Eidos (εἶδος) — “Form,” “visible aspect,” or “idea.” In Plato, the eidos are the Ideas or Forms — eternal, immutable, universal realities that sensible objects merely imitate (mimesis). A particular horse participates (methexis) in the Idea of Horse. In Aristotle, the eidos is each thing’s inner form — what makes it what it is — inseparable from matter (hyle). Husserl revives the term to designate the eidetic essence grasped by phenomenological intuition.
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