[596b]
for example, there are many couches and
tables.” “Of course.” “But these
utensils imply, I suppose, only two ideas or forms, one of a couch and one
of a table.” “Yes.” “And are we not
also in the habit of saying that the craftsman who produces either of them
fixes his eyes1 on
the idea or form, and so makes in the one case the couches and in the other
the tables that we use, and similarly of other things? For surely no
craftsman makes the idea itself. How could he?” “By no
means.” “But now consider
1 Cf. Cratyl. 389 A-B. There is no contradiction, as many say, with 472 D.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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