The Platonic Ideas as the Thoughts of God

Abstract

It is generally agreed at the present day that the version of the Ideal Theory transmitted by the majority of the ancient doxographers is a complete misrepresentation of Plato's thought. Though Plato speaks of the transcendent Idea as existing alone and by itself and never anything else x), the tendency among many of his interpreters seems to have been to make the Idea dependent upon God as a thought resident in his mind 2). In one form or another this interpretation prevailed throughout the Middle Ages as a legacy from Philo Judaeus and the Christian Platonists, was adopted by certain post-Renaissance philosophers 3), and has even been held in recent times by such prominent Platonic scholars as Jackson, Ritter and Archer-Hind4). To disprove it is, however, a comparatively simple matter, for reference to the Platonic Dialogues makes it immediately clear that any concrete evidence in favour of this interpretation is completely lacking. Plato never describes the Ideas either as the thoughts of God or as the content of God's mind. The most that he tells us about the relation between the divine mind and the Ideas is that Mind