectual
copies or reproductions of them. These Ideas are the original universals, prior in existence to the
physical world and to our universal concepts. Our universal concepts are valid, therefore,
because they are a faithful representation of reality, namely of the reality of the Ideas which are
themselves universal and eternal. By means of this unique theory Plato attempted to show that
our universal concepts or ideas have objective value and can give us true scientific knowledge.6

5
6

F. THILLY and L. WOOD, op. cit., pp. 81-82.

C. BITTLE, Reality and the Mind, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1959, pp. 230-231.

The Correction of Platos Exaggerated Realism (Ultra-Realism) by Aristotle and

Aquinas
Correcting Platos error of exaggerated realism or ultra-realism we have the moderate
realism espoused by Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas: Our words and universal concepts no
doubt signify certain natures, but these natures do not exist in themselves but are individualized
in things. Only individual beings exist in reality, for the things that exist cannot be predicated of
another. Universality is a property only of our abstract concepts; it is by virtue of their
universality that they are predicable of many. Something is a universal not only because it can
be predicated of many, but also because what is signified by its name can be found in many.7
For example, justice is a virtue proper to human nature; hence, the foundation of its demands is
found in every individual subject who possesses that nature. The common nature that is
possessed by many individual beings is common not numerically but formally. If I write A
twice A and A , I reproduce the same form in two numerically distinct letters; in the same
way, human nature is actualized in John, Frederick, and Timothy, in such a way that numerically,
each one has his own individual nature.
For a nature to be multiplied in several individuals, the form must be capable of being
received in several material subjects. The answer to the problem of the universals is, therefore,
linked to the hylemorphic composition (the union of matter and form) of material beings (John
and Peter are both men because they share the same nature; but they are distinct individual men
because the formal principle of that nature has been received in different matters). As regards
accidental properties, the answer of moderate realism involves the distinction between substance
and accident (the property yellow can be multiplied if there are many substances capable of
receiving it).8
Tooheys Critique of Platos Ultra-Realism or Exaggerated Realism
John J. Toohey: Ultra-realism is false if there is no such single object in the external
world as Justice or Beauty or Man-as-such ; But there is no such single object in the external
world as Justice or Beauty or Man-as-such ; Therefore ultra-realism is false.
The Major is evident from the doctrine of the ultra-realists. The Minor is true, because
such words as Justice, Beauty and Man-as-such are shorthand or non-literal expressions
respectively, for is a just being, is a beautiful thing and Every man by the fact that (or so far
as) he is a man. Thus, the sentence, The justice of John Brown has been established, is the
same as That John Brown is a just being has been established. The beauty of this rose is
evident is the same as That this rose is a beautiful thing is evident. Man, as such, is a social
being is the same as Every man, by the fact that he is a man, is a social being.9

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, In I Perih., lecture 10.

J. J. SANGUINETI, Logic, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1992, pp. 41-42.
9
J. J. TOOHEY, Notes on Epistemology, Fordham University Press, New York, 1952, p. 156.
8

Bittles Critique of Platos Ultra-Realism or Exaggerated Realism

Celestine Bittle: There is no empirical evidence whatever for the existence of universal
objects or essences outside the mind; it is a pure assumptionOur experience tells clearly that
individual men, trees, animals, stones, metals, and similar objects, exist in nature; but nowhere
do we find anything that would correspond to our idea of a universal man, or of a universal tree,
or of a universal animal, or of a universal stone, or of a universal metal, and so on. The only
actual things we know are single, individual objects, not universal natures and essences; and
there is nothing in nature to indicate the existence of such universal entities. Not only do the
objects in nature appear as individuals; they also act as such. Nothing is clearer to us through our
experience than the fact that we are individual men in our own right; but of universal beings, for
instance, of a universal man or humanity, we have no experience at all.
Platonic ultra-realism leads to evident absurdities; hence, it must be false.
We must bear in mind that, according to this theory, the universal essences are in reality
as our universal ideas are in the intellect; in other words, they really exist in the same manner as
we conceive them. Let us see just what this means. We possess generic universal ideas, like
animal, organism, body, substance. By animal we mean a sentient organism. Our idea
does not state whether this sentient organism is rational or non-rational; the distinction is
omitted, so that the definition applies to both the rational and non-rational animals, to men and
brutes, but the idea of animal is conceived as being neither rational or non-rational. And that is
precisely the way in which the Platonic Idea or essence of animal must exist: it is neither
rational nor non-rational, but indifferent. That, however, is impossible. The terms rational and
non-rational are contradictory and mutually exclusive. An existent thing must either be one or
the other; it cannot be both nor can it be neither. If it is rational, it cannot be non-rational, and
if it is non-rational, it cannot be rational; and if it is anything at all, it must be either rational
or non-rational: otherwise the principle of non-contradiction would be violated. Since, then, the
Platonic Idea or essence of animal would be neither a rational nor a non-rational entity, it
violates the principle of non-contradiction and is thus an absurdity. And if it is stated that this
essence is both rational and non-rational, because our idea of animal applies to rational men
and non-rational brutes, it would again violate the principle of non-contradiction, because no
entity can be both rational and non-rational at the same time. To state that the universal essence
of animal is rational (but not non-rational), would exclude all brutes from this universal
essence; and that is inadmissible, because the universal idea of animal in our intellect applies
also to the brutes. And it would be equally inadmissible to accept this universal essence as nonrational (but not rational), because then all men would be excluded, although they are included
in the universal idea of animal in our intellect. We thus see that the Platonic Ideas or essences
either do not correspond to the universal ideas as we have them or they violate the principle of
non-contradiction.10

