Plato's Removal of Picture-Metaphor

The idioms of Plato's Paradeigmatism are disposed to be exploited improperly so as to fuse image's of-ness into resemblance. What I call picture-metaphor is such fusion that gives rise to a tvompe I'ceil, which puts on the appearance as if Forms and sensible particulars were comparable in the same rank. In this paper I propose to show that the picture-metaphor is to be dispelled from the Paradeigmatism, and that problems of eidolon and logos in the Soph, can be located in this context. (I) It is on the picture-metaphor that Parmenides' criticism of the Paradeigmatism in its main points, such as a) If any object resembles another, that other resembles it; b) If any object resembles another, there exists a form in which both objects participate. For the fusion of image's of-ness into resemblance conceals the invalid argument of Parmenides, who exhibits no less a shrinking from restoring the old participation-term than from ignoring the asymmetrical relation between original and image. So I accept his conclusion (133a5) as the rejection of the picture-metaphor, not as that of the Paradeigmatism. (II) Next, I attempt to delineate a path from this removal in the Farm, to the conception of image-ness (eidolon) in the Soph. Since the division of the real/image is the desired goal of the Soph, toward which the paradox about falsehood holds up progress, it is preposterous to begin to decode the puzzles by presuming the division of statement/fact, and formulate 'a false statement' in terms of difference from the fact or reality. Accordingly, I cannot support the opinion of some gifted scholars, including R. S. Bluck, that it is by weaving together Forms that all discourse came to be (259 e). The identification of the eide in this place with Forms seems to be assured when referring back to the combination and separation of Being, Rest, Motion and anything else (251 d), which compose the texture of philosophic discourse (253 c). Although these eide or gene, I agree, are Platonic Forms, Plato suggests that we should treat the 'Forms' without their semantical values, for he says that in seeking for the Sophist, we chanced to find the Philosopher first. Moreover, Forms-weaving interpretation involves a dilemma such as either a false statement depends on the weaving of Forms, or any string of words makes a statement. By considering these issues and examining the steps of argument on falsehood, I conclude: 1) The weaving of eide does not refer to Forms, but to the combination, e.g. an action and an actor, which is the formation rule of statements, not the truth-condition of them. 2) The puzzle (260 d) assumes that a statement is the same as states of affairs, not representing them, which is closely connected with the phenomenalism of Protagoras in the Theaet. 3) Plato responds to it that the linkage of two incompatible statements which is made in a dialectic-frame renders either of them false that combines the different with the same, and then this nature of statement is reduced to the concept of imageness, the alienation from the form (not with a capital) of the kinds of beings one of which the logos is, and the movement to recover its proper form-from the dialogos to the veridiction.