Interpretive Theory

INTERPRETIVE THEORY
 Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation theory. Traditional hermeneutics - which includes Biblical hermeneutics - refers to the study of the interpretation of written texts, especially texts in the areas of literature, religion and law. Contemporary or modern hermeneutics encompasses not just issues involving the written text, but everything in the interpretative process. This includes verbal and nonverbal forms of communication as well as prior aspects that impact communication, such as presuppositions, preunderstandings, the meaning and philosophy of language, and semiotics. Philosophical hermeneutics refers primarily to Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of knowledge as developed in Truth and Method, and sometimes to Paul Ricoeur.  A hermeneutic (singular) refers to one particular method or strand of interpretation.
Traditional hermeneutics involves interpretation theories that concern the meaning of written texts. These theories focus on the relationships found between the author, reader and text. E.D. Hirsch argued that the meaning of a text is determined by the author's intent. Hans-Georg Gadamer argued that the meaning of the text goes beyond the author, and therefore the meaning is determined by the point where the horizons of the reader and the writer meet. Paul Ricoeur argued that the text is independent of the author's intent and original audience, and therefore the reader determines the meaning of the text.
Biblical hermeneutics is sometimes divided into two sub-categories - general and special hermeneutics. General hermeneutics is the study of those rules that govern interpretation of the entire biblical text, including grammatical, historical-cultural, contextual, lexical-syntactical, and theological aspects. Special hermeneutics is the study of rules that apply to specific genres, such as parables, allegories, types, and prophecy.  Biblical hermeneutics is often defined as both a science and an art. It is considered a science with regard to its prescribed set of rules, and an art because meaning is not found in a mechanical and rigid application of rules.
In the last two thousand years, the scope of hermeneutics has expanded to include the investigation and interpretation not only of oral, textual and artistic works, but of human behaviour generally, including language and patterns of speech, social institutions, and ritual behaviours (such as religious ceremonies, political rallies, football matches, rock concerts, etc.).It interprets or inquires into the meaning and import of these phenomena, through understanding the point of view and 'inner life' (Dilthey) of an insider, or the first-person perspective of an engaged participant in these phenomena.
Medieval Christian interpretations of text incorporated exegesis into a fourfold mode that emphasized the distinction between the letter and the spirit of the text.
This schema was based on the various ways of interpreting the text utilitized by the Patristic writers. The literal sense (sensus historicus) of Scripture denotes what the text states or reports directly. The allegorical sense (sensus allegoricus) explains the text with regard to the doctrinal content of church dogma, so that each literal element has a symbolic meaning, see also Typology (theology). The moral application of the text to the individual reader or hearer is the third sense, the sensus tropologicus or sensus moralis, while a fourth level of meaning, the sensus anagogicus, draws out of the text the implicit allusions it contains to secret metaphysical and eschatological knowledge, or gnosis.
The hermeneutical terminology used here is in part arbitrary. For almost all three interpretations which go beyond the literal explanations are in a general sense "allegorical". The practical application of these three aspects of spiritual interpretation varied considerably. Most of the time, the fourfold sense of the Scriptures was used only partially, dependent upon the content of the text and the idea of the exegete.... We can easily notice that the basic structure is in fact a twofold sense of the Scriptures, that is, the distinction between the sensus literalis and the sensus spiritualis or mysticus, and that the number four was derived from a restrictive systematization of the numerous possibilities which existed for the sensus spiritualis into three interpretive dimensions.
Hermeneutics in the Middle Ages witnessed the proliferation of non-literal interpretations of the Bible. Christian commentators could read Old Testament narratives simultaneously as prefigurations of analogous New Testament episodes, as symbolic lessons about Church institutions and current teachings, and as personally applicable allegories of the Spirit. In each case, the meaning of the signs was constrained by imputing a particular intention to the Bible, such as teaching morality, but these interpretive bases were posited by the religious tradition rather than suggested by a preliminary reading of the text.
The customary medieval exegetical technique commented on the text in glossae ("glosses" or annotations) written between the lines and at the side of the text which was left with wide margins for this very purpose. The text might be further commented on in scholia which are long, exegetical passages, often on a separate page.
