Plato would say that we in our material world are like the prisoners in the cave. Just as they would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real, not knowing nothing of the real causes of the shadows; we in our world think all around us is real, not knowing of the perfect world of forms.
The real world of forms is much more important to Plato because Plato thought that the world of appearances is transient, it ends but the world of forms will always and has always existed.
When the prisoner in the analogy of the cave had seen the fire behind them, and escaped into the outer world, he realised that his “world” in the cave was transient and the outside world was in-fact the permanent world that had been there all along. Plato explained that just as the prisoner’s transient world ended, our world of appearances will too, but the world of forms will remain.
In Plato’s theory of forms, he described everything we know and all concepts in our world to be imperfect and temporary. His idea of Ideal forms means that all concepts and all that we may recognise to be beautiful or to be in a certain way, is in-fact a imperfect imitation. This idea can be derived by an example explaining that when we begin with an idea, our final product made is never as good as a mental picture, Plato interprets this by saying that we are copying a less clear recollection of a form.
According to Plato, what makes everything a certain way, is because it is a imperfect imitation of the form, for example, there may be a beautiful lady, however her beauty is never perfect and is always transient. In this case the lady would turn less attractive as she ages. The lady in our material world would simply have been participating in the form of beauty and would never have been as perfect as the ideal beauty “blueprint” in the real world of forms. A single form can appear in many different aspects of life e.g the beauty form may be present in the lady, but it may also be present in a sunset.
Plato would say that the only reason why we can recognise and classify things in the visible world is because they bear resemblance to the forms. Plato was sure that everyone had knowledge about the forms, but the forms were beyond our senses, and that our immortal soul somehow has access to the forms before entering our bodies, thus giving us a vague knowledge of the concepts surrounding us. Plato states that when we identify things we are recollecting memories from our soul. However, all we may identify in this material world is not the actual form, but would have characteristics of the form, hence making it recognisable for us.
by
ektagohil (student)
