The Signification of Names to Ideas and Particulars in Neoplatonism

According to Plato the ideas are the main object of the names and the signification of names to the particular things is possible only in a secondly way and only because of their likeness to the ideas. Aristotle denies the existence of the ideas and, contrary to Plato, believes that names signify firstly to the particulars and their signification to the abstract conceptions is possible only in a secondly way. The neoplatonic reconciliation of Plato’s theories with that of Aristotle made the neoplatonists , following Aristotle, considere the names as signifying to the particulars. Plotin and Proclus were the only ones who realized the false reconciliation between Platonic and peripatetic theories and, following Plato, emphasized that names signify first and truly to the ideas. But the difference between the ideas and the particulars is so extensive that Plato considers the applying of names to both of them as synonymously and this makes him some problems: on the one hand causality implicates the likeness between cause and effect but, on the other hand, how is it possible for the ideas to be the cause of the particulars, if the ideas and the particulars are so different that the names are applied to them synonymously. Plotin and Proclus try to explain the signification of names to ideas and particulars in a manner, so that not their likeness to each other nor the subsequent causality between them would be refused.