What Plato Meant by the Form of the Good

What Plato Meant by the Form of the Good

The basis of Plato's philosophy is his theory of Ideas, or doctrine of

Forms while the notion of Forms is essential to Plato's philosophy,

over years of philosophical study, it has been difficult to understand

what these Forms are supposed to be, and the purpose of their

existence. When examining Plato's forms and evaluating the theory,

some conclusions have proved to be unclear and unanswered. However,

the doctrine of Forms is essential to Plato's philosophy. Plato came

to his view of the Forms based on two premises: first that knowledge

cannot come through the senses; and second, we do nevertheless manage

to know things - in mathematics, for instance. Plato believed in two

worlds; the empirical realm of concrete, familiar objects known

through sensory experience, and the rational realm of perfect and

eternal Forms. According to Plato, the empirical realm is not real, as

sensory objects are not completely real. Beliefs derived from

experience of such objects are therefore vague and unreliable, whereas

principles of mathematics and philosophy, discovered by inner,

rationalistic meditation on the Forms, constitute the only real

"knowledge". Such familiar, concrete things as trees, human bodies and

animals, which can be known through the senses, are merely shadowy,

imperfect copies of their Forms.

In the Republic Plato used the "Allegory of the Cave." to help

illustrate his theory of the world and appearance versus reality. In

the Allegory Plato uses the metaphor of slaves living in a cave who

are chained to a wall in the lower part of a cave and can only see one

wall. Above the slaves is a...

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... is the problem that he's not very clear about how specific forms are

to certain items in the world of appearances. Is there a ideal Form of

Animal to which all animals relate ourselves included or do Forms

relate to specific animal species. Is there a ideal form for a dog

what about a pregnant, blind and three legged Scottish terrier then

the Forms stop being "universals" and degenerate into something which

has little meaning or use. In my opinion I think the statement is

correct and although some may argue Plato didn't need the empirical

evidence that people criticised his theory on as it has very little I

would say that we live in a sceptical world where in most cases its

not what you know but what you can prove that is believed in the world

and I see Plato's theory as too remote a concept to not be an

invention.