But Aristotle   does not always lose. Something very unexpected happened in the commentators’ discussion of universals. Plato introduced the idea of Forms or Ideas, and these were understood by Aristotle and by other schools in the following centuries to be universals which somehow transcended the physical world and yet explained the acquisition of properties by things in the physical world. This Platonic account of universals was condemned in turn by Aristotle, by the Stoics and by Aristotle’s great protagonist, Alexander. Aristotle complained that the changeless Platonic Forms could not act as causes of anything, and he along with Alexander substituted deflationary accounts of universals, Alexander in some texts reducing them to mental constructs with a role of practically no significance at all. Would we not expect the Neoplatonist commentators to turn against Alexander’s deflationary account? It is very surprising, then, to find that the Neoplatonist Porphyry  , and Boethius   expounding Porphyry, [16] seem content with a deflationary account of universals close to the one proposed by Alexander. What has happened to universals as Platonic Forms? The answer, I believe, is that the Neoplatonists have so emphasised the role of Forms as causes, a role which Aristotle said they could not play, that they are willing to backtrack on the other role of Forms as universals, Simplicius   in Cat. 82,35-83,20, Proclus   in Parm. 880,3-11. A Form is not after all something universal and common to all instances, for it is too far superior to them. If it is something common at all, it is common as a cause to all its effects, but not as a common feature. Thus Aristotle loses on the issue of whether Forms can be causes, but he wins on the issue of whether universals are Forms. [SorabjiPC3  :16-17]