A similar fourfold categorization is also found in Rabbinic writings. The fourfold categorizations are: Peshat (simple interpretation), Remez (allusion), Derash (interpretive), and Sod (secret/mystical). It is uncertain whether or not the Rabbinic division of interpretation pre-dates the Patristic version. The medieval period saw the growth of many new categories of Rabbinic interpretation and explanation of the Torah, including the emergence of Kabbalah and the writings of Maimonides.
The discipline of hermeneutics emerged with the new humanist education of the 15th century as a historical and critical methodology for analyzing texts. In a triumph of early modern hermeneutics, the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla proved in 1440 that the "Donation of Constantine" was a forgery, through intrinsic evidence of the text itself. Thus hermeneutics expanded from its medieval role explaining the correct analysis of the Bible.
However, Biblical hermeneutics did not die off. For example, the Protestant Reformation brought about a renewed interest in the interpretation of the Bible, which took a step away from the interpretive tradition developed during the Middle Ages back to the texts themselves. Luther and Calvin emphasized scriptura sui ipsius interpres. Especially Calvin used brevitas et facilitas as an aspect of theological hermeneutics.
The rationalist Enlightenment led hermeneuts, especially Protestant exegetes, to view Scriptural texts as secular Classical texts. Scripture thus was interpreted as responses to historical or social forces, so that apparent contradictions and difficult passages in the New Testament, for example, might be clarified by comparing their possible meanings with contemporaneous Christian practices.
Friedrich Schleiermacher explored the nature of understanding in relation not just to the problem of deciphering sacred texts, but to all human texts and modes of communication. The interpretation of a text must proceed by framing the content asserted in terms of the overall organization of the work. He distinguishes between grammatical interpretation and psychological interpretation. The former studies how a work is composed from general ideas, the latter considers the peculiar combinations that characterize the work as a whole. Schleiermacher said that every problem of interpretation is a problem of understanding. He even defined hermeneutics as the art of avoiding misunderstanding. He provides a solution to avoidance of misunderstanding: knowledge of grammatical and psychological laws in trying to understand the text and the writer. There arose in his time a fundamental shift from understanding not only the exact words and their objective meaning to individuality of the speaker or author.
Wilhelm Dilthey broadened hermeneutics even more by relating interpretation to all historical objectifications. Understanding moves from the outer manifestations of human action and productivity to explore their inner meaning. In his last important essay "The Understanding of Others and Their Manifestations of Life" (1910), Dilthey makes it clear that this move from outer to inner, from expression to what is expressed, is not based on empathy. Empathy involves a direct identification with the other. Interpretation involves an indirect or mediated understanding that can only be attained by placing human expressions in their historical context. Understanding is not a process of reconstructing the state of mind of the author, but one of articulating what is expressed in the work. Dilthey divides the spiritual sciences into 3 structural levels: experience, expression, and comprehension. Experience means to feel the situation or thing personally. Dilthey suggests that we can always grasp the meaning of unknown thinking when we try to experience it. Dilthey’s understanding of experience is very similar to Husserl’s. Expression converts experience into meaning because when we express something it is no more a private and personal thing but an appeal to somebody outside of oneself. Every saying is an expression. Dilthey suggests that we can always return to an expression especially its written form and this practice has the same objective value as an experiment in sciences. The possibility of returning makes scientific analysis possible and therefore humanities maybe labeled as science. Moreover, Dilthey assumes that expression may be “saying” more than the speaker intended because the expression brings forward meanings that the individual conscience may not fully understand. The last structural level of spiritual sciences according to Dilthey is comprehension, which in Dilthey’s context is a dimension which contains both comprehension and incomprehension. Incomprehension means more or less wrong understanding. Dilthey presumes that comprehension produces coexistence: He who understands, understand others; he who does not understand stays alone. According to Gadamer Dilthey thought that we should decode our historical past but he did not think about personal history.
 
Since Dilthey, the discipline of hermeneutics has detached itself from this central task and broadened its spectrum to all texts, including multimedia and to understanding the bases of meaning. In the 20th century, Martin Heidegger's philosophical hermeneutics shifted the focus from interpretation to existential understanding, which was treated more as a direct, non-mediated, thus in a sense more authentic way of being in the world than simply as a way of knowing.
