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+ "page_name": "Theory of Forms",
+ "page_url": "https://learn.saylor.org/mod/book/tool/print/index.php?id=30538",
+ "page_snippet": "What does the ideal state have to do with justice? ... The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas is a philosophical theory, concept, or world-view, attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According to this theory, ideas in ...What does the ideal state have to do with justice? ... The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas is a philosophical theory, concept, or world-view, attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According to this theory, ideas in this sense, often capitalized and translated as \"Ideas\" or \"Forms\", are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. According to this theory, ideas in this sense, often capitalized and translated as \"Ideas\" or \"Forms\", are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggests that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggests that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge. The theory itself is contested from within Plato's dialogues, and it is a general point of controversy in philosophy. The theory of matter and form (today's hylomorphism) started with Plato and possibly germinal in some of the presocratic writings. The forms were considered as being \"in\" something else, which Plato called nature (physis). The latter seemed as carved \"wood\", \u1f55\u03bb\u03b7 (hyle) in Greek, corresponding to materia in Latin, from which the English word \"matter\" is derived, shaped by receiving (or exchanging) forms.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\n Theory of Forms\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n
Read this description of Plato's theory of the forms. What does Plato mean by \"forms\"?; How does this relate to justice? What does the ideal state have to do with justice?
The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas is a philosophical theory, concept, or world-view, attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According\r\n to this theory, ideas in this sense, often capitalized and translated as \"Ideas\" or \"Forms\", are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. Plato speaks of these\r\n entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggests that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge. The theory itself is contested from within Plato's\r\n dialogues, and it is a general point of controversy in philosophy. Nonetheless the theory is considered to be a classical solution to the problem of universals.
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The early Greek concept of form precedes attested philosophical usage and is represented by a number of words mainly having to do with vision, sight, and appearance. Plato uses these aspects of sight and appearance from the early Greek concept of the\r\n form in his dialogues to explain the Forms and the Good.
The original meaning of the term \u03b5\u1f36\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 (eidos), \"visible form\", and related terms \u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03ae (morph\u0113), \"shape\", and \u03c6\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1 (phainomena), \"appearances\", from \u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9 (phain\u014d), \"shine\", Indo-European*b\u02b0eh\u2082- or *bh\u0101- remained stable over the centuries until the beginning of Western philosophy, when they became equivocal, acquiring additional specialized philosophic meanings. Plato used the terms eidos and idea (\u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03b1) interchangeably.
The pre-Socratic philosophers, starting with Thales, noted that appearances change, and began to ask what the thing that changes \"really\" is. The answer was substance, which stands under the changes and is the actually existing thing being seen. The status of appearances now came into question. What is the form really and how is that related to substance?
The Forms are expounded upon in Plato's dialogues and general speech, in that every object or quality in reality has a form: dogs, human beings, mountains, colors, courage, love, and goodness. Form answers the question, \"What is that?\" Plato was going a step further and asking what Form itself is. He supposed that the object was essentially or \"really\" the Form and that the phenomena were mere shadows mimicking the Form; that is, momentary portrayals of the Form under different circumstances. The problem of universals \u2013 how can one thing in general be many things in particular \u2013 was solved by presuming that Form was a distinct singular thing but caused plural representations of itself in particular objects. For example, in the dialogue Parmenides, Socrates states: \"Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking of one, and at the same time many by partaking of many, would that be very astonishing. But if he were to show me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be truly amazed\". Matter is considered particular in itself. For Plato, forms, such as beauty, are more real than any objects that imitate them. Though the forms are timeless and unchanging, physical things are in a constant change of existence. Where forms are unqualified perfection, physical things are qualified and conditioned.
These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them. Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality. Super-ordinate to matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind.
A Form is aspatial (transcendent to space) and atemporal (transcendent to time). In the world of Plato, atemporal means that it does not exist within any time period, rather it provides the formal basis for time. It therefore formally grounds beginning, persisting and ending. It is neither eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, of limited duration. It exists transcendent to time altogether. Forms are aspatial in that they have no spatial dimensions, and thus no orientation in space, nor do they even (like the point) have a location. They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Forms are extra-mental (i.e. real in the strictest sense of the word).
A Form is an objective \"blueprint\" of perfection. The Forms are perfect and unchanging representations of objects and qualities. For example, the Form of beauty or the Form of a triangle. For the form of a triangle say there is a triangle drawn on a blackboard. A triangle is a polygon with 3 sides. The triangle as it is on the blackboard is far from perfect. However, it is only the intelligibility of the Form \"triangle\" that allows us to know the drawing on the chalkboard is a triangle, and the Form \"triangle\" is perfect and unchanging. It is exactly the same whenever anyone chooses to consider it; however, time only effects the observer and not of the triangle. It follows that the same attributes would exist for the Form of beauty and for all Forms.
Plato explains how we are always many steps away from the idea or Form. The idea of a perfect circle can have defining, speaking, writing, and drawing about particular circles that are always steps away from the actual being. The perfect circle, partly represented by a curved line, and a precise definition, cannot be drawn. Even the ratio of pi is an irrational number, that only partly helps to fully describe the perfect circle. The idea of the perfect circle is discovered, not invented.
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The words, \u03b5\u1f36\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 (eidos) and \u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03b1 (idea) come from the Indo-European root *weyd- or *weid- \"see\" (cognate with Sanskritv\u00e9tti). Eidos (though not idea) is already attested in texts of the Homeric era, the earliest Greek literature. This transliteration and the translation tradition of German and Latin lead to the expression \"theory of Ideas\". The word is however not the English \"idea,\" which is a mental concept only.
The theory of matter and form (today's hylomorphism) started with Plato and possibly germinal in some of the presocratic writings. The forms were considered as being \"in\" something else, which Plato called nature (physis). The latter seemed as carved \"wood\", \u1f55\u03bb\u03b7 (hyle) in Greek, corresponding to materia in Latin, from which the English word \"matter\" is derived, shaped by receiving (or exchanging) forms.
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The English word \"form\" may be used to translate two distinct concepts that concerned Plato \u2013 the outward \"form\" or appearance of something, and \"Form\" in a new, technical nature, that never
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...assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter into her; ... But the forms which enter into and go out of her are the likenesses of real existences modelled after their patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner....
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The objects that are seen, according to Plato, are not real, but literally mimic the real Forms. In the Allegory of the Cave expressed in Republic, the things that are ordinarily perceived in the world are characterized as shadows of the real things,\r\nwhich are not perceived directly. That which the observer understands when he views the world mimics the archetypes of the many types and properties (that is, of universals) of things observed. \r\n
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In the Allegory of the Cave, the objects that are seen are not real, according to Plato, but literally mimic the real Forms.
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Plato often invokes, particularly in his dialogues Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus, poetic language to illustrate the mode in which the Forms are said to exist. Near the end of the Phaedo, for example, Plato describes the world of Forms as a pristine region of the physical universe located above the surface of the Earth. In the Phaedrus the Forms are in a \"place beyond heaven\" (huperouranios topos); and in the Republic the sensible world is contrasted with the intelligible realm (no\u0113ton topon) in the famous Allegory of the Cave.
It would be a mistake to take Plato's imagery as positing the intelligible world as a literal physical space apart from this one. Plato emphasizes that the Forms are not beings that extend in space (or time), but subsist apart from any physical space whatsoever. Thus we read in the Symposium of the Form of Beauty: \"It is not anywhere in another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else, but itself by itself with itself,\". And in the Timaeus Plato writes: \"Since these things are so, we must agree that that which keeps its own form unchangingly, which has not been brought into being and is not destroyed, which neither receives into itself anything else from anywhere else, nor itself enters into anything anywhere, is one thing,\".
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According to Plato, Socrates postulated a world of ideal Forms, which he admitted were impossible to know. Nevertheless, he formulated a very specific description of that world, which did not match his metaphysical principles. Corresponding to the\r\n world of Forms is our world, that of the shadows, an imitation of the real one. Just as shadows exist only because of the light of a\r\n fire, our world exists as, \"the offspring of the good\". Our world is modeled after the patterns of the Forms. The function of humans\r\n in our world is therefore to imitate the ideal world as much as possible which, importantly, includes imitating the good, i.e. acting morally.
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Plato lays out much of this theory in the \"Republic\" where, in an attempt to define Justice, he considers many topics including the constitution of the ideal state. While this state, and the Forms, do not exist on earth, because their imitations do,\r\n Plato says we are able to form certain well-founded opinions about them, through a theory called recollection.
