Plato’s theory of Forms, or Ideas.
Summary.
To make completely valid knowledge possible it was essential that there be some such universal
realities not subject to change and decay and that these should be apprehended by human
intelligence.
Since some such realities were necessary, Plato was satisfied to assert that there existed
such a reality corresponding to what we are more apt to call every abstract concept.
These Forms are the objective reality to which the concepts correspond and they exist whether
we know them or not.
In this intelligible world, there is no place for progress or evolution: the pattern is
the same though the copy--the world of sense--may reflect it more or less closely at different
times.
The Forms are spaceless and immaterial, and they are independent of particulars.
Considered as truth, the Forms are the objective realities that general terms connote.
Since the Forms make for harmony, they are beautiful and are the objects of our longing
to see, to know and to understand beauty and by means of this understanding to create further
beauty.
The theory asks us to believe in eternal, unchanging, universal absolutes, independent
of the world of phenomena (the realm of Becoming).
Belief, for example, in absolute beauty, absolute justice, absolute goodness, from which whatever
we call beautiful, just, or good derives any reality it may have.
The Short Version: the Forms are immutable, timeless, one over many, intellectually apprehensible,
capable of precise definition, and exist independently of any particular thing.
Cultural Context: It is in opposition to the scepticism of the Sophists about the possibility
for knowledge and ethical standards that Plato insisted upon the possibility of knowledge
and upon the existence of absolute values.
In order to do this, he had to establish the existence of an objective, universally valid
reality, and this he found in the Forms.
Aristotle tells us that Plato accepted the Socratic method of definition with the addition
that, for a definition to be universally valid, it must be the definition of a constant reality,
independent of any particular specimen of the thing defined.
This reality is the Form.
Description of the Forms in the Timaeus The Forms are the pattern or model which the
Maker Demiurge has in view when he fashions the universe, and he makes the whole world
as much like them as possible.
In doing so, he introduces order into chaos.
Thus, they are the supreme reality after which the world is made.
Recollection.
In the Phaedo, Plato suggests that the soul, when it was disembodied, knew the Forms.
Though it forgot everything at birth, it can still "remember."
Learning is essentially a process of remembering what the soul once knew.
Since sensible particulars participate in or reflect the universal Forms, they can remind
someone of the universal with which his soul was once acquainted.
Arguments for the existence of the Forms.
These five arguments are referred to by Aristotle.
1.
The argument from the sciences.
Knowledge and science exist; they must have objects, and therefore those objects exist.
The objects cannot be particular things we know, since these are in a perpetual state
of change whereas the objects of science must be constant.
Therefore, there must be eternal and immutable realities, which we call the Forms, or Ideas.
The best illustration is that of the mathematical sciences: no line we draw is a perfect line
or indeed a line at all since it has two dimensions; no square that we draw is a perfect square.
The objects of mathematics therefore exist in thought, not in the physical world
2.
The argument of the one over the many.
Though every man in the mass of men is a man and every animal an animal, yet in no case
is the particular subject equivalent to its general predicate since this predicate is
of wider application than the subject.
Therefore, there is some external existent apart from the particulars, and it is equally
applicable to all the individuals concerned.
That which is the unity of this multiplicity, eternal and apart from them, we call the Form.
3.
Argument from the knowledge of things that are no more.
When we think "man" or "horse" our thought has an object which remains unaffected by
the destruction of any particular man or horse, or any number of them.
Therefore, something exists apart from the particulars, and this is the Form.
4.
The argument from relation.
Things are designated by the same name or have the same predicate in one of three ways:
1, there may be merely a likeness in name 2, they may be similar in nature (e.g. Plato
and Socrates are both men) 3, one may be a copy of the other (e.g. a
picture of a man may be called man).
When we draw two lines they are never truly equal; they are not equality itself but an
imitation of it.
Therefore, there must be eternal models based on which the imitations exist.
5.
The argument implying the fallacy of the third man argument.
When things have the same name, yet are not identical with this name in its widest application,
they have this name only because they are all in the same relation to a universal reality
(e.g. several men are called men because they are all in the same relation to the universal
Man).
Thus, there must be some universals, i.e. the Forms.
Criticisms of the theory from the Parmenides 1.
What are there Forms of?
Socrates wants to deny that there are Forms of hair, mud and sealing-wax, but there seems
to be no principled way of distinguishing the things that have Forms from the things
that don't.
Yet, if too many things have Forms, then there is little unity to the theory.
2.
How can the whole Form be present in different objects of sense and yet remain one?
If it does not retain its unity we have a plurality once more and the original difficulty
will only be transferred from the physical to the intelligible world.
3.
If you postulate one idea to account for the fact that all big things are big, you are
still left with two classes of big things--the Form and the particulars--and you still have
to explain why both classes of big things are big.
You will then have to have a further Form for both classes to participate in and then
in the same way a third Form to account for the fact that the first and second Form have
a common predicate, big, and so on ad infinitum.
(This is the third man argument.)
4.
Socrates suggests that the Forms exist in nature as patterns or models and that things
participate in them by being made like them.
Parmenides answers that you will still get stuck with the third man argument (which is
not what he calls it), because if particulars are like each other and have a common predicate
because they participate in a common Form, then if particulars and the Form are like
each other also, they must both participate in a further Form.
(This is another version of the third man argument.)
5.
If the Forms are not of our world, they are totally separate and there can be no connection
between the two.
The Forms then cannot be objects of knowledge, i.e. you cannot explain how, if the Forms
are totally separate, there is any interaction between the realm of the Forms and the realm
of the particulars.
Responses to these Criticisms 1.
Plato never regarded the Forms as material entities and it is upon this misconception
that the second argument above is based.
2.
The third man argument (3 and 4 above) is difficult to answer and points to the necessity
of explaining clearly what is the nature of these Forms, which Plato never really does.
3.
The fifth objection is often called the problem of participation and it raises the question
of the relation between the Forms and the phenomenal world.
Plato attempts in part to bridge the gulf between the two worlds by means of Recollection
in the Meno , the Phaedo , and the Phaedrus; by intellect in the Phaedo and Republic; by
Eros in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, and all of these are functions of the human soul.
But none of these attempts fully fills out what the connection would be.
There are also the metaphors of participation and imitation but Plato never cashes them
out so they don't really provide an adequate answer.
Other Criticisms of the Theory of Forms.
1.
Plato has just "duplicated" the real world.
2.
Plato has insufficient evidence for the existence of an independent world of Forms.
3.
Plato fails to generate principles of systematicity or unity for the world of the Forms.
4.
There is a difficulty of whether the Forms are self-predicating.
Principle of Unification for the Forms In the Symposium, Beauty seems to be the unifying
Form.
In the Republic, the Good is clearly the unifying Form.
The Sun analogy, for example.
In the physical world we have the sun from which derive light, sight, and the eye that
sees; in the intelligible realm, we have the Good from which derive truth, knowledge, and
the mind that knows.
It is to the Good that the sun owes its existence.
Furthermore, the sun is not only the cause of sight; its light makes existence possible
on the physical plane; so the very existence of the knowable and a fortiori of the physical
which derives from the knowable.