ABSTRACT
The central ideas of Platonic semantic theory were conceived by Plato, who appears to have regarded words—including verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and adjectives—as names. Often Plato said that the object possesses its qualities; at other times, that it participates in them. The Platonic theory of words just spelled out has special implications for what are called the transcendental concepts: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Justice. With minor variations, the story is the same for each of them. Rationalist moral philosophy and the authoritarian politics that it was designed to support are straightforward deductions from Plato's theory of words. As moral realist use of this terminology makes clear, the doctrine is drenched in the terminology and presuppositions of Platonic semantic theory. The Platonist who thinks that it does follow has confused properties with qualities—common predicates with discernible similarities. The irony is that the view of the Platonic absolutist, not that of the relativist, which leads to the pessimistic conclusion.