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The republic is a greater imitation of Justice:
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Our aim in founding the state was not the disproportional happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought\r\n that in a state ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice.
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The key to not know how such a state might come into existence is the word \"founding\" (oikidzomen), which is used of colonization. It\r\n was customary in such instances to receive a constitution from an elected or appointed lawgiver; however in Athens, lawgivers were appointed to reform the constitution from time to time (for example, Draco, Solon). In speaking of reform, Socrates uses the word \"purge\" (diakathairountes) in\r\n the same sense that Forms exist purged of matter.
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The purged society is a regulated one presided over by philosophers educated by the state, who maintain three non-hereditary classes as required:\r\n the tradesmen (including merchants and professionals), the guardians (militia and police) and the philosophers (legislators, administrators and the philosopher-king). Class is assigned at the end of education, when the state institutes individuals\r\n in their occupation. Socrates expects class to be hereditary but he allows for mobility according to natural ability. The criteria for selection by the academics is ability to perceive forms (the analog of English \"intelligence\") and martial spirit\r\n as well as predisposition or aptitude.
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The views of Socrates on the proper order of society are certainly contrary to Athenian values of the time and must have produced a shock effect, intentional or not, accounting for the animosity against him. For example, reproduction is much too important\r\n to be left in the hands of untrained individuals: \"... the possession of women and the procreation of children ... will ... follow the general principle that friends have all things in common, \".... The\r\n family is therefore to be abolished and the children \u2013 whatever their parentage \u2013 to be raised by the appointed mentors of the state.
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Their genetic fitness is to be monitored by the physicians: \"... he (Asclepius, a culture hero) did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or have weak fathers begetting\r\n weaker sons \u2013 if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him \".... Physicians minister to the healthy\r\n rather than cure the sick: \"... (Physicians) will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to\r\n themselves\". Nothing at all in Greek medicine so far as can be known supports the airy (in the Athenian view) propositions of Socrates.\r\n Yet it is hard to be sure of Socrates' real views considering that there are no works written by Socrates himself. There are two common ideas pertaining to the beliefs and character of Socrates: the first being the Mouthpiece Theory where writers\r\n use Socrates in dialogue as a mouthpiece to get their own views across. However, since most of what we know about Socrates comes from plays, most of the Platonic plays are accepted as the more accurate Socrates since Plato was a direct student\r\n of Socrates.
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Perhaps the most important principle is that just as the Good must be supreme so must its image, the state, take precedence over individuals in everything. For example, guardians \"... will have to be watched at every age in order that we may see whether\r\n they preserve their resolution and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the state\". This\r\n concept of requiring guardians of guardians perhaps suffers from the Third Man weakness (see below): guardians require guardians require guardians, ad infinitum. The ultimate trusty guardian is missing. Socrates does not hesitate to face governmental\r\n issues many later governors have found formidable: \"Then if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the state should be the persons, and they ... may be allowed to lie for the public good\".
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Plato's conception of Forms actually differs from dialogue to dialogue, and in certain respects it is never fully explained, so many aspects of the theory are open to interpretation. Forms are first introduced in the Phaedo, but in that dialogue the\r\n concept is simply referred to as something the participants are already familiar with, and the theory itself is not developed. Similarly, in the Republic, Plato relies on the concept of Forms as the basis of many of his arguments but feels no\r\n need to argue for the validity of the theory itself or to explain precisely what Forms are. Commentators have been left with the task of explaining what Forms are and how visible objects participate in them, and there has been no shortage of disagreement.\r\n Some scholars advance the view that Forms are paradigms, perfect examples on which the imperfect world is modeled. Others interpret Forms as universals, so that the Form of Beauty, for example, is that quality that all beautiful things share.\r\n Yet others interpret Forms as \"stuffs,\" the conglomeration of all instances of a quality in the visible world. Under this interpretation, we could say there is a little beauty in one person, a little beauty in another \u2013 all the beauty in the world\r\n put together is the Form of Beauty. Plato himself was aware of the ambiguities and inconsistencies in his Theory of Forms, as is evident from the incisive criticism he makes of his own theory in the Parmenides.
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Plato's main evidence for the existence of Forms is intuitive only and is as follows.
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We call both the sky and blue jeans by the same color, blue. However, clearly a pair of jeans and the sky are not the same color; moreover, the wavelengths of light refracted by the sky at every location and all the millions of blue jeans in every state of fading constantly change, and yet we somehow have a consensus of the basic form Blueness as it applies to them. Says Plato:
But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is known exist ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process of flux, as we were just now supposing.
Plato believed that long before our bodies ever existed, our souls existed and inhabited heaven, where they became directly acquainted with the forms themselves. Real knowledge, to him, was knowledge of the forms. But knowledge of the forms cannot be gained through sensory experience because the forms are not in the physical world. Therefore, our real knowledge of the forms must be the memory of our initial acquaintance with the forms in heaven. Therefore, what we seem to learn is in fact just remembering.
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No one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly straight line, yet everyone knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato utilizes the tool-maker's blueprint as evidence that Forms are real:
... when a man has discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the material ....
Perceived circles or lines are not exactly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by definition they are sets of infinitely small points. But if the perfect ones were not real, how could they direct the manufacturer?
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Plato was well aware of the limitations of the theory, as he offered his own criticisms of it in his dialogue Parmenides. There Socrates is portrayed as a young philosopher acting as junior counterfoil to aged Parmenides. To a certain extent it is tongue-in-cheek as the older Socrates will have solutions to some of the problems that are made to puzzle the younger.
The dialogue does present a very real difficulty with the Theory of Forms, which Plato most likely only viewed as problems for later thought. These criticisms were later emphasized by Aristotle in rejecting an independently existing world of Forms. It is worth noting that Aristotle was a pupil and then a junior colleague of Plato; it is entirely possible that the presentation of Parmenides \"sets up\" for Aristotle; that is, they agreed to disagree.
One difficulty lies in the conceptualization of the \"participation\" of an object in a form (or Form). The young Socrates conceives of his solution to the problem of the universals in another metaphor, which though wonderfully apt, remains to be elucidated:
Nay, but the idea may be like the day which is one and the same in many places at once, and yet continuous with itself; in this way each idea may be one and the same in all at the same time.
But exactly how is a Form like the day in being everywhere at once? The solution calls for a distinct form, in which the particular instances, which are not identical to the form, participate; i.e., the form is shared out somehow like the day to many places. The concept of \"participate\", represented in Greek by more than one word, is as obscure in Greek as it is in English. Plato hypothesized that distinctness meant existence as an independent being, thus opening himself to the famous third man argument of Parmenides, which proves that forms cannot independently exist and be participated.
If universal and particulars \u2013 say man or greatness \u2013 all exist and are the same then the Form is not one but is multiple. If they are only like each other then they contain a form that is the same and others that are different. Thus if we presume that the Form and a particular are alike then there must be another, or third Form, man or greatness by possession of which they are alike. An infinite regression would then result; that is, an endless series of third men. The ultimate participant, greatness, rendering the entire series great, is missing. Moreover, any Form is not unitary but is composed of infinite parts, none of which is the proper Form.
The young Socrates (some may say the young Plato) did not give up the Theory of Forms over the Third Man but took another tack, that the particulars do not exist as such. Whatever they are, they \"mime\" the Forms, appearing to be particulars. This is a clear dip into representationalism, that we cannot observe the objects as they are in themselves but only their representations. That view has the weakness that if only the mimes can be observed then the real Forms cannot be known at all and the observer can have no idea of what the representations are supposed to represent or that they are representations.
Socrates' later answer would be that men already know the Forms because they were in the world of Forms before birth. The mimes only recall these Forms to memory. The comedian Aristophanes wrote a play, The Clouds, poking fun of Socrates with his head in the clouds.
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The topic of Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms is a large one and continues to expand. Rather than quote Plato, Aristotle often summarized. Classical commentaries thus recommended Aristotle as an introduction to Plato. As a historian of prior thought, Aristotle was invaluable, however this was secondary to his own dialectic and in some cases he treats purported implications as if Plato had actually mentioned them, or even defended them. In examining Aristotle's criticism of The Forms, it is helpful to understand Aristotle's own hylomorphic forms, by which he intends to salvage much of Plato's theory.
In the summary passage quoted above Plato distinguishes between real and non-real \"existing things\", where the latter term is used of substance. The figures that the artificer places in the gold are not substance, but gold is. Aristotle stated that, for Plato, all things studied by the sciences have Form and asserted that Plato considered only substance to have Form. Uncharitably, this leads him to something like a contradiction: Forms existing as the objects of science, but not-existing as non-substance. Scottish philosopher W.D. Ross objects to this as a mischaracterization of Plato.