Advocates of this approach claim those texts, and the people who produce them, cannot be studied using the same scientific methods as the natural sciences, thus use arguments similar to that of antipositivism. Moreover, they claim that such texts are conventionalized expressions of the experience of the author; thus, the interpretation of such texts will reveal something about the social context in which they were formed, but, more significantly, provide the reader with a means to share the experiences of the author. Among the key thinkers of this approach is the sociologist Max Weber.
Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics is a development of the hermeneutics of his teacher, Heidegger. Gadamer asserts that methodical contemplation is opposite to experience and reflection. We can reach the truth only by understanding or even mastering our experience. Experience according to Gadamer isn’t fixed but rather changing and always indicating new perspectives. The most important thing is to unfold what constitutes individual comprehension. And Gadamer says that it is the hermeneutical circle. Gadamer points out that we should not overcome our prejudices because the man is always a man of concrete tradition. Being alien to a particular tradition is a condition of understanding. Gadamer points out that we can never step outside of our tradition; all we can do is try to understand it.
Paul Ricoeur developed a hermeneutics based on Heidegger's concepts, although his own work differs in many ways from that of Gadamer's.
Andrés Ortíz-Osés has developed his Symbolic Hermeneutics as the Mediterranean response to north European Hermeneutics. His main statement regarding the symbolic understanding of the world is that the meaning is the symbolic healing of the real injury.
Jürgen Habermas criticized the conservatism of previous hermeneutics, especially Gadamer, because the focus on tradition seemed to undermine possibilities for social criticism and transformation. Habermas also criticized Marxism and previous members of the Frankfurt School for missing the hermeneutical dimension of critical theory. Habermas incorporated the notion of the lifeworld and emphasized the importance of both interaction and communication as well as labor and production for social theory. For Habermas, hermeneutics is one dimension of critical social theory.
The hermeneutic circle describes the process of understanding a text hermeneutically. It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. Neither the whole text nor any individual part can be understood without reference to one another, and hence, it is a circle. However, this circular character of interpretation does not make it impossible to interpret a text, rather, it stresses that the meaning of text must be found within its cultural, historical, and literary context.
With Schleiermacher, hermeneutics begins to stress the importance of the interpreter in the process of interpretation. Schleiermacher's hermeneutics focuses on the importance of the interpreter understanding the text as a necessary stage to interpreting it. Understanding, for Schleiermacher, does not simply come from reading the text, but involves knowledge of the historical context of the text and the psychology of the author.
For Postmodernists, the Hermeneutic Circle is especially problematic. This is the result of the fact that in addition to only being able to know the world through the words we use to describe it, we are also confronted with the problem that "whenever people try to establish a certain reading of a text or expression, they allege other readings as the ground for their reading" . In other words, "All meaning systems are open-ended systems of signs referring to signs referring to signs. No concept can therefore have an ultimate, unequivocal meaning" .
The possibility of communication between different beings depends on them being able to agree on the meanings of the signs they may exchange. The great question is, how do we know whether someone else understands the same thing we do when we use language to try to communicate with them, and how do we know that we understand the language the same way the other person did when they issued it? This question has immense practical importance in every field, particularly in such fields as law.
One approach to this is discussed in what has come to be called the theory of mind, or the part of it concerned with building internal mental models of the minds of others, and finding ways in which their understandings of words is similar to or different from our own. Neurologists and others have found that the facility for doing that can be located at a particular site in the brains of human beings, and that damage to that site can render the person unable to understand the behavior of others or how their thinking and feeling might differ from one's own. Some persons may also have enhanced ability to understand the minds of others, compared to most other people.
Much postmodern thought treats all meaning as conventional among contemporaries, but sometimes we need to understand words the way they were understood by people no longer available to interrogate until we can be satisfied that our understandings agree, and we want to be as certain as we can that we understand the words the way the originators did. This includes such things as judicial interpretation of constitutions, statutes, contracts, treaties, and historical interpretation of the historical record, especially writings.
