Béatrice Lienemann (University of Fribourg)

The talk addresses the complex relation between Forms and definitions in Plato. A straightforward conjecture about this relation might be that to define things like justice or beauty one must refer to the corresponding Forms, i.e. the Form of Justice or the Form of Beauty. In other words, Platonic Forms fulfil the role of the definientia in a proper definition. But even if this conjecture goes in the right direction, at least in so far as the middle and later dialogues are concerned, neither did Plato present this view out of the blue in these dialogues nor has he ever unfolded it in full detail and as explicitly as one may wish.

Full presentation on the FTL website.