Plato did not claim to know where the line between Form and non-Form is to be drawn. As Cornford points out, those things about which the young Socrates (and Plato) asserted \"I have often been puzzled about these things\" (in reference to Man, Fire and Water), appear as Forms in later works. However, others do not, such as Hair, Mud, Dirt. Of these, Socrates is made to assert, \"it would be too absurd to suppose that they have a Form\".
Ross also objects to Aristotle's criticism that Form Otherness accounts for the differences between Forms and purportedly leads to contradictory forms: the Not-tall, the Not-beautiful, etc. That particulars participate in a Form is for Aristotle much too vague to permit analysis. By one way in which he unpacks the concept, the Forms would cease to be of one essence due to any multiple participation. As Ross indicates, Plato didn't make that leap from \"A is not B\" to \"A is Not-B\". Otherness would only apply to its own particulars and not to those of other Forms. For example, there is no Form Not-Greek, only particulars of Form Otherness that somehow suppress Form Greek.
Regardless of whether Socrates meant the particulars of Otherness yield Not-Greek, Not-tall, Not-beautiful, etc., the particulars would operate specifically rather than generally, each somehow yielding only one exclusion.
Plato had postulated that we know Forms through a remembrance of the soul's past lives and Aristotle's arguments against this treatment of epistemology are compelling. For Plato, particulars somehow do not exist, and, on the face of it, \"that which is non-existent cannot be known\".
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Nominalism (from Latin nomen, \"name\") says that ideal universals are mere names, human creations; the blueness shared by sky and blue jeans is a shared concept, communicated by our word \"blueness\". Blueness is held not to have any existence beyond that which it has in instances of blue things. This concept arose in the Middle Ages, as part of Scholasticism.
Scholasticism was a highly multinational, polyglottal school of philosophy, and the nominalist argument may be more obvious if an example is given in more than one language. For instance, colour terms are strongly variable by language; some languages consider blue and green the same colour, others have monolexemic terms for several shades of blue, which are considered different; other, like the Mandarin qing denote both blue and black. The German word \"Stift\" means a pen or a pencil, and also anything of the same shape. English does not have such a word. The English \"pencil\" originally meant \"small paintbrush\"; the term later included the silver rod used for silverpoint. The German \"Bleistift\" and \"Silberstift\" can both be called \"Stift\", but this term also includes felt-tip pens, which are clearly not pencils.
The shifting and overlapping nature of these concepts makes it easy to imagine them as mere names, with meanings not rigidly defined, but specific enough to be useful for communication. Given a group of objects, how is one to decide if it contains only instances of a single Form, or several mutually-exclusive Forms?
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+ "page_last_modified": ""
+ },
+ {
+ "page_name": "Plato: A Theory of Forms | Issue 90 | Philosophy Now",
+ "page_url": "https://philosophynow.org/issues/90/Plato_A_Theory_of_Forms",
+ "page_snippet": "David Macintosh explains Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms or Ideas.For the non-philosopher, Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms can seem difficult to grasp. If we can place this theory into its historical and cultural context perhaps it will begin to make a little more sense. Plato was born somewhere in 428-427 B.C., possibly in Athens, at a time when Athenian democracy was already well developed. If we can place this theory into its historical and cultural context perhaps it will begin to make a little more sense. Plato was born somewhere in 428-427 B.C., possibly in Athens, at a time when Athenian democracy was already well developed. He belonged to a wealthy and aristocratic family. But Plato also believed that this is not the whole story. Behind this unreliable world of appearances is a world of permanence and reliability. Plato calls this more real (because permanent) world, the world of \u2018Forms\u2019 or \u2018Ideas\u2019 (eidos/idea in Greek). This would be a description of the Form or Idea of (a) Triangle. Plato says such Forms exist in an abstract state but independent of minds in their own realm. Considering this Idea of a perfect triangle, we might also be tempted to take pencil and paper and draw it.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\nPlato: A Theory of Forms | Issue 90 | Philosophy Now\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n
David Macintosh explains Plato’s Theory of Forms or Ideas.
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For the non-philosopher, Plato’s Theory of Forms can seem difficult to grasp. If we can place this theory into its historical and cultural context perhaps it will begin to make a little more sense.
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Plato was born somewhere in 428-427 B.C., possibly in Athens, at a time when Athenian democracy was already well developed. He belonged to a wealthy and aristocratic family. Plato’s family were involved in Athenian politics, so it is likely that Plato was no stranger to politics himself. He was also the founder of the Academy in Athens, which can be regarded as the Western world’s first university, and its first school of philosophy. He died some time between 348-347 B.C.
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Philosophically, Plato was influenced by a tradition of scepticism, including the scepticism of his teacher Socrates, who is also the star of Plato’s dialogues. What was obvious to many of the early Greek philosophers was that we live in a world which is not an easy source of true, ie, eternal, unchanging knowledge. The world is constantly undergoing change. The seasons reflect change. Nothing is ever permanent: buildings crumble, people, animals and trees live, and then die. Even the present is deceiving: our senses of sight, touch and taste can let us down from time to time. What looks to be water on the desert horizon is in fact a mirage. Or what I think of as sweet at one time may seem sour the next. Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic philosopher, claimed that we can never step into the same river twice.
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In his Socratic dialogues Plato argues through Socrates that because the material world is changeable it is also unreliable. But Plato also believed that this is not the whole story. Behind this unreliable world of appearances is a world of permanence and reliability. Plato calls this more real (because permanent) world, the world of ‘Forms’ or ‘Ideas’ (eidos/idea in Greek). But what is a Platonic Form or Idea?
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Take for example a perfect triangle, as it might be described by a mathematician. This would be a description of the Form or Idea of (a) Triangle. Plato says such Forms exist in an abstract state but independent of minds in their own realm. Considering this Idea of a perfect triangle, we might also be tempted to take pencil and paper and draw it. Our attempts will of course fall short. Plato would say that peoples’ attempts to recreate the Form will end up being a pale facsimile of the perfect Idea, just as everything in this world is an imperfect representation of its perfect Form. The Idea or Form of a triangle and the drawing we come up with is a way of comparing the perfect and imperfect. How good our drawing is will depend on our ability to recognise the Form of Triangle. Although no one has ever seen a perfect triangle, for Plato this is not a problem. If we can conceive the Idea or Form of a perfect triangle in our mind, then the Idea of Triangle must exist.
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The Forms are not limited to geometry. According to Plato, for any conceivable thing or property there is a corresponding Form, a perfect example of that thing or property. The list is almost inexhaustible. Tree, House, Mountain, Man, Woman, Ship, Cloud, Horse, Dog, Table and Chair, would all be examples of putatively independently-existing abstract perfect Ideas.
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Plato says that true and reliable knowledge rests only with those who can comprehend the true reality behind the world of everyday experience. In order to perceive the world of the Forms, individuals must undergo a difficult education. This is also true of Plato’s philosopher-kings, who are required to perceive the Form of Good(ness) in order to be well-informed rulers. We must be taught to recall this knowledge of the Forms, since it is already present in a person’s mind, due to their soul apparently having been in the world of the Forms before they were born. Someone wanting to do architecture, for example, would be required to recall knowledge of the Forms of Building, House, Brick, Tension, etc. The fact that this person may have absolutely no idea about building design is irrelevant. On this basis, if you can’t recall the necessary knowledge then you’re obviously not suited to be an architect, or a king. Not everyone is suited to be king in the same way as not everyone is suited to mathematics. Conversely, a very high standard in a particular trade suggests knowledge of its Forms. The majority of people cannot be educated about the nature of the Forms because the Forms cannot be discovered through education, only recalled.
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To explain our relationship to the world of the Forms, in the Republic Plato uses the analogy of people who spend their whole lives living in a cave [see Allegory of the Cave]. All they ever see are shadows on the walls created by their campfire. Compared with the reality of the world of the Forms, real physical objects and events are analogous to being only shadows. Plato also takes the opportunity to use the cave analogy as a political statement. Only the people who have the ability to step out into the sunlight and see (recall) the true reality (the Forms) should rule. Clearly Plato was not a fan of Greek democracy. No doubt his aristocratic background and the whims of Athenian politics contributed to his view, especially as the people voted to execute his mentor Socrates.
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Plato leaves no doubt that only special people are fit to rule. Who are the special people who can recognise the Forms? For Plato the answer is straightforward: the ideal ruler is a philosopher-king, because only philosophers have the ability to discern the Forms. Plato goes on to say that it is only when such a person comes to power that the citizens of the state will have the opportunity to step out of the cave and see the light.
