Plato on Knowledge and Forms

Prof. Gail Fine has investigated [the] epistemological and metaphysical dimensions of Forms with care, insight, and tenacity for over a quarter century -- with the result that she has forced us to rethink our basic understanding of Forms from the ground up... Several of her papers have acquired classic status and many more are widely read and discussed in the professional literature on Plato. Christopher Shields, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews This welcome anthology collects together fifteen of her published papers, some of them lightly touched up for clarity and scholarly accuracy, but mainly as they appeared originally... Also welcome is a full, clear, and mildly polemical Introduction, in which Fine traces the main themes of her work and responds selectively to her critics. The Introduction is a model of its kind: Fine addresses her critics with the same care and intensity she displays in analyzing Platonic texts, with the result that those not already versed in the intricacies of Platonic exegesis may be brought swiftly up to speed, at least as regards the topics of special concern to Fine. Because these topics include most of those central to Platonic metaphysics and epistemology, the Introduction will prove of special value to advanced students first immersing themselves in the contemporary scholarly literature on Plato. Christopher Shields, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews