THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH
But even if this and other evidence (which we shall presently come to) were lacking, we should have already grasped, from the whole constellation of problems, that Plato highlights precisely the following: that in the perception of something heard and seen we perceive more than sound and colour, that this 'more' pertains to the existence of colour and sound and is perceived so self-evidently and immediately that at first we do not pay the least attention to it. That the blue sky 'blues', that it is in blueness, that the lark which sings is in singing: all this remains so obvious that we do not give it any further notice. We delight in the natural blue-existing sky and in the singing-existing bird. At the moment, however, we are not concerned with delighting in them, but with seeing what we take in over and above the colour and sound, also and precisely when in such delight we pay no regard to this, and even less inquire into it. Precisely when we are lying in the meadow and thinking of nothing else do we perceive this 'excess', i.e. these several beings, the one and the other, and each itself the same.
The second step of the inquiry (185 b 7-186 a) now follows. Socrates poses the crucial question:
Ταῦτα δὴ πάντα διὰ τίνος περὶ αὐτοῖν διανοῇ; οὔτε γὰρ δι᾽ ἀκοῆς οὔτε δι᾽ ὄψεως οἷόν τε τὸ κοινὸν λαμβάνειν περὶ αὐτῶν.
'Now in what way do you perceive all this [the indicated excess] attaching to them [colour and sound]? For it is impossible, either through hearing or sight, to discover, or take in, what they have in common.'
Again there is a new word for διανοεῖν: λαμβάνειν, to take. But what is the organ through which we take the excess to ourselves? This question is and must be posed, because it was previously shown that everything perceivable is perceived through an organ. It is now said that this excess is TO KOIVOV, i.e. what colour and sound have in common. Plato says (185 b 8 f.): τὸ κοινὸν περὶ αὐτῶν, and not (as at 185 b 7) αὐτοῖν; i.e. the excess is