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+ "page_name": "Theory of Forms",
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+ "page_snippet": "Is there anything permanent behind ... VII. The intelligible world is Parmenidean, the visible world is Heraclitean. Forms in the intelligible realm are postulated to be the objects of knowledge....The forms are postulated to solve certain philosophical problems: Epistemological: what are the objects of knowledge? How is knowledge possible? How is knowledge distinguished from (mere) belief or opinion? Plato\u0092s objection to the physical universe: it\u0092s Heraclitean (as he conceived Heraclitus\u0092s theory). Plato\u0092s objection to the physical universe: it\u0092s Heraclitean (as he conceived Heraclitus\u0092s theory). Objects in flux can\u0092t be known. Metaphysical: What things are real? Is there a mind-independent reality? Is there anything permanent behind the changing phenomena that can be perceived? The two-worlds theory: Cf. the Allegory of the Cave in Republic VII. The intelligible world is Parmenidean, the visible world is Heraclitean. Forms in the intelligible realm are postulated to be the objects of knowledge. Forms in the intelligible realm are postulated to be the objects of knowledge. The metaphysical theory is thus designed to fit epistemological requirements. Moral: can there be moral knowledge? Are there objective moral truths? Is morality founded in nature or convention? For Plato, goodness and being are intimately connected. Plato\u0092s universe is value-ridden at its very foundations: value is there from the start, not imposed upon an antiseptic, value-neutral reality by the likes of us - external imposers of value on what in itself has no intrinsic value. This connection explains why it is a single theory that aims to answer both metaphysical and ethical questions. Understanding how this can be so is one of the hardest - but most important - things to do in understanding Plato. The Form of the Good is at the top of the hierarchy of Forms, illuminating all of the others (as the sun illuminates objects in the visible realm, to use Plato\u0092s famous metaphor from the Republic).",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n \n \n Theory of Forms\n\n\n\n
Theory of Forms
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Background
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A problem for the Socratic search for definitions: how do you know when \n a definition is correct? You have to (at least) understand \n the definition, i.e., you have to understand the terms in the definiens. \n But how do you do that? By understanding their definitions? This \n leads to either circularity or an infiniteregress. \n
The problem arises if we try to give a linguistic account of understanding. \n The knowledge of a definition according to such an account would have to \n be propositionalknowledge. That is: we explain what X \n is by offering the definition \n
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X =df ABC.
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This just invites the question: how do we know thatX is \n ABC? If we answer this by saying that we know what A, B, \n and C are, and if we have to explain our understanding of A, \n B, and C in a similar way, there is no way out. \n
Plato’s idea: at some point, one must invoke a kind of knowing that \n is not propositional - i.e., not a matter of knowing that \n something-or-other - but is more like knowledge by acquaintance. \n More graphically: one must invoke a kind of knowing that is not a matter \n of grasping a definition of one term by means of other terms, but of grasping \n the thing itself. \n
This is the way recollection seems to be understood in the Phaedo. \n Recollection is the epistemological mechanism, and the Forms are the objects \n to which the mechanism is applied. \n
[Plato may be right in rejecting the idea that understanding can be adequately \n explained in terms of knowingthat, but wrong in proposing \n a kind of knowledge by acquaintance in its place. The proper contrast is \n not between knowledge by description (knowing that p) and knowledge \n by acquaintance (knowing x), but between knowing that and \n knowing how. That is, having a concept is not a matter of being \n acquainted with an item available only to the gaze of an intellect, but \n of having certain abilities and capacities. Cf. Aristotle and Ryle.] \n
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Characteristics of Forms
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A general metaphysical and epistemological theory. Central to all of \n Plato’s thought, but nowhere systematically argued for. Not stated \n in any one dialogue; we must cull from several (but principally Phaedo \n and Republic). \n
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A theory of postulated abstract objects, deriving from the Socratic \n “What is X?” question, which presupposes that there is \n a single correct answer to the “What is X?” question. \n
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The correct answer is not a matter of convention, of what \n we all (or most of us) think. \n
What makes such an answer correct: it is an accurate description \n of an independent entity, a Form. \n
Forms are thus mind-independent entities: their existence and nature \n is independent of our beliefs and judgments about them. \n
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The Phaedo contains an extended description of the characteristics \n and functions of the forms: \n
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Unchangeable (78c10-d9) \n
Eternal (79d2) \n
Intelligible, not perceptible (79a1-5) \n
Divine (80a3, b1) \n
Incorporeal (passim) \n
Causes of being (“The one over the many”) (100c) \n
Are unqualifiedly what their instances are only with qualification \n (75b) \n
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Other dialogues fill out the picture: non-temporal (Tim. 37e-38a); \n non-spatial (Phaedr. 247c); they do not become, they simply \n are (Tim. 27d3-28a3). \n
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Phaedo 80b provides a good summary, listing all the attributes \n of Forms that souls also have: “divine, deathless, intelligible, \n uniform, indissoluble, always the same as itself.” \n
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Terminology
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Forms are sometimes called “Ideas” - Plato’s words \n are eidos and idea, and the latter suggests the English \n “idea.” But this gives the wrong idea. \n
For Plato’s Forms are not mental entities, nor even mind-dependent. \n They are independently existing entities whose existence and nature are \n graspable only by the mind, even though they do not depend on being so grasped \n in order to exist. \n
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What the Forms do
\n The forms are postulated to solve certain philosophical problems: \n
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Epistemological: what are the objects of knowledge? How is knowledge \n possible? How is knowledge distinguished from (mere) belief or opinion? \n
Plato’s objection to the physical universe: it’s Heraclitean \n (as he conceived Heraclitus’s theory). Objects in flux can’t \n be known. \n
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Metaphysical: What things are real? Is there a mind-independent \n reality? Is there anything permanent behind the changing phenomena that \n can be perceived? \n
The two-worlds theory: Cf. the Allegory \n of the Cave in Republic VII. The intelligible world \n is Parmenidean, the visible world is Heraclitean. Forms in the intelligible \n realm are postulated to be the objects of knowledge. The metaphysical \n theory is thus designed to fit epistemological requirements. \n
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Moral: can there be moral knowledge? Are there objective moral \n truths? Is morality founded in nature or convention? \n
For Plato, goodness and being are intimately connected. \n Plato’s universe is value-ridden at its very foundations: value \n is there from the start, not imposed upon an antiseptic, value-neutral \n reality by the likes of us - external imposers of value on what in itself \n has no intrinsic value. \n
This connection explains why it is a single theory that aims \n to answer both metaphysical and ethical questions. Understanding how \n this can be so is one of the hardest - but most important - things to \n do in understanding Plato. \n
The Form of the Good is at the top of the hierarchy of Forms, illuminating \n all of the others (as the sun illuminates objects in the visible realm, \n to use Plato’s famous metaphor from the Republic). \n
An interpretation of this: knowing what something is can’t be \n divorced from knowing whether it's good. One can’t know what it \n is to be an F unless one knows what it is to be a good F: \n a non-defective example of its kind. Here is one way to see the connection: \n imagine a good head of lettuce. Now imagine another head of lettuce, \n but not as good as the first. And so on. There comes a point at which \n our example becomes so bad that it ceases to be a head of lettuce at \n all. If there were no connection between goodness and being, there would \n be no reason to expect this. \n
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Semantical: what do general terms stand for? What is it that \n we grasp when we understand something? Cf. again the Allegory \n of the Cave in Republic VII. \n
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Arguments for Existence of Forms
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Plato sometimes writes as if he takes the existence of Forms for granted, \n as a matter of faith. But sometimes he offers arguments for them. Each argument \n is connected to a function Plato has in mind for Forms to play. Some of \n these “reasons” for believing in Forms don’t really add up \n to arguments, but some do. Plato, in any event, was not very systematic \n about his arguments. \n
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Forms are objects corresponding to Socratic \n definitions. \n A Form is supposed to provide an objective basis for moral concepts. A \n definition is correct just in case it accurately describes a Form. The \n definition of Justice, e.g., is that statement which correctly tells us \n What Justice Is. \n
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Forms are objects of recollection. \n \n The knowledge we get when we are in possession of a Socratic definition \n is a priori, not empirical. So Forms are the entities for such \n a priori (= recollectible) truths to be about. \n
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“Imperfection” argument. \n \n Forms are the real entities to which the objects of our sensory experience \n (approximately) correspond. We make judgments about such properties as \n equal, circular, square, etc., even though we have \n never actually experienced any of them in perception. Forms are the entities \n that perfectly embody these characteristics we have in mind even \n though we have never experienced them perceptually. \n
