Abstract

Philosophers and commentators of Plato’s works introduce the Ideas as Universals that our knowledge of them is delivered in general definitions. Aristotle is at the beginning of them. He apparently introduces and criticizes the Ideas under the name of Universals. The present essay means at an enquiry and representation of Plato’s Symposium. After all, it is going to see the text that is not seen fairly. Through discussion we will see that Plato in the hierarchy of his aesthetics, distinguishes between two knowledges: the cognition of the universal concept of beauty and the knowledge of the Beauty itself. According to Plato, every kind of knowledge has a proper object. Thus, the conclusion is a new reading of an old tradition: Plato discerns the universal concept of beauty from the Beauty itself. So the Idea of Beauty is not the universal.