Hans-Georg Gadamer describes the process of interpreting a text as the fusion of one's own horizon with the horizon of the text. He has defined horizon as "The totality of all that can be realized or thought about by a person at a given time in history and in a particular culture."
In archaeology, hermeneutics means the interpretation and understanding of material by analysing possible meanings or social use. Proponents argue that interpretation of artifacts is unavoidably hermeneutic as we cannot know for certain the meaning behind them, instead we can only apply modern value in the interpretation. This is most common in stone tools, for example, where using descriptions such as "scraper" can be highly subjective and unproven. Opponents claim that a hermeneutic approach is too relativist and that their own interpretations are based on common-sense evaluation.
Insofar as hermeneutics is a cornerstone of both critical theory and constitutive theory, both of which have made important inroads into the postpositivist branch of international relations theory and political science, hermeneutics has been applied to international relations (IR). Steve Smith (Academic) refers to hermeneutics as the principal way of grounding a foundationalist yet postpositivist IR theory such as critical theory. An example of a postpositivist yet anti-foundationalist paradigm would be radical postmodernism.
Some scholars argue that law and theology constitute particular forms of hermeneutics because of their need to interpret legal tradition / scriptural texts. Moreover, the problem of interpretation is central to legal theory at least since the 11th century. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the schools of glossatores, commentatores and usus modernus distinguished themselves by their approach to the interpretation of "laws" (mainly, Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis). The University of Bologna gave birth to a "legal Renaissance" in the 11th century, when the Corpus Iuris Civilis was rediscovered and started to be systematically studied by people like Irnerius and Gratianus. It was an interpretative Renaissance.       After that, interpretation has always been at the center of legal thought. Savigny and Betti, among others, made significant contributions also to general hermeneutics. Legal interpretivism, most famously Ronald Dworkin's, might be seen as a branch of philosophical hermeneutics.
The process by which theological texts are understood relies on a particular hermeneutical viewpoint. Theorists like Paul Ricoeur have applied modern philosophical hermeneutics to theological texts (in Ricoeur's case, the Bible).
In sociology, hermeneutics means the interpretation and understanding of social events by analysing their meanings to the human participants and their culture. It enjoyed prominence during the sixties and seventies, and differs from other interpretative schools of sociology in that it emphasizes the importance of the context as well as the form of any given social behaviour. The central principle of hermeneutics is that it is only possible to grasp the meaning of an action or statement by relating it to the whole discourse or world-view from which it originates: for instance, putting a piece of paper in a box might be considered a meaningless action unless put in the context of democratic elections, and the action of putting a ballot paper in a box. One can frequently find reference to the 'hermeneutic circle': that is, relating the whole to the part and the part to the whole. Hermeneutics in sociology was most heavily influenced by German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer
The field of marketing has adopted this term from sociology, using the term to refer to qualitative studies in which interviews with (or other forms of text from) one or a small number of people are closely read, analyzed, and interpreted.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Theory of Form
The English word "form" may be used to translate two distinct concepts with which Plato was concerned—the outward "form" or appearance of something, and "Form" in a new, technical sense, apparently invented by Plato. These are often distinguished by the use of uncapitalized "form" and capitalized "Form," respectively. In the following summary passage, the two concepts are related to each other.
The forms that we see, according to Plato, are not real, but literally mimic the real Forms. In the Allegory of the cave expressed in Republic, the things we ordinarily perceive in the world are characterized as shadows of the real things, which we do not perceive directly. That which the observer understands when he views the world mimics the archetypes of the many types and properties (that is, of universals) of things we see all around us.
These meanings remained the same over the centuries until the beginning of philosophy, when they became equivocal, acquiring additional specialized philosophic meanings. The pre-Socratic philosophers, starting with Thales, noted that appearances change quite a bit and began to ask what the thing changing "really" is. The answer was substance, which stands under the changes and is the actually existing thing being seen. The status of appearances now came into question. What is the form really and how is that related to substance?
Thus the theory of matter and form was born. Starting with at least Plato and possibly germinal in some of the pre-Socratic’s the forms were considered "in" something else, which Plato called nature .The latter seemed as a "mother" (matter from mater) of substances by receiving (or losing) forms.
