ABSTRACT
Plato’s theory of Forms is, if nothing else, an attempt to solve the problem of the one and the many, identity and diversity, sameness and difference. Two couches, for example, are different: they are in different places; they are made from different material; when you are sitting on one you cannot sit on the other, and so on. But they are also the same: they are both couches, after all. Plato thought this problem could be solved by positing a Form. In this silly example, which is his own, the Form would be the Real Couch: something immaterial, upon which no body could sit; something eternally a couch, without any possibility of change; something nowhere in space, yet capable of being imitated in many places. Those two couches upon which you may sit, the ones that can be seen and touched, the ones that will eventually fall apart-they are Its imitations, appearances, or resemblances.1 Plato’s solution to the problem of sameness and difference, in short, is a theory of resemblance and reality.
