Plato and the Forms

Influence of Socrates

• Socrates said that virtue is knowledge – to know what is right is to do what is right.
• All wrongdoing is the result of ignorance – nobody chooses to do wrong deliberately.
• Therefore, to be moral you must have true knowledge.

The problem of the One and the Many

Plato was trying to find a solution to the problem that although there is underlying stability in the world (sun comes up every morning), it is constantly changing (you never step into the same river twice).

1. An old theory about this problem is that we gain all knowledge from our senses – empirically.
2. Plato disagreed with this. He said that because the world is constantly changing, our senses cannot be trusted. Plato illustrated his idea in the dialogue, ‘Meno’:

Socrates sets a slave boy a mathematical problem. The slave boy knows the answer, yet he has not been taught maths. Plato suggests that the slave boy remembers the answer to the problem, which has been in his mind all along.

So, according to Plato, we do not learn new things, we remember them. In other words, knowledge is innate.

Plato’s Theory of the Forms

Plato believed that the world was divided into:

1.      Reality and;

2.      Appearance

So, since in reality, everything is in a state of flux, empirical knowledge is not true knowledge but is merely a set of opinions, which are subjective to the speaker. However, since the World of Ideas is eternal and immutable, that is where knowledge lies. i.e. the truth will never change there. Thus the World of Ideas becomes more real than the World of Appearance.

Plato said that in the world, we have an idea of what beauty is – we have an innate knowledge of True Beauty or the Form of Beauty. In the world we have examples of imperfect, reflected beauty e.g. flowers yet we have never seen True Beauty. We are able to recognise or recollect the Form of Beauty in flowers.

According to Plato, our souls must have known the Forms (e.g. Beauty, Justice, Tiger) before we were born, which means that they are immortal and so pre exist and post exist our bodies.

Plato believed that when we call something a ‘cat’, we are referring to a particular quality or essence that it has. Plato claimed that in the world of Forms, there exists the Ideal Cat, created by God. The cats we see everyday are poor reflections of the Ideal Cat, which are born and will die. However, the Ideal Cat is eternal and immutable.

Plato believed that the Forms were interconnected and arranged in a hierarchy. The most important Form is the Form of the Good. Like the sun in the Allegory of the Cave, it illuminates the other Forms. All Forms are aspects of Goodness. E.g. Justice is an aspect of Goodness. Plato said that the Form of the Good is “the greatest thing we have to learn.” Knowledge of the Good is an end in itself and gives meaning and purpose to life.

The Allegory of the Cave

In Plato’s ‘Republic’, he illustrates his ideas about human knowledge in relation to reality and so explains the Theory of Forms.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave tells us to imagine a dark, large cave connected to the outside world by a long passage. In the cave with their backs to the entrance is a row of prisoners in bondage, unable to move.

Behind them is a bright fire. People move to and fro behind them all day so that their shadows are projected on the wall and voices are echoed. Plato says that all that the prisoners ever perceive or experience in their reality are the shadows and their echoes. It would be reasonable for them to assume that the shadows and echoes constituted all of reality.

One day, a prisoner is released. He turns around. His motion is painful and the light of the fire dazzles his eyes. He finds himself confused and would want to turn back to the wall – to the “reality” that he understood. If he was dragged out of the cave altogether, the sun light would blind him and he would be bewildered. Eventually, he would start to understand this upper world. If he were to return to the cave, he would again be blinded, this time by the darkness. Anything he said to the prisoners about his experiences would be unintelligible to them, who only know the shadows and echoes.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is symbolic:

Plato on the body and soul

Plato’s 3 main ideas on the body and soul:

1. DUALISM – the theory that the body and mind exist separate from each other but linked in some way

2. MATERIALISM – the theory that our minds are inseparable from our bodies

3. IDEALISM – the theory that our bodies are unreal, and an illusion – our minds are the only reality

• According to Plato, people have no real freedom if their lives are concentrated on physical requirements.

• Your soul can free itself and direct your life, both physical circumstances and intellectual pursuits.

• Only after bodily existence can the soul rise to the world of ideas.

• For Plato, body and soul are two different things. The soul is immortal – it inhabits the body temporarily.

• Plato held that the soul pre existed birth and continued after death.

Criticisms of Plato

1. Aristotle said that if a particular dog is a picture of an Ideal Dog, then isn’t there a third dog – an Idea of the Idea? If so, then is there one behind that? What is the point of talking about a dog at all?

2. Aristotle also said that you can talk about Beauty or Truth but what about one-legged pirates or blind rabbits?

3. Plato maintains that the Form of the Good is absolute. But, how are we to know what Good is? How can two equally intellectual and sincere people come to different conclusion on what Good is if it is constant?

4. Plato insinuates that the World of Appearance and its sense experience is not valuable but this goes against our instincts. We need the knowledge gained from the World of Appearance to survive. How are we to justify our natural survival instincts?

The nature of man applied to the State

Plato said in ‘The Republic’ that in order to have justice, the state must be run according to the nature of man.

When the state is run according to the nature of the self, justice results:

• A man who is unjust is ruled by desires (the appetite), but these can never be satisfied, thus he becomes frustrated – unfulfilled.
• A person who knows only appetite cannot make moral decisions. A philosopher knows both reason and appetite and is best to choose between them.
• Reason deals with eternal truths and values while the appetite is concerned with temporal satisfaction, therefore the values of reason are preferable. Therefore, Plato envisaged a perfect utopian society ruled by the Philosopher King.
• A man drawn to worldly success will remain unfulfilled since appetites are boundless.