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Argument from knowledge(“from \n the sciences”). \n What is our knowledge “about”? When we know something, what \n is our knowledge knowledge of? Plato supposes that there is a class of \n stable, permanent, and unchanging objects that warrant \n our knowledge claims. \n
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“One Over Many” argument. \n \n A famous passage in the Republic (596a) suggests a semantic \n role for the Forms (“there is one Form for each set of many things \n to which we give the same name”). That is, when you use the word \n ‘just’ and I use the word ‘just’, what makes it one \n and the same thing that we’re talking about? Plato’s answer \n is: the Form of Justice, the “one over the many.” \n
Plato believes that there is a non-conventionalist answer to questions \n of meaning: there is some one thing that is referred to by ‘just’ \n whenever it is used. Hence, when you talk about justice and I talk about \n justice, we are talking about the same thing. We belong to the same \n world, not each of us in his own private world. If we disagree in what \n we apply the term ‘just’ to, we cannot both be right. \n
The last three of these arguments are especially important. They correspond \n to three of the problems the Forms are supposed to solve. We’ll \n look at the first of these in the Phaedo, and at the others later. \n
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+ "page_name": "An Introduction to Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms - Owlcation",
+ "page_url": "https://owlcation.com/humanities/An-Introduction-to-Platos-Theory-of-Forms",
+ "page_snippet": "Neither are they eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, existing for only a limited duration. Forms exist transcendent to time altogether, according to Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms. Forms have no orientation in space, nor do they have a location. They are non-physical, but they ...One of the most challenging aspects of Plato's philosophy is his Theory of Forms (also called his Theory of Ideas), which is the idea that non-physical (but substantial) Forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate reality. For many modern thinkers, it is difficult to think of these \u201cForms\u201d as being separate from the objects that they represent in the real world. However, there are no perfect examples of any Form that exists in the real world. Detail of The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio, 1509, showing Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) According to Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms, matter is considered particular in itself. For Plato, Forms are more real than any objects that imitate them. Though the Forms are timeless and unchanging, physical manifestations of Forms are in a constant state of change. Neither are they eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, existing for only a limited duration. Forms exist transcendent to time altogether, according to Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms. Forms have no orientation in space, nor do they have a location. They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Since forms don't exist in time or space, where do the forms actually exist? If they aren't in the physical world or only in our individual minds, is there some other place that humans can't even comprehend where the Forms reside? These questions make Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms difficult for the average person to comprehend.",
+ "page_result": "An Introduction to Plato\u2019s Theory of Forms - Owlcation\nSkip to main content
One of the most challenging aspects of Plato's philosophy is his Theory of Forms (also called his Theory of Ideas), which is the idea that non-physical (but substantial) Forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate reality.
For many modern thinkers, it is difficult to think of these “Forms” as being separate from the objects that they represent in the real world. However, there are no perfect examples of any Form that exists in the real world.
Wondering about Plato’s Theory of Forms? Look no further
What Are Platonic Forms?
The Platonic Forms, according to Plato, are just ideas of things that actually exist. They represent what each individual thing is supposed to be like in order for it to be that specific thing. For example, the Form of human shows qualities one must have in order to be human. It is a depiction of the idea of humanness. But no actual human is the perfect representation of the Form human. They are similar, but every human is different, and none are perfectly human.
Detail of The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio, 1509, showing Plato (left) and Aristotle (right)
Wikimedia Commons / Raphael
According to Plato’s Theory of Forms, matter is considered particular in itself. For Plato, Forms are more real than any objects that imitate them. Though the Forms are timeless and unchanging, physical manifestations of Forms are in a constant state of change. Where Forms are unqualified perfection, physical objects are qualified and conditioned.
The Forms, according to Plato, are the essences of various objects. Forms are the qualities that an object must have to be considered that type of object. For example, there are countless chairs in the world but the Form of “chairness” is at the core of all chairs. Plato held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world, the world of substances, which is the essential basis of reality.
Though no one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly straight line, everyone knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato uses this as evidence that his Forms are real.
A representation of Plato's Allegory of the Cave: Left (From top to bottom): Sun; Natural things; Shadows of natural things; Fire; Artificial objects; Shadows of artificial objects; Analogy level.
Wikimedia Commons / Gothika
Perfect Examples of Forms Do Not Exist in Reality
Forms are the purest representation of all things. Plato believed that true knowledge or intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind. It is difficult for many thinkers to understand the concept of perfect Forms. If there are no perfect examples, so how we can know what the Forms are, exactly? If there are no perfect humans, and we can't see the Form human, how do we know what the Form actually looks like? And if we don't know what it looks like, how do we know that no human is a perfect representation of that Form?
Forms are aspatial (transcendent to space) and atemporal (transcendent to time). Forms do not exist within any time period, but rather provide the formal basis for time. Neither are they eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, existing for only a limited duration. Forms exist transcendent to time altogether, according to Plato’s Theory of Forms. Forms have no orientation in space, nor do they have a location. They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Forms are extra-mental ideas, meaning that they are real in the strictest sense of the word.
Because the Forms exist independently of time and space, they can be said to exist only as ideas in people's minds. The Forms are objective "blueprints" for perfection. They are considered perfect themselves because they are unchanging. For example, if we have a square drawn on a blackboard, the square as it is drawn is not a perfect representation of a square. However, it is only the knowledge of the Form "square" that allows us to know the drawing on the chalkboard is meant to represent a square. The Form "square" is perfect and unchanging. The Form “square” is exactly the same no matter who thinks about it.
A sculpture of Plato
PixaBay
Hypothetical Forms
If there is a Form for everything, and Forms know no time or space, could there be a Form for objects that don't yet exist? If there is a Form for everything that could ever exist, are there also Forms for things that people will never think of? Are there Forms that will never be realized?
The Forms are thought to be perfected ideas of things that exist independently of the actual objects. If no one has ever thought of it, then can it exist as a Form, or idea? If everything with the potential to exist does exists as a Form, where does the idea for the Form whose physical object does not yet exist come from?
Since forms don't exist in time or space, where do the forms actually exist? If they aren't in the physical world or only in our individual minds, is there some other place that humans can't even comprehend where the Forms reside? These questions make Plato’s Theory of Forms difficult for the average person to comprehend.
A Difficult Philosophical Concept to Grasp
Plato’s Theory of Forms is a difficult concept to grasp because it requires one to think in abstract thought about concrete objects. No object is a perfect representation of the idea it represents, according to this theory. Each object in the real world is a mere flawed representation of the perfect Forms they represent. Because the Forms are perfect versions of their corresponding physical objects, the Forms can be considered to be the most real and purest things in existence, according to Plato.
Very interesting subject but did not make sense until I read the second person's comment, which made sense to me
AnAspiringPhysicist on December 03, 2019:
“We’re not all marveling at the universe all the time. But occasionally in my work, and these are the moments that keep one going, you do encounter something that really inspires awe in a serious way. For many people, the way it comes about is some fact about nature that’s discovered in an experiment, and that can happen for me too. But as a theorist, another way it really comes about is when some fact about nature, or at least a toy model of something that could be seen in nature, turns out to also have a really deep and fundamental origin in pure mathematics, which as far as I can tell is the closest thing to pure Platonic thought that we have as humans.”
-Shamit Kachru, Theoretical Phsicist
AnAspiringPhysicist on December 03, 2019:
I hope this is'nt offensive, but this is honestly some of the simplest theory ive ever read, which lends to its beauty. However I do not understand how people do not understand this lol. This author makes it quite easy really. Simply close your eyes and envision a square, maybe add a black chalkboard with calculations flying by in the background and make it mathematical, or just picture it glowing if your more spiritual. Regardless, when you envisioned that square, it did not exist in space or time, it was not a real or physical thing, but is instead metaphysical. It was, to your knowledge, simply a perfect square. You did not need to look at a square first to construct that image in your brain. This (to me) implies that we think in forms, but nobody will ever truly know what one looks like because that is its nature. while im sure i have gone a long way in confusing many more people with this comment, my main message is this. Struggling to comprehend something like this is likely due to you overthinking, not underthinking. Remember plato was alive a very long time ago when he came up with these ideas, if he can COME UP with this stuff, im sure all of us today can at the very least comprehend it.