But what were the forms? In Plato as well as in general speech there is a form for every object or quality in reality: forms of dogs, human beings, mountains, colors, courage, love, and goodness. Form answers the question "what is that?" Plato was going a step further and asking what Form itself is. He supposed that the object was essentially or "really" the Form and that the phenomena were mere shadows mimicking the Form; that is, momentary portrayals of the Form under different circumstances. The problem of universals - how can one thing in general be many things in particular - was solved by presuming that Form was a distinct singular thing but caused plural representations of itself in particular objects.  Matter was considered particular in itself.
These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them. Plato held that the world of Forms is separate from our own world (the world of substances) and also is the true basis of reality. Removed from matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, Plato believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind.
A Form is aspatial (outside the world) and atemporal (outside time). Atemporal means that it does not exist within any time period. It did not start, there is no duration in time, and it will not end. It is neither eternal in the sense of existing forever or mortal, of limited duration. It exists outside time altogether. Forms are aspatial in that they do not have no spatial dimensions and thus no orientation in space, nor do they even (like the point) have a location. They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Forms are extra-mental.
A Form is an objective "blueprint" of perfection.  The Forms are perfect themselves because they are unchanging. For example, say we have a triangle drawn on a blackboard. A triangle is a polygon with 3 sides. The triangle as it is on the blackboard is far from perfect. However, it is only the intelligibility of the Form "triangle" that allows us to know the drawing on the chalkboard is a triangle, and the Form "triangle" is perfect and unchanging. It is exactly the same whenever anyone chooses to consider it; however, the time is that of the observer and not of the triangle.
The Forms exist in a rarefied sector of the universe.
But the true earth is pure and situated in the pure heaven and it is the heaven which is commonly spoken by us as the ether for if any man could arrive at the extreme limit ... he would acknowledge that this other world was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth.
In comparison to it our earth is "spoilt and corroded as in the sea all things are corroded by the brine." There the colors are "brighter far and clearer than ours; there is a purple of wonderful lustre, also the radiance of gold and the white which is in the earth is whiter than any chalk or snow." Moreover the plants are better: "and in this far region everything that grows - trees and flowers and fruits - are in a like degree fairer than any here."  Gems lie about like ordinary stones: "and there are hills, having stones ... more transparent and fairer in colour than our highly-valued emeralds and sardonyxes ...." And for the humans, "... they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell ... in far greater perfection. They converse with the gods and see the sun, moon and stars as they truly are ...." Indeed, for Plato, "god" may be interchangeable with the Form of the Good.
Plato's story illustrates that he was always groping for answers rather than presenting a structured doctrine.
A man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true. But I do say that he may venture to think ... that something of the kind is true.
The ideal state
Plato postulated a world of ideal Forms, which he admitted were impossible to know. Nevertheless he formulated a very specific description of that world, which did not match his metaphysical principles. Corresponding to the world of Forms is our world, that of the mimes, a corruption of the real one. This world was created by the Good according to the patterns of the Forms. Man's proper service to the Good is cooperation in the implementation of the ideal in the world of shadows; that is, in miming the Good.
To this end Plato wrote Republic detailing the proper imitation of the Good, despite his admission that Justice, Beauty, Courage, Temperance, etc., cannot be known. Apparently they can be known to some degree through the copies with great difficulty and to varying degrees by persons of varying ability.
The republic is a greater imitation of Justice
Our aim in founding the state was not the disproportional happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a state which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice.
The key to not know how such a state might come into existence is the word "founding" ,  which is used of colonization. It was customary in such instances to receive a constitution from an elected or appointed lawgiver; however, at Athens lawgivers were appointed to reform the constitution from time to time.  In speaking of reform, Socrates uses the word "purge" in the same sense that Forms exist purged of matter.
The purged society is a regulated one presided over by academics created by means of state education, who maintain three non-hereditary classes as required: the tradesmen (including merchants and professionals), the guardians (militia and police) and the philosophers (legislators, administrators and the philosopher-king). Class is assigned at the end of education, when the state sets individuals up in their occupation. Plato expects class to be hereditary but he allows for mobility according to natural ability. The criteria for selection by the academics are ability to perceive forms (the analog of English "intelligence") and martial spirit as well as predisposition or aptitude.