10

C. BITTLE, Reality and the Mind, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1959, pp. 245-246.

Barrons Critique of Platos Ultra-Realism (Exaggerated Realism or Extreme

Realism)
Joseph Thomas Barron: The best argument against extreme realism is the exposition of
moderate realism.11 That theory accounts for the existence of concepts; it maintains that while
11

J. T. Barron on Moderate Realism: Moderate Realism. Distinction Between the Senses and the Reason.
Introspection clearly evidences the distinction between our higher and lower cognitional powers. Through the senses
we become aware of particular things. For example, through the sense of sight I see this or that particular object,
possessing a certain size, shape, and color, existing in this place at this time. If we touch an object, the resistance we
encounter is this resistance, and if we strike it we hear this sound. Whenever we sense a reality, it is always endowed
with individuality it always has specific individuating notes. But reflection tells us that we have another kind of
knowledge which differs widely from sense knowledge. It is not a knowledge of the particular and concrete, but of
the general and abstract. I can, for example, think of a book which is totally different from this book I now sense,
and which has none of its individuating characteristics. This new thought is no longer bound up with this particular
book. It is applicable, as I can see by reflection, to any number of individual books. Its object is not a particular
object but a universal object. Furthermore my senses do not tell me what things are; they do not apprehend the
essence or whatness of things. But I seemingly do know what things are; I know not only the qualities of things but I
also know what things are in themselves; I know their natures. Thus my senses alone do not tell me this is a book.
They report color, size, shape, etc., but I know it is a book, proving thereby that I have a kind of knowledge which is
not sense knowledge.
Again, I know what is meant by such notions as justice, hope, causality, knowledge, none of which I can sense.
None of these can be perceived through a sense organ, yet I can and do know them. Moreoever, the senses have not
the power of reflection. They cannot make their data the objects of their own examination. But the power of
reflection is a fact, and this points also to a difference between sense knowledge and a higher kind of knowledge.
Then there are our judicial and ratiocinative powers. These cannot be allocated in the senses. From a comparison of
the conceptual, judicial, and ratiocinative aptitudes of the intellect with the functioning of the senses we see that
there is a radical difference between the senses and the intellect.
But while we differentiate the one from the other, and while we see they are irreducible to each other, we must
not think that though distinct they are separate. Intellect and sense do not function separately and apart from each
other. In actual concrete experience we cannot divorce the operation of the lower faculty from that of the higher. In
our adult experience the sensuous and intellectual elements are closely interwoven. A sensation is hardly, if ever,
given without an accompanying intellection. Continuity and solidarity are always present between them. So closely
are they interwoven that it is often difficult to discriminate between the purely sensory elements in our knowledge
and those which are the result of higher factors. We must not forget that the knowledge-process is complicated, and
that sensation, perception, retention and reproduction, conception, judgment, and reasoning, all intermingle with one
another, and that all have an integral part in the process of cognition.
The existence of rational concepts has been established. The formation of concepts depends on and begins with
sense knowledge, but it is completed by the intellect. The process whereby concepts emerge from precepts demands
an exposition.
The Origin of Concepts. Since our concepts are not a priori (or prior to sense experience) and since
introspection shows us that in our judgments we identify these concepts with the data of sense, the intellect must
apprehend them in some way in the data of sense (we are constantly making judgments in which we identify the data
of sense with our concepts, e.g., This is a book). There is no other explanation. The intellect gets all its data or
objects in and through sense perception and self-consciousness. This does not mean that the intellect can conceive
only what the senses perceive, i.e., only the physical or material. This is the sensistic interpretation of this principle.
The principle means that while the intellect gets its data from sense perception it nevertheless has the power of
apprehending modes of being which transcend sense perception. For example, it can form such concepts as being,
quality, change, thought, none of which objects can be the objects of the senses. Again, the intellect can reflect
on its own activities and form concepts such as intellect, cognition, which are concepts of realities unperceivable
by the senses. Our theory of moderate realism, therefore, which holds that the thought-objects of the intellect are
somehow apprehended in the data of sense is not sensistic.
The Theory of Abstraction. Since the thought-objects of the intellect are apprehended in sense data, the obvious
question arises: How is the concept derived from the percept or sense data? How can we bridge the gap between
sense knowledge and intellectual knowledge? The answer is: by the process of abstraction. An extramental object

