The Danger of Platonism

Abstract

The difficulties which Marxism-Leninism has encountered in connection with the problem of universals, as well as the platonising and idealist tendencies involved in the attempt to solve the problem in terms of the whole-part relation, can be reduced to a basic contradiction between materialist metaphysical assumptions and the theory of reflection. The theory of reflection implies that non-imaginative concepts, that is, supposed objects of a special sort in the mind, apprehended by pure intelligence, have an objective foundation in the natural world. This factual reference would not be satisfied if concepts were recognised to have only a representative capacity or symbolic character, and still less if they were denned as the meaning of certain expressions. For this would apparently lead to relativism, scepticism, idealism, and conventionalism. The concept must stand for something in the external world in a similar manner as ‘John’ or ‘Fido’ does. Lenin strongly insisted on the correspondence, in the literal, mirror- or copy-like sense, between thought and reality. Lenin’s view has been fully accepted by Marxist-Leninists everywhere.