The one-many problem – one problem or many? Some insights from Plato’s Philebus.

Abstract

We discuss the one-many problem as it appears in the Philebus and find that it is not restricted to a problem about the relation between universals and the particulars that instantiate them (the “Hylomorphic One-Many Problem”). In fact some of the most interesting aspects of the problem occur purely in the realm of Forms. We discuss a solution to the One-Many problem offered in the dialogue in terms of the concepts of ‘limit’ and ‘the unlimited’.