We realise that the human example of justice is not perfect as the world is always changing therefore nothing can possibly be perfect here. But simply because we recognise it is not perfect demonstrates that we have inner understanding of what ‘ideal justice’ or ‘the form of justice’ might be. We may have the mental concept of what a ‘perfect circle’ is but when attempted to illustrate this circle in the physical world it loses some of that perfection. Plato also believed that we have an understanding of forms from birth even if we do not realise it, we just know from intuition what the form of beauty is. We make judgements about different qualities of things in the physical world by comparing them with our concepts. He believes that this is because we experienced these forms before we were born.
This led Plato to believe that people must have immortal souls and must have lived in the world of forms before being born into the material world as humans. Plato was also interested in concepts of beauty and justice other than just objects. He observed that concepts such as beauty can be applied to many different objects e.g. a person is beautiful, as is a flower and building. This concept does not explain how there can be different forms of beauty as there must be different definitions of what it is. Plato used the analogy of the cave to illustrate the world of forms, there are many ways to interpret it but Plato basically tries to explain that the person who breaks free of the cave and discovers the sunlight is the only person with true knowledge.
According to Plato, the different forms were related to each other and were arranged in a hierarchy. The most important of all the forms was the form of Good; this highlights all other forms and gives them their initial value. For example justice is a form of goodness. As with other forms, goodness is something we have never seen perfectly in the physical world but nevertheless we have all seen actions or roles that we recognise to be a form of good. We recognise the goodness because we understood how they correspond to our intuitive knowledge of the form of the good. We can identify what it is about the actions or the people that is good. True knowledge for Plato is knowledge of goodness.
A philosopher is somebody who loves wisdom, the genuine lover of wisdom will want to put that wisdom into practice by teaching others and by setting an example, and this for Plato, was the reason he believed that countries should be ruled by philosopher kings. Part of Plato’s argument was that if someone knows what is good and what is bad, this person will choose the good. It is only ignorance which causes immorality. People steal and tell lies because they are ignorant of the form of honesty. If they became more philosophical and looked for the form of good, they would make far better moral decisions.
Plato was convinced there are two worlds, a world of ideas (forms) and a world of matter (the physical world). He argues that the world is not as ‘real’ as the world of forms, although many people e.g. scientists disagree with this theory.
“Plato’s concept of forms is simply a theory with no basis in fact”. Discuss. (10 marks)
This statement is probably what the majority of people think when learning about Plato and his theory of forms. Many people would discard his theory as ideas of justice/beauty are not forms but just ideas in people’s minds that are passed on to others. If people die without passing on the idea, the idea will die out with the person. You can argue that ideas are not independent of the mind in which they are preserved. One persons idea could be passed to hundreds of people if it is plausible to modern day life, yet people agreeing with the idea making it their own. People would also agree with the statement as they could argue that there cannot possibly be forms of everything in our physical world e.g. forms of a bus ticket, forms of different types of mobile phones.
The biggest criticism of Plato’s theory is that the existence of any other world apart from the world of appearances cannot be proven, giving no evidence or clue that the world of forms even exists.
by
tommo1st (student)