The views of Socrates on the proper order of society are certainly contrary to Athenian values of the time and must have produced a shock effect, intentional or not, accounting for the animosity against him. For example, reproduction is much too important to be left in the hands of untrained individuals: "... the possession of women and the procreation of children ... will ... follow the general principle that friends have all things in common,” The family is therefore to be abolished and the children - whatever their parentage - to be raised by the appointed mentors of the state.
Their genetic fitness is to be monitored by the physicians: "... he (Asclepius, a culture hero) did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or have weak fathers begetting weaker sons - if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him ...." Physicians minister to the healthy rather than cure the sick: "... (Physicians) will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves." Nothing at all in Greek medicine so far as can be known supports the airy (in the Athenian view) propositions of Socrates. Yet it is hard to be sure of Socrates' real views considering that there are no works written by Socrates himself. There are two common ideas pertaining to the beliefs and character of Socrates: the first being the Mouthpiece Theory where writers use Socrates in dialog as a mouthpiece to get their own views across. However, since most of what we know about Socrates comes from plays most of the Platonic plays are accepted as the more accurate Socrates since Plato was a direct student of Socrates.
Many other principles of the ideal state are expressed: the activities of the populace are to be confined to their occupation and only one occupation is allowed (only the philosophers may be generalists). The citizens must not meddle in affairs that are not their business, such as legislation and administration (a hit at democracy). Wealth is to be allowed to the tradesmen only. The marketplace must not be regulated but left up to them. The guardians and the philosophers are not to own fine homes or cash reserves but receive a small pension from the state. None of these items are consistent with an unknowable Good.
Perhaps the most important principle is that just as the Good must be supreme so must its image, the state, take precedence over individuals in everything. For example, guardians "... will have to be watched at every age in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the state."[26] This concept of requiring guardians of guardians perhaps suffers from the Third Man weakness (see below): guardians require guardians require guardians, ad infinitum. The ultimate trusty guardian is missing. Socrates does not hesitate to face governmental issues many later governors have found formidable: "Then if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the state should be the persons, and they ... may be allowed to lie for the public good."
We call both the sky and blue jeans by the same color: Blue. However, clearly a pair of jeans and the sky are not the same color; moreover, the wavelengths of light reflected by the sky at every location and all the millions of blue jeans in every state of fading constantly change, and yet we somehow have an idea of the basic form Blueness as it applies to them.  But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is known exist ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process of flux, as we were just now supposing.
No one has ever seen a perfect circle, or a perfectly straight line, yet everyone knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato utilizes the tool-maker's blueprint as evidence that Forms are real.
... when a man has discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the material ....
Perceived circles or lines are not exactly circular or straight, but if the perfect ones were not real, how could they direct the manufacturer?
Plato was well aware of the limitations of his theory, as he offered his own criticisms of it in his dialogue Parmenides. There Socrates is portrayed as a young philosopher acting as junior counterfoil to aged Parmenides. To a certain extent it is tongue-in-cheek as the older Socrates will have solutions to some of the problems that are made to puzzle the younger.
The dialogue does present a very real difficulty with the Theory of Forms, which was overcome later by Aristotle, but not without rejecting the independently existing world of Forms. It is debated whether Plato viewed these criticisms as conclusively disproving the Theory of Forms. It is worth noting that Aristotle was a student and then a junior colleague of Plato; it is entirely possible that the presentation of Parmenides "sets up" for Aristotle; that is, they agreed to disagree.
The difficulty lies in the conceptualization of the "participation" of an object in a form (or Form). The young Socrates conceives of his solution to the problem of the universals in another metaphor, which though wonderfully apt, remains to be elucidated.
But exactly how is a Form like the day in being everywhere at once? The solution calls for a distinct form, in which the particular instances, which are not identical to the form, participate; i.e., the form is shared out somehow like the day to many places. The concept of "participate", represented in Greek by more than one word, is as obscure in Greek as it is in English. Plato hypothesized that distinctness meant existence as an independent being, thus opening himself up to the famous Third Man Argument of Parmenides, which proves that forms cannot independently exist and be participated.
