Aristotle’s Critique of the Platonic Theory of Ideas

Abstract

In this paper I examine Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo’s (2012) recent book on Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato’s theory of Ideas. Di Camillo’s book is a very serious work that I highly recommend. Nevertheless, I consider that four of the main theses that the author defends face several difficulties and my aim here is to offer detailed arguments against them: (1) the interpretation of the distinction between more and less accurate arguments of the treatise On Ideas; (2) the thesis that separation is the essential target of Aristotle’s criticisms against Plato’s Ideas; (3) the interpretation of the options available to Plato to reply to the third man argument; and (4) the thesis that the separation of Ideas should be understood as homonymy.