Plato's Theory of Forms

Plato's theory or forms Plato's theory of forms is a response to the significant metaphysical question of what is true reality Plato posits that the physical world that we see is not actually the real world it is not true reality instead it is a less perfect copy or reflection of an ideal world or forms and the objects that we see an interactive in our physical world can be thought of as shadows or reflections of the true forms the forms are abstracts perfect unchanging concepts or ideals that transcend both space and time we will go into this in more depth later because initially is a very confusing idea but first we need to understand the first point better so what exactly is Plato arguing against Plato is arguing against a very common and scientific worldview this worldview is called naive realism and this is the idea that we can perceive objects as they really are and we are able to directly perceive their true essence a naive realist would claim that the physical world we see is the real world most people take it for granted that naive realism is just a certain paradigm a way of seeing the world and so we should not blindly accept it as the absolute truth even though we've been raised in a society which makes it seem obvious these obvious ideas are typically the assumptions that needs to be questioned most even though it might be against what is commonly believed so Plato goes against conventional wisdom with his theory of forms and so it is important for us to open up to these new ideas and try our best to understand them so we don't become too ideological and defensive over the beliefs that we currently have about the world so what exactly is the real world in Plato's view Plato believes that the real world is actually composed of pure forms or essences what do we mean by this well we can look at a couple of examples first we can ask the simple question what makes an apple an apple well there are many different types of apples and they can decay and mold but what makes each of them an apple it's the one thing they all have in common they you have Apple Apple nests can be thought of as the form or essence of an apple another example what dual wise men have in common in other words what makes a wise man wise the answer is wisdom so we can think of wisdom as the essence of a wise man some more examples of pure forms or essences that reside in the world of forms are those of friendship love goodness beauty and so on this world of forms contains the perfect ideal of the thing it is representing whereas in our physical world we only perceive the shadows of these forms for example the true form of beauty resides in the world of forms but in our world we cannot directly perceive the true essence of beauty but we can recognize its imitation in physical objects typically in people and nature or artwork bear in mind that Plato does not think that the world of forms is a physical place on the other side of the universe that one could walk around him instead it is a place that completely transcends ideas of space and time Plato thinks that these non-physical forms are more real than any objects that imitate them because the forms are timeless and unchanging whereas objects in our physical world are liable to decay and change and so we're just shadows of the real forms so let's explore further the question of whether or not we can ever perceive the forms firstly place or claim that with the senses we cannot interact with the forms directly as they don't exist in our spatial and temporal physical world for example we cannot directly come into contact with apple nests or goodness we can only come into contact with the shadows of these forms however with the mind and reason and practice we can perceive the world of forms by recognizing that imitation in the physical objects of our world this is the job of what Plato called the philosopher Kings or guardians we will look more of them soon for example one way we can come to know the forms is through the argument from opposites that is one can come to understand good by contrasting it with what is bad there is an inner part of us Plato calls the soul which is eternal and unchanging before the soul was localized by the body it was connected with the real world of the forms this is why after the soul has been confined by the body we retain a dim recollection of the forms and can come to understand them the task of philosophy and the philosopher Kings is to understand the true forms of ideals such as friendship goodness truth wisdom virtue and justice and be able to integrate this knowledge as best they can into the physical world this thing's very closely to Plato's allegory of the cave in the allegory the philosopher is the escaped prisoner who directly encounters the true forms of reality rather than just their shadows projected onto the cave wall the philosopher will then do his best to enlighten the cave dwellers to his new discoveries because each form is a blueprint of perfection it is our duty to try to replicate the forms of goodness and wisdom and justice as best we possibly can and this is the philosopher Kings purpose to help society do just this however criticisms have been made against Plato's theory of forms firstly the question arises are undesirables such as evil corruption suffering and disease allowed into the world of forms is there a form aka a perfect ideal of evil or suffering or disease Plato would say that undesirables do not reside in the world of forms what we think of as evil is just a privation or a lack of good finally one of the main arguments cited against plato's theory is Aristotle's third man argument which we will export now firstly we know that Plato is a human because he partakes in the form of humaneness this is what we've already covered but a new form is needed to explain how both the human and the form of humanists are both human in other words what makes Plato a human well humaneness okay then what makes human Asst human well we could say it's superhuman as' so this acts is the form of both the human and the formal humanist but then again we can ask what makes super humanist human well using the same argument as before we could say that super dooper humaneness makes it human we could repeat this argument ad infinitum and so this is one of the main problems with the theory of forms thank you very much for watching this is quite a confusing topic and video so it may help to rewatch any sections that may have confused you or feel free to leave a comment below and I'll do my best to help clear up any confusions that the video does not cover remember to leave a like and subscribe and see you next time on feeling philosophical and good bye

Channel: Feeling Philosophical

Views: 14,124

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Keywords: plato, theory of forms, philosophy, naive realism, plato's forms, forms

Id: xlDu8U8JRoY

Length: 7min 18sec (438 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 05 2019