Plato on the Metaphysical Foundation of Meaning and Truth

What is the nature of truth? Blake E. Hestir offers an investigation into Plato's developing metaphysical views, and examines Plato's conception of being, meaning, and truth in the Sophist, as well as passages from several other later dialogues including the Cratylus, Parmenides, and Theaetetus, where Plato begins to focus more directly on semantics rather than only on metaphysical and epistemological puzzles. Hestir's interpretation challenges both classical and contemporary interpretations of Plato's metaphysics and conception of truth, and highlights new parallels between Plato and Aristotle, as well as clarifying issues surrounding Plato's approach to semantics and thought. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics, contemporary truth theory, linguistics, and philosophy of language.

1. Introduction; Part I. Stability: 2. Strong Platonism, restricted Platonism, and stability; 3. Concerns about stability in the Cratylus; 4. Flux and language in the Theaetetus; 5. The foundation exposed: Parmenides 135bc; Part II. Combination: 6. Being as capacity and combination: a challenge for the friends of the forms; 7. The problem of predication: the challenge of the late-learners; Part III. Truth: 8. Predication, meaning, and truth in the Sophist; 9. Plato's conception of truth; 10. Truth as being and a substantive property.

Blake E. Hestir is Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Philosophy at Texas Christian University. He has published articles in a number of journals including the Journal of the History of Philosophy, Apeiron, and History of Philosophy Quarterly.