Plato - The Theory of the Forms

Question 1

The Concept of ‘Ideals’

Answer 1

• Plato believed that there were essential truths that could be discovered – yet was awareness of the ever changing flux of existence (see Heraclitus’ idea of the river) which made it impossible to be the source of true knowledge.
• Leads him to posit the existence of other realities of which we can have certain knowledge which are eternal and always stay the same. These are known as ideals or ‘forms’.
• The different things that we see in the physical world around us and that we learn about through sensory experience are imitations and examples of their ideal Form.

Question 2

The Relationship between Concepts and Phenomena

Answer 2

• Concepts = The ideal form of an object or concept. They do not exist in a physical sense, but are real in the realm of the forms. They are unchangeable and exist beyond our perception of them.
• Phenomena – The objects and examples we see in this world – they only have existence because they take part in the universal form of their concept.
• In some way (about which Plato never makes completely clear) the objects that we see in this world imitate their eternal Forms and therefore the objects bear some resemblance to their eternal Forms.

Question 3

The Relationship between Concepts and Phenomena

Answer 3

• The Material World (our world) Here the material objects exist, subject to change and decay. They take their identity from the way that they conform to their corresponding idea in the world of the Forms.
• The World of the Forms Here the patterns for the objects and concepts for the material world exist in a state of unchanging perfection.
• The material world is a shadow of the ‘real’ world of the Forms.
• It is the job of the philosopher to break free from the shackles of the material world and find the world of the Forms.

Question 4

The Relation between the Form of the Good and the Other Forms

Answer 4

• The Form of the Good is at the top of a hierarchy of forms, this is the source of all knowledge.
• The Form of the Good gives each other form its essential characteristic and nature.
• In the Analogy of the Cave this is portrayed by the sun – the light given by it makes it possible to ‘see’ the reality of all things.