Plato

Forms

Education according to Plato is matter of recalling the world of forms, knowledge of which is in the soul but hidden by the incarnation of the soul in the body. For Plato learning is understanding the reality of how things are. Eg when you acknowledge lying is wrong you are remembering the form of truth that your soul knew before incarnation.

Form of the Good

In the world of appearances we label things as good but this does not tell us what goodness is. Plato argues that goodness is the most important form. It is the source of other forms and enables us to assess things. Plates analogy to sight represents the importance of the form of good. Sight requires light and the eye to see clearly. Light symbolises the form of the good so without it one does not see clearly, we are in the dark.

Criticisms of the theory of the forms.

People could argue that justice and beauty are not forms but are ideas in people's minds that they pass on to others. If people die without passing on the idea, the idea dies out. Richard Dawkins has referred to ideas being passed on from person to person like 'memes'. Are there forms of everything eg a ticket although he is not really interested in material objects it's more about the forms of concepts. The link between the forms and the world of appearances is unclear and the existence of another world cannot be proved. Aristotle argued that a copy of a form could be an infinite series that never stopped which would make the theory of the forms meaningless as a way of explaining the ultimate origin of concepts.

Plato's theory of forms

Plato suggests that the world we live in is a world of appearances but the real world is a world of ideas that he calls Forms. A form is unchanging because it is a concept it is not a physical object that copy the form, the form is everlasting. What concerned Plato were concepts like beauty, justice and the Good. He observed that beauty could be applied to many different objects eg a flower and a person can both reveal what beauty is. However they are not the whole definition of what beauty is because other things such as landscapes are beautiful. This led Plato to suggest that underlying all these examples of beauty is the real Form of beauty to which all these things correspond to a greater/lesser extent. He is absolutist-fixed truth that applies universally.

Analogy of the cave

The most famous passage in plato's Republic. Used to illustrate his theory of the forms. It is allegorical- different elements of the story are symbolic of the situation in which people find themselves. People are chained up in a cave facing the wall. The only light comes from a fire behind the wall. Behind the wall are people walking up and down carrying statues on their heads. The prisoners see the shadows cast by the statues on the wall in front of them. They believe the shadows are reality because that is all they see. If the prisoner is released he will be confused and not be able to see but gradually if he is prevented from going back underground he will be able to see the world around him. He will see the sun supporting life and not want to go back. Out of duty the prisoner goes back to teach the others about the reality but they are not convinced.

Features&meaning of the analogy of the cave

The prisoners are in an illusory world. Their situation is no different from ours we do not see the forms clearly, only the physical world. The prisoners need to be set free and the physical world imprisons a person. The statues are images of the forms and are only imitations of the true reality. In the Republic Plato criticised philosophers and politicians who lead people but do not know the truth (forms) these are the people carrying the statues. Robin Waterfield suggests that the prisoners being attracted to the shadows rather than the real world represents the way in which culture/upbringing limit people's ability to see the world in any other way. Above ground the philosophy gradually starts to see this is an analogy to the philosopher gradually learning to distinguish forms from the images in the world. He contemplates the sun which is the form of the good as the sun is the source of the other forms. He wants to stay above ground but out of duty feels that he must go below to educate the other prisoners. He cannot see clearly at first which represents the difficulties of seeing the forms within the world. It raises the issue of who it is the most suitable person to rule society and the state in which most people exist- ignorance of the forms and the fact that people do not want to be released from this state.

Forms

Unchanging, eternal and timeless. For Plato the real world of Forms is more important than the changing world of appearances. In the world there are only shadows and images of the Forms. Objects in the world imitate a form for example a beautiful person is only a shadow/image of the Form of beauty. The form of beauty is present in a beautiful person. Plato argues that when we were born we have a dim recollection of what forms are. His evidence for this was the fact that people can have a basic understanding of something like truth, justice or beauty without being taught it. Instinctively we can know something is beautiful even if we don't know the form. This leads him to claim that humans have an immortal soul. Because philosophers have true knowledge of the forms Plato argues that they are the most suitable people to rule society.