In this study I wanted to show that the special relationship between a modern form when compared to a natural one.

In this study I wanted to show that the special relationship between a modern form when compared to a natural one.

I set out with two principles:

1. Each essence is the essence of exactly one Form.
2. Each Form has (or is) exactly one essence

This study captures the ontological force of the expression that each Form is monoeides: of one essence. In light of these principles, and in keeping with the account of the ontological relation of Being, it follows that each Form self-predicates, in so far as each Form Is its essence. Self-predication statements are thus required of Forms, since every Form must be its respective essence. Self-predication, then, is a constitutional principle of the very theory of Forms. A Form, then, is what it is in its own right in that it Is its essence, and since the only thing it Is its essence, each Form is monoeides, ‘of one essence’. In virtue of Being its essence, each Form Is something regardless of whether any particular does or even may participate in it. Thus each Form is separate from every particular instance of it. Moreover, since its essence is predicated of the Form independently from our knowledge of the Form or from its relation to another Form, a Form is not dependent on anything else. On this definitional interpretation of separation, an item is separate just in case the definition (essence) is predicable of it and not of what it is alleged to be separate from. So, a Form is separate from particulars that partake of it, or any particular, if the essence is predicable of the Form and not predicable of the particular/s. Whether or not a Form is existentially separate, i.e., whether it exists separate from everything else, turns on whether one thinks that being an essence qualifies the Form as existing. To the extent that Plato recognizes the notion of existence, since being an essence seems, by Plato's lights, to be the superlative way to be, it is likely that Forms are both definitionally and existentially separate.