Axmi khattak on October 19, 2019:
It's difficult to understand omg i am trying to understand it but cann't
Judyjpratt@yahoo.com on March 22, 2019:
My mom has dementia. I think she is describing forms. “ like a person or thing that is kind of like a picture imprinted then absorbed by my brain “ speaking of the things she sees that I may not. She describes actually seeing them be absorbed. It’s very strange she says.
Marie on March 07, 2019:
This is seriously very difficult to get into the mind
Elijah A Alexander Jr from Washington DC on August 09, 2018:
My comprehension of form is like Plato's except from my perspective all forms are perfect for an intended purpose. No two manifestations are exactly alike but are alike in a general way. That is because every life-force has to, by reincarnating, experience all of those variances in order to become the fulfillment of them all. The purpose of earth's plane. Not only do life-forces incarnate as human but as every type of manifestation earth is composed of to include eventually being earth's life-force. Not only is that true concerning earth but every type of manifestation in the "Zeroverse" most human call universe. Eventually every life-force within existence becomes the life-force forming the zeroverse or existence as the one true form. That is the same as is said in the Christian religion, "I am in the father and the father is in me."
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+ "page_snippet": "The theory of Forms, theory of Ideas, Platonic idealism, or Platonic realism is a philosophical theory of metaphysics developed by the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. The theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as "Forms". According to this theory, Forms\u2014conventionally ...The theory of Forms, theory of Ideas, Platonic idealism, or Platonic realism is a philosophical theory of metaphysics developed by the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. The theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as \"Forms\". According to this theory, Forms\u2014conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as \"Ideas\"\u2014are the non-physical, timeless, absolute, and unchangeable essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. The theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as \"Forms\". According to this theory, Forms\u2014conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as \"Ideas\"\u2014are the non-physical, timeless, absolute, and unchangeable essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge. The theory itself is contested from within Plato's dialogues, and it is a general point of controversy in philosophy. Plato's conception of Forms actually differs from dialogue to dialogue, and in certain respects it is never fully explained, so many aspects of the theory are open to interpretation. Forms are first introduced in the Phaedo, but in that dialogue the concept is simply referred to as something the participants are already familiar with, and the theory itself is not developed. Forms are first introduced in the Phaedo, but in that dialogue the concept is simply referred to as something the participants are already familiar with, and the theory itself is not developed. Similarly, in the Republic, Plato relies on the concept of Forms as the basis of many of his arguments but feels no need to argue for the validity of the theory itself or to explain precisely what Forms are.",
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The theory of Forms, theory of Ideas,[1][2][3]Platonic idealism, or Platonic realism is a philosophical theory of metaphysics developed by the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. The theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as \"Forms\". According to this theory, Forms\u2014conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as \"Ideas\"[4]\u2014are the non-physical, timeless, absolute, and unchangeable essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge.[5] The theory itself is contested from within Plato's dialogues, and it is a general point of controversy in philosophy. Nonetheless, the theory is considered to be a classical solution to the problem of universals.[6]\n
The early Greek concept of form precedes attested philosophical usage and is represented by a number of words mainly having to do with vision, sight, and appearance. Plato uses these aspects of sight and appearance from the early Greek concept of the form in his dialogues to explain the Forms and the Good.\n
The original meaning of the term \u03b5\u1f36\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 (eidos), \"visible form\", and related terms \u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03ae (morph\u0113), \"shape\",[7] and \u03c6\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1 (phainomena), \"appearances\", from \u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9 (phain\u014d), \"shine\", Indo-European*b\u02b0eh\u2082- or *bh\u0101-[8] remained stable over the centuries until the beginning of Western philosophy, when they became equivocal, acquiring additional specialized philosophic meanings. Plato used the terms eidos and idea (\u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03b1) interchangeably.[9]\n
The pre-Socratic philosophers, starting with Thales, noted that appearances change, and began to ask what the thing that changes \"really\" is. The answer was substance, which stands under the changes and is the actually existing thing being seen. The status of appearances now came into question. What is the form really and how is that related to substance?\n
The Forms are expounded upon in Plato's dialogues and general speech, in that every object or quality in reality—dogs, human beings, mountains, colors, courage, love, and goodness—has a form. Form answers the question, \"What is that?\" Plato was going a step further and asking what Form itself is. He supposed that the object was essentially or \"really\" the Form and that the phenomena were mere shadows mimicking the Form; that is, momentary portrayals of the Form under different circumstances. The problem of universals \u2013 how can one thing in general be many things in particular \u2013 was solved by presuming that Form was a distinct singular thing but caused plural representations of itself in particular objects. For example, in the dialogue Parmenides, Socrates states: \"Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking of one, and at the same time many by partaking of many, would that be very astonishing. But if he were to show me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be truly amazed.\"[10]: 129 Matter is considered particular in itself. For Plato, forms, such as beauty, are more real than any objects that imitate them. Though the forms are timeless and unchanging, physical things are in a constant change of existence. Where forms are unqualified perfection, physical things are qualified and conditioned.[11]\n
These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them.[12] Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality. Super-ordinate to matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind.[13]\n
A Form is aspatial (transcendent to space) and atemporal (transcendent to time).[14] In the world of Plato, atemporal means that it does not exist within any time period, rather it provides the formal basis for time.[14] It therefore formally grounds beginning, persisting and ending. It is neither eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, of limited duration. It exists transcendent to time altogether.[15] Forms are aspatial in that they have no spatial dimensions, and thus no orientation in space, nor do they even (like the point) have a location.[16] They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Forms are extra-mental (i.e. real in the strictest sense of the word).[17]\n
A Form is an objective \"blueprint\" of perfection.[18] The Forms are perfect and unchanging representations of objects and qualities. For example, the Form of beauty or the Form of a triangle. For the form of a triangle say there is a triangle drawn on a blackboard. A triangle is a polygon with 3 sides. The triangle as it is on the blackboard is far from perfect. However, it is only the intelligibility of the Form \"triangle\" that allows us to know the drawing on the chalkboard is a triangle, and the Form \"triangle\" is perfect and unchanging. It is exactly the same whenever anyone chooses to consider it; however, time only affects the observer and not the triangle. It follows that the same attributes would exist for the Form of beauty and for all Forms.\n
Plato explains how we are always many steps away from the idea or Form. The idea of a perfect circle can have us defining, speaking, writing, and drawing about particular circles that are always steps away from the actual being. The perfect circle, partly represented by a curved line, and a precise definition, cannot be drawn. Even the ratio of pi is an irrational number, that only partly helps to fully describe the perfect circle. The idea of the perfect circle is discovered, not invented.\n
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Intelligible realm and separation of the Forms[edit]
\n
Plato often invokes, particularly in his dialogues Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus, poetic language to illustrate the mode in which the Forms are said to exist. Near the end of the Phaedo, for example, Plato describes the world of Forms as a pristine region of the physical universe located above the surface of the Earth (Phd. 109a\u2013111c). In the Phaedrus the Forms are in a \"place beyond heaven\" (hyperouranios topos) (Phdr. 247c ff); and in the Republic the sensible world is contrasted with the intelligible realm (no\u0113ton topon) in the famous Allegory of the Cave.\n
It would be a mistake to take Plato's imagery as positing the intelligible world as a literal physical space apart from this one.[19][20] Plato emphasizes that the Forms are not beings that extend in space (or time), but subsist apart from any physical space whatsoever.[21] Thus we read in the Symposium of the Form of Beauty: \"It is not anywhere in another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else, but itself by itself with itself,\" (211b). And in the Timaeus Plato writes: \"Since these things are so, we must agree that that which keeps its own form unchangingly, which has not been brought into being and is not destroyed, which neither receives into itself anything else from anywhere else, nor itself enters into anything anywhere, is one thing,\" (52a, emphasis added).\n
Plato's conception of Forms actually differs from dialogue to dialogue, and in certain respects it is never fully explained, so many aspects of the theory are open to interpretation. Forms are first introduced in the Phaedo, but in that dialogue the concept is simply referred to as something the participants are already familiar with, and the theory itself is not developed. Similarly, in the Republic, Plato relies on the concept of Forms as the basis of many of his arguments but feels no need to argue for the validity of the theory itself or to explain precisely what Forms are. Commentators have been left with the task of explaining what Forms are and how visible objects participate in them, and there has been no shortage of disagreement. Some scholars advance the view that Forms are paradigms, perfect examples on which the imperfect world is modeled. Others interpret Forms as universals, so that the Form of Beauty, for example, is that quality that all beautiful things share. Yet others interpret Forms as \"stuffs,\" the conglomeration of all instances of a quality in the visible world. Under this interpretation, we could say there is a little beauty in one person, a little beauty in another \u2013 all the beauty in the world put together is the Form of Beauty. Plato himself was aware of the ambiguities and inconsistencies in his Theory of Forms, as is evident from the incisive criticism he makes of his own theory in the Parmenides.\n
But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is known exist ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process of flux, as we were just now supposing.