our concepts are abstract and universal only individual things exist in the objective order. It is
therefore in full accord with experience. It makes unnecessary the postulating of universal
realities to which our concepts correspond.12

produces an impression on one or more of the senses. Through this impression the mind becomes cognizant of a
concrete object. This impression evokes the activity of the intellect. In every object there are certain qualities or
attributes which may or may not belong to the object without any substantial or essential difference being made in
the nature of the object; e.g., the height, weight, and clothing of any individual may all be different from what they
are and he would still be a man. There are other attributes, however, the absence of which would destroy the
character of the object and cause it to be other than it is. If we did away with either the rationality or the animality of
a man he would no longer be a man. The functioning of the intellect at this juncture is abstractive. Abstraction is the
concentration of the intellect on these latter elements to the exclusion of the former. It is the withdrawal of the
attention of the mind from what is accidental and the fixing of it on the essential. It is the act whereby the intellect
abstracts or selects from an object that portion which is essential and neglects the rest. The result of this abstraction
is the concept which expresses in the abstract the essence of the object. The concept is not the representation of a
single, particular object; it is universal and abstract because, as we shall see, it is capable of being realized in an
indefinite number of objects. In a word, the intellect conceives what the senses perceive but in a different way.
The term abstraction as descriptive of the conception process has given rise to much misunderstanding. Some
have understood it as connoting the taking away of something from the concrete object. Such a view is a travesty on
the nature of abstraction. The essence or nature which is said to be abstracted is an attribute of the object and it never
ceases to be such. Abstraction is a purely mental process. It does not take away the physical essence of the object.
Just as the eye can see an object, so does the intellect represent to itself the object without changing in any way its
physical reality. Abstraction does not change the nature of the object but rather the nature of our awareness of the
object. In brief, abstraction simply means the representation of the essence of an object in the intellect.
The Universality of Concepts. The fact that concepts are devoid of the individuating characteristics which are
always found in sensed objects has two implications.
(1) The thought-object considered in itself is neither universal nor particular (cf. De Ente et Essentia, c. 4). The
concept considered in this abstract condition is said to be the direct or potential universal, and as such it is
fundamentally real, i.e., its basis is in the object independently of the work of the mind. We are warranted in
claiming objectivity for the direct or potential universal since the mind finds the content of the concept in the object.
The mind does not create the content of the universal by its own activity but it discovers the content objectively
existing.
(2) After the direct universal has been generated the intellect sees that the thought-object is not only in this
object and predicable of it, but that it is capable of indefinite repeated realizations in an indefinite number of other
similar objects. It thus formally universalizes the concept. When by reflection a concept is seen to be universally
predicable of all the objects of a class it is said to be a formal or reflex universal. Thus at first one forms the concept
of man as a rational animal. This is a direct universal. By an act of reflection the concept rational animal is seen to
be predicable of all men, past, present, and future it is formally universalized (cf. Summa Theologiae, I, q. 39, a. 3
; De Anima, 2; Summa Theologiae, I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 2).
The universalizing is the work of the intellect. Hence universals, as universal, exist in the mind alone. The
concept of the nature or essence which is universalized has its basis in the object of sense, but the universality and
abstractness which characterize the concept are the work of, and are in, the intellect. There are universal thoughtobjects but no universal objects. Whatever is real, i.e., in the real or objective order, is individual. But individual
things, while they do not constitute one reality, have similar natures. Because of this the intellect can apprehend this
similarity of nature and form a concept, which it may universalize, and which is predicable of the various different
but similar individuals. This predication of the same attribute to different individuals does not imply that they are the
same reality. They are distinct and separate individuals, but because of their similarity of nature the same essence
can be predicated of them. Similarity is not a real identity it is a mental identity.(J. T. BARRON, op. cit., pp. 8692).
12
J. T. BARRON, op. cit., p. 93.