The introduction of the receptacle is an important innovation in Plato’s metaphysics, and clearly a development that takes him beyond the metaphysics of the middle dialogues.[17] Little attention was given in those dialogues to the question of what it is to be a sensible particular (other than being something that participates in forms), or what is required of particulars to be such that forms may be exemplified in them. In order to be effective in their role of exemplifying forms, particulars