\n
Plato believed that long before our bodies ever existed, our souls existed and inhabited heaven, where they became directly acquainted with the forms themselves. Real knowledge, to him, was knowledge of the forms. But knowledge of the forms cannot be gained through sensory experience because the forms are not in the physical world. Therefore, our real knowledge of the forms must be the memory of our initial acquaintance with the forms in heaven. Therefore, what we seem to learn is in fact just remembering.[24]\n
\nNo one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly straight line, yet everyone knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato uses the tool-maker's blueprint as evidence that Forms are real:[25]
... when a man has discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the material ....
\n
Perceived circles or lines are not exactly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by definition they are sets of infinitely small points. But if the perfect ones were not real, how could they direct the manufacturer?\n
One difficulty lies in the conceptualization of the \"participation\" of an object in a form (or Form). The young Socrates conceives of his solution to the problem of the universals in another metaphor:[26]\n
\n
Nay, but the idea may be like the day which is one and the same in many places at once, and yet continuous with itself; in this way each idea may be one and the same in all at the same time.
\n
But exactly how is a Form like the day in being everywhere at once? The solution calls for a distinct form, in which the particular instances, which are not identical to the form, participate; i.e., the form is shared out somehow like the day to many places. The concept of \"participate\", represented in Greek by more than one word, is as obscure in Greek as it is in English. Plato hypothesized that distinctness meant existence as an independent being, thus opening himself to the famous third man argument of Parmenides,[27] which proves that forms cannot independently exist and be participated.[28]\n
If universal and particulars \u2013 say man or greatness \u2013 all exist and are the same then the Form is not one but is multiple. If they are only like each other then they contain a form that is the same and others that are different. Thus if we presume that the Form and a particular are alike then there must be another, or third Form, man or greatness by possession of which they are alike. An infinite regression would then result; that is, an endless series of third men. The ultimate participant, greatness, rendering the entire series great, is missing. Moreover, any Form is not unitary but is composed of infinite parts, none of which is the proper Form.\n
The young Socrates did not give up the Theory of Forms over the Third Man but took another tack, that the particulars do not exist as such. Whatever they are, they \"mime\" the Forms, appearing to be particulars. This is a clear dip into representationalism, that we cannot observe the objects as they are in themselves but only their representations. That view has the weakness that if only the mimes can be observed then the real Forms cannot be known at all and the observer can have no idea of what the representations are supposed to represent or that they are representations.\n
Socrates' later answer would be that men already know the Forms because they were in the world of Forms before birth. The mimes only recall these Forms to memory.[29]\n
\nThe central image from Raphael's The School of Athens (1509\u20131511), depicting Plato (left) and Aristotle (right). Plato is depicted pointing upwards, in reference to his belief in the higher Forms, while Aristotle disagrees and gestures downwards to the here-and-now, in reference to his belief in empiricism.\n
The topic of Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms is a large one and continues to expand. Rather than quote Plato, Aristotle often summarized. Classical commentaries thus recommended Aristotle as an introduction to Plato, even when in disagreement; the Platonist Syrianus used Aristotelian critiques to further refine the Platonic position on forms in use in his school, a position handed down to his student Proclus.[30] As a historian of prior thought, Aristotle was invaluable, however this was secondary to his own dialectic and in some cases he treats purported implications as if Plato had actually mentioned them, or even defended them. In examining Aristotle's criticism of The Forms, it is helpful to understand Aristotle's own hylomorphic forms, by which he intends to salvage much of Plato's theory.\n
Plato distinguished between real and non-real \"existing things\", where the latter term is used of substance. The figures that the artificer places in the gold are not substance, but gold is. Aristotle stated that, for Plato, all things studied by the sciences have Form and asserted that Plato considered only substance to have Form. Uncharitably, this leads him to something like a contradiction: Forms existing as the objects of science, but not-existing as substance. Scottish philosopher W.D. Ross objects to this as a mischaracterization of Plato.[31]\n
Plato did not claim to know where the line between Form and non-Form is to be drawn. As Cornford points out,[32] those things about which the young Socrates (and Plato) asserted \"I have often been puzzled about these things\"[33] (in reference to Man, Fire and Water), appear as Forms in later works. However, others do not, such as Hair, Mud, Dirt. Of these, Socrates is made to assert, \"it would be too absurd to suppose that they have a Form.\"\n
Ross[31] also objects to Aristotle's criticism that Form Otherness accounts for the differences between Forms and purportedly leads to contradictory forms: the Not-tall, the Not-beautiful, etc. That particulars participate in a Form is for Aristotle much too vague to permit analysis. By one way in which he unpacks the concept, the Forms would cease to be of one essence due to any multiple participation. As Ross indicates, Plato didn't make that leap from \"A is not B\" to \"A is Not-B.\" Otherness would only apply to its own particulars and not to those of other Forms. For example, there is no Form Not-Greek, only particulars of Form Otherness that somehow suppress Form Greek.\n
Regardless of whether Socrates meant the particulars of Otherness yield Not-Greek, Not-tall, Not-beautiful, etc., the particulars would operate specifically rather than generally, each somehow yielding only one exclusion.\n
Plato had postulated that we know Forms through a remembrance of the soul's past lives and Aristotle's arguments against this treatment of epistemology are compelling. For Plato, particulars somehow do not exist, and, on the face of it, \"that which is non-existent cannot be known\".[34] See Metaphysics III 3\u20134.[35]\n
Nominalism (from Latin nomen, \"name\") says that ideal universals are mere names, human creations; the blueness shared by sky and blue jeans is a shared concept, communicated by our word \"blueness\". Blueness is held not to have any existence beyond that which it has in instances of blue things.[36] This concept arose in the Middle Ages,[37] as part of Scholasticism.\n
Scholasticism was a highly multinational, polyglottal school of philosophy, and the nominalist argument may be more obvious if an example is given in more than one language. For instance, colour terms are strongly variable by language; some languages consider blue and green the same colour, others have monolexemic terms for several shades of blue, which are considered different; other languages, like the Mandarin qing denote both blue and black. The German word \"Stift\" means a pen or a pencil, and also anything of the same shape. The English \"pencil\" originally meant \"small paintbrush\"; the term later included the silver rod used for silverpoint. The German \"Bleistift\" and \"Silberstift\" can both be called \"Stift\", but this term also includes felt-tip pens, which are clearly not pencils.\n
The shifting and overlapping nature of these concepts makes it easy to imagine them as mere names, with meanings not rigidly defined, but specific enough to be useful for communication. Given a group of objects, how is one to decide if it contains only instances of a single Form, or several mutually exclusive Forms?\n
^Modern English textbooks and translations prefer \"theory of Form\" to \"theory of Ideas\", but the latter has a long and respected tradition starting with Cicero and continuing in German philosophy until present, and some English philosophers prefer this in English too. See W. D. Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas (1951)\n
\n
^ The name of this aspect of Plato's thought is not modern and has not been extracted from certain dialogues by modern scholars. However, it is attributed to Plato without any direct textual evidence that Plato himself holds the views of the speakers of the dialogues. The term was used at least as early as Diogenes La\u00ebrtius, who called it (Plato's) \"Theory of Ideas:\" \u03a0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f30\u03b4\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9..., \"Plato\". Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Vol. Book III. p. Paragraph 15.\n
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^Plato uses many different words for what is traditionally called Form in English translations and Idea in German and Latin translations (Cicero). These include id\u00e9a, morph\u0113, e\u00eedos, and par\u00e1deigma, but also g\u00e9nos, ph\u00fdsis, and ous\u00eda. He also uses expressions such as to x auto, \"the x itself\" or kath' auto \"in itself\". See Christian Sch\u00e4fer: Idee/Form/Gestalt/Wesen, in Platon-Lexikon, Darmstadt 2007, p. 157.\n
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^\"Chapter 28: Form\" of The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World (Vol. II). Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica (1952), pp. 526\u2013542. This source states that Form or Idea get capitalized according to this convention when they refer \"to that which is separate from the characteristics of material things and from the ideas in our mind.\"\n
^Kraut, Richard (2017), \"Plato\", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2021-05-20\n
