And the Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of King's College London and delivery in trust.

Online at W.W. of King's College London and Delivery him Trust.

Online at www. History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode will be an interview about Plato's Sophist

with Fiona Lee, who is a lecturer in philosophy at University College London, and who's done

a lot of work on this dialogue.

Hi Fee.

Hi Peter.

Thank you for appearing on the podcast.

You're welcome.

Before we get into this office itself, I wanted to start by asking you to say just a little about the theory of forms.

If you had to summarize Plato's theory, if it is a theory, in dialogues other than this office so maybe the Fido the republic what would you say I mean what's the point?

I would say that forms are that which explains things having properties that they have.

So if there are lots of things that are beautiful, a beautiful dress, a beautiful day, a beautiful city,

all of those things are beautiful Plato things, because the form of beauty makes them beautiful.

So it's an explanation and a cause for all the things being what they are, having properties that they have.

That answer obviously focuses us on a metaphysical or causal role of the forms,

but I guess they're also supposed to have an epistemological role as well, right?

Right. If you can discover the thing that explains in what

sense or beautiful things are beautiful and indeed explains them being

beautiful, then Plato thinks you've discovered something that looks like

the definition of beauty, so that if you express it, put it in linguistic terms, you've

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