Plato's later answer would be that men already know the Forms because they were in the world of Forms before birth. The mimes only recall these Forms to memory.  Science would certainly reject the unverifiable and in ancient times investigative men such as Aristotle mistrusted the whole idea. The comedian Aristophanes wrote a play, the Clouds, poking fun of Socrates with his head in the clouds.
The topic of Aristotelian criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms is a large one and continues to expand. Aristotle did not just criticize Plato but Platonism typically without distinguishing individuals. Moreover, rather than quote Plato he chose to summarize him often in one-liners not comprehensible without considerable exegesis and sometimes not then. As a historian of prior thought Aristotle often uses the prior arguments as a foil to present his own ideas. Consequently, in presenting the Aristotelian criticisms it is necessary to distinguish what Aristotle wrote, what he meant, whether Plato meant that, whether valid and what the relationship to Aristotle's concepts: a formidable task extending over centuries of scholarship. This article presents a few sample arguments addressed by a few sample scholars. Readers may pursue the topic more fully through the citations and bibliography.
In the summary passage quoted above Plato distinguishes between real and non-real "existing things", where the latter term is used of substance. The figures, which the artificer places in the gold, are not substance, but gold is. Aristotle, after stating that according to Plato all things studied by the sciences have Form, asserts that Plato considered only substance to have Form, giving rise to the contradiction of Forms existing as the objects of the sciences but not existing as non-substance.
Despite Ross's objection that Aristotle is wrong, that Plato considers many non-substances to be Forms, such as Sameness, Difference, Rest, Motion, the criticism remains and is major. Ross's summary dismissal: "We need not concern ourselves with Aristotle's argument" is hasty. Plato did not know where to draw the line between Form and non-Form. As Cornford points out, things about which the young Socrates (and Plato) asserted "I have often been puzzled about these things"referring to Man, Fire and Water, appear as Forms in his later works, but others do not, such as Hair, Mud, Dirt, about which Socrates is made to assert: "it would be too absurd to suppose that they have a Form." Aristotle's thought distinguishes between accidental and essential form.
Another argument of Aristotle is that Socrates posits a Form, Otherness, to account for the differences between Forms. Apparently Otherness is existing non-existence: the Not-tall, the Not-beautiful, etc., so that every particular object participates in a Form causing it not to be one essence; that is, a Form to exclude the essence but allow all others. According to Ross, however, Plato never made the leap from "A is not B" to "A is Not-B." Otherness only applies to its own particulars and not to the other Forms; for example, there is no Form, Non-Greek, only particulars of Otherness that suppress Greek.
This objection does not evade the question. Whether or not Socrates meant that the particulars of Otherness are Not-Greek, Not-tall, Not-beautiful, etc., such a particular still operates only on specific essences. If it were a general exclusiveness every Form would be excluded and nothing be anything in particular. If the exclusion excludes one essence then either Otherness is not unitary or multiple Othernesses exist, each one excluding one essence. It is something and it is not something; it allows and does not allow, which are contradictory properties of the one Form.
Though familiar with insight, Plato had postulated that we know Forms through remembrance. Aristotle successfully makes epistemological arguments against this view. In Plato the particulars do not really exist. Countering "... for that which is non-existent cannot be known”. Aristotle points out that proof rests on prior knowledge of universals and that if we did not know what universals are we would have no idea of what we were trying to prove and could not be trying to prove it. Knowledge of the universal is given from even one particular; in fact, the inductive method of proof depends on it.
This epistemology sets up for the main attack on Platonism (though not named) in Metaphysics.  In brief, universal and particulars imply each other; one is logically prior or posterior to the other. If they are to be regarded as distinct, then they cannot be universal and particulars; that is, there is no reason to understand that universal from the objects supposed to be particulars. It is not the case that if a universal A might be supposed to have particulars a1, a2, etc., A is missing or a1, a2, etc. are missing. A does not exist at all and a1, a2, etc. are unrelated objects.