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^Possibly cognate with Sanskrit br\u00e1hman. See Thieme (1952): Br\u00e1hman, ZDMG, vol. 102, p. 128.ZDMG online..\n
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^\"*bh\u0101-\". American Heritage Dictionary: Fourth Edition: Appendix I. 2000.\n
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^Morabito, Joseph; Sack, Ira; Bhate, Anilkumar (2018). Designing Knowledge Organizations: A Pathway to Innovation Leadership. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. p. 33. ISBN9781118905845.\n
^Kidder, D. S. and Oppenheim, N. D. (2006), The Intellectual Devotional, p. 27, Borders Group, Inc, Ann Arbor, ISBN978-1-60961-205-4.\n
\n
^Cratylus 389: \"For neither does every smith, although he may be making the same instrument for the same purpose, make them all of the same iron. The form must be the same, but the material may vary ....\"\n
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^For example, Theaetetus 185d\u2013e: \"...the mind in itself is its own instrument for contemplating the common terms that apply to everything.\" \"Common terms\" here refers to existence, non-existence, likeness, unlikeness, sameness, difference, unity and number.\n
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^ abMammino, Liliana; Ceresoli, Davide; Maruani, Jean; Br\u00e4ndas, Erkki (2020). Advances in Quantum Systems in Chemistry, Physics, and Biology: Selected Proceedings of QSCP-XXIII (Kruger Park, South Africa, September 2018). Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. p. 355. ISBN978-3-030-34940-0.\n
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^The creation of the universe is the creation of time: \"For there were no days and nights and months and years ... but when he (God) constructed the heaven he created them also.\" \u2013 Timaeus, paragraph 37. For the creation God used \"the pattern of the unchangeable,\" which is \"that which is eternal.\" \u2013 paragraph 29. Therefore \"eternal\" \u2013 to a\u00efdion, \"the everlasting\" \u2013 as applied to Form means atemporal.\n
\n
^Space answers to matter, the place-holder of form: \"... and there is a third nature (besides Form and form), which is space (ch\u014dros), and is eternal (aei \"always\", certainly not atemporal), and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things ... we say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy space ....\" \u2013 Timaeus, paragraph 52. Some readers will have long since remembered that in Aristotle time and space are accidental forms. Plato does not make this distinction and concerns himself mainly with essential form. In Plato, if time and space were admitted to be form, time would be atemporal and space aspatial.\n
\n
^These terms produced with the English prefix a- are not ancient. For the usage refer to \"a- (2)\". Online Etymology Dictionary. They are however customary terms of modern metaphysics; for example, see Beck, Martha C. (1999). Plato's Self-Corrective Development of the Concepts of Soul, Form and Immortality in Three Arguments of the Phaedo. Edwin Mellon Press. p. 148. ISBN0-7734-7950-3. and see Hawley, Dr. Katherine (2001). How Things Persist. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chapter 1. ISBN0-19-924913-X.\n
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^For example, Timaeus 28: \"The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect ....\"\n
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^\"No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them...\" (Phd. 114d).\n
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^\"there is no Platonic 'elsewhere', similar to the Christian 'elsewhere'.\" (Iris Murdoch, \"Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals\" (London, Chatto & Windus 1992) 399).\n
\n
^Silverman, Allan (2022), \"Plato's Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology\", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-02-10\n
^Aristotle in Metaphysics \u0391987a.29\u2013b.14 and \u039c1078b9\u201332 says that Plato devised the Forms to answer a weakness in the doctrine of Heraclitus, who held that nothing exists, but everything is in a state of flow. If nothing exists then nothing can be known. It is possible that Plato took the Socratic search for definitions and extrapolated it into a distinct metaphysical theory. Little is known of the historical Socrates' own views, and the theory of Forms may be a Platonic innovation.\n
\n
^Kidder, D. S. and Oppenheim, N. D, (2006), The Intellectual Devotional, p. 27, Borders Group, Inc, Ann Arbor. ISBN978-1-60961-205-4\n
^The name is from Aristotle, who says in Metaphysics A.IX.990b.15: \"(The argument) they call the third man.\" A summary of the argument and the quote from Aristotle can be found in the venerable Grote, George (1880). \"App I Aristotle's Objections to Plato's Theory\". Aristotle: Second Edition with Additions. London: John Murray. pp. 559\u2013560 note b. Grote points out that Aristotle lifted this argument from the Parmenides of Plato; certainly, his words indicate the argument was already well-known under that name.\n
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^Analysis of the argument has been going on for quite a number of centuries now and some analyses are complex, technical and perhaps tedious for the general reader. Those who are interested in the more technical analyses can find more of a presentation in Hales, Steven D. (1991). \"The Recurring Problem of the Third Man\"(PDF). Auslegung. 17 (1): 67\u201380. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2007-09-26. and Durham, Michael (1997). \"Two Men and the Third Man\"(PDF). The Dualist: Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy (Stanford University). 4. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2014-11-10. Retrieved 2014-10-23.\n
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^Plato to a large extent identifies what today is called insight with recollection: \"whenever on seeing one thing you conceived another whether like or unlike, there must surely have been an act of recollection?\" \u2013 Phaedo, paragraph 229. Thus geometric reasoning on the part of persons who know no geometry is not insight but is recollection. He does recognize insight: \"... with a sudden flash there shines forth understanding about every problem ...\" (with regard to \"the course of scrutiny\") \u2013 The Seventh Letter 344b. Unfortunately the hidden world can in no way be verified in this world and its otherworldliness can only be a matter of speculation. Plato was aware of the problem: \"How real existence is to be studied or discovered is, I suspect, beyond you and me.\" \u2013 Cratylus, paragraph 439.\n
^Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo (2019). \"Nominalism in Metaphysics\". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.\n
73\u201380: The theory of recollection restated as knowledge of the Forms in soul before birth in the body,109\u2013111: The myth of the afterlife, 100c: The theory of absolute beauty
Phaedrus: 248\u2013250: Reincarnation according to knowledge of the true, 265\u2013266: The unity problem in thought and nature.
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Cratylus: 389\u2013390: The archetype as used by craftsmen, 439\u2013440: The problem of knowing the Forms.
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Theaetetus: 184\u2013186: Universals understood by mind and not perceived by senses.
\n
Sophist: 246\u2013259: True essence a Form. Effective solution to participation problem. The problem with being as a Form; if it is participatory then non-being must exist and be being.
\n
Parmenides: 129\u2013135: Participatory solution of unity problem. Things partake of archetypal like and unlike, one and many, etc. The nature of the participation (Third man argument). Forms not actually in the thing. The problem of their unknowability.
Book III: 402\u2013403: Education the pursuit of the Forms.
\n
Book V: 472\u2013483: Philosophy the love of the Forms. The philosopher-king must rule.
\n
Books VI\u2013VII: 500\u2013517: Philosopher-guardians as students of the Beautiful and Just implement archetypical order, Metaphor of the Sun: The sun is to sight as Good is to understanding, Allegory of the Cave: The struggle to understand forms like men in cave guessing at shadows in firelight.
\n
Books IX\u2013X, 589\u2013599: The ideal state and its citizens. Extensive treatise covering citizenship, government and society with suggestions for laws imitating the Good, the True, the Just, etc. Metaphor of the three beds.
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Timaeus: 27\u201352: The design of the universe, including numbers and physics. Some of its patterns. Definition of matter.
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Philebus: 14-18: Unity problem: one and many, parts and whole.
\n
Seventh Letter: 342\u2013345: The epistemology of Forms. The Seventh Letter is possibly spurious.
Patterson, Richard (1985). Image and Reality in Plato's Metaphysics. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ISBN978-0-915145-72-0.
\n
Rodziewicz, Artur (2012). IDEA AND FORM. \u0399\u0394\u0395\u0391 \u039a\u0391\u0399 \u0395\u0399\u0394\u039f\u03a3. On the Foundations of the Philosophy of Plato and the Presocratics (IDEA I FORMA. \u0399\u0394\u0395\u0391 \u039a\u0391\u0399 \u0395\u0399\u0394\u039f\u03a3. O fundamentach filozofii Platona i presokratyk\u00f3w). Wroclaw: WUWR.
\n
Ross, William David (1951). Plato's Theory of Ideas. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN978-0-837186-35-1.
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Thesleff, Holger (2009). Platonic Patterns: A Collection of Studies by Holger Thesleff. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing. ISBN978-1-930972-29-2.
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Welton, William A., ed. (2002). Plato's Forms: Varieties of Interpretation. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN978-0-7391-0514-6.
^See \"Chapter 28: Form\" of The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World (Vol. II). Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica (1952), pp. 536\u2013541.\n
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