Plato

by Roy Jackson

  As Saint-Exupéry says, ‘what is essential is invisible to the eye’. In a similar vein the sculptor Michelangelo (1475–1564), when receiving praise for his work, would retort that all he had done was to remove the excess marble from the block and so reveal what was already there. In a sense the Forms are what is ‘already there’, but we usually cannot see them and are instead concerned with the ‘excess marble’.

  In Republic, the character of Socrates points out that his analogy is a picture of the human condition. People are trapped by the illusory world of the senses; they are like the prisoners at the bottom of the cave. However, Plato believed that the ability to perceive the truth behind this illusion is contained within our very souls. The Forms are the world beyond the shadows. We take the shadows to be reality, but they are really only appearance… It is no coincidence that this realm of the Forms bears some resemblance to the Christian concept of heaven, since Plato’s philosophy had considerable influence on the development of Christian thought.

  For Plato, this world is not the real world. The real world is invisible. It lies beyond our senses of sight, taste, touch, smell and hearing. But what led Plato to believe that there is such a world beyond this one? This question will be considered more in the next chapter. Students often ask me what evidence Plato has for such a theory, but really the point Plato is making is that no evidence is sufficient to definitively prove something to be the case: empirical method has its limits. Further, Plato does not really present a ‘theory’ of the Forms, but more modestly presents it as a possibility. Hence the use of analogy. Language has its limitations and it’s possible to misrepresent what one means, whereas the use of analogy may in such cases prove to be better suited. Remember, also, that Plato did not work in a vacuum; he was a product of his time and the inheritor of a school of thought that goes back to the Presocratics. For example there was the influence of the Pythagoreans who saw the cosmos as mathematical patterns, or Parmenides who stressed the importance of reason to go beyond what our imperfect senses tell us.

  THE FORM OF BEAUTY

  ‘I imagine’, I said, ‘that while those who love to listen or to see sights, embrace beautiful sounds, colours, figures, and everything that is crafted out of these, their minds are incapable of seeing, let alone embracing, the nature of the beautiful by itself.’

  Plato, Republic, 476b

  We can see many beautiful things – a beautiful flower, a beautiful painting, a beautiful woman and so on. But what is beauty itself? In other words, how do we know that so many different objects all share the attribute of beauty? One response to this might well be that we learn through experience. However, Plato believed that our knowledge of beauty is innate. That is, we are not born an ‘empty slate’ with no knowledge at all, but possess within our soul all knowledge already. The trick is to be guided towards that knowledge.

  OTHER FORMS

  ‘These couches of ours, then – there turn out to be three of them, don’t there, in a way? First, there’s the one that’s there in nature, which I imagine we’ll say was fashioned by god – who else?’

  Plato, Republic, 597b

  In fact, it is not just beauty, but everything appears to have a Form. For example, an object such as a table has a Form of a table. Although tables differ from each other in size, colour, texture and so on, they all share the attribute ‘table’. Likewise, if we talk of a telephone box being red, a car being red, an apple being red, then they all partake of the Form ‘red’.

  Try to draw a circle. How does it look? Depending upon how steady your hand is your circle will most likely be imperfect in some way or other; it might be a little pear-shaped. But how do we know what a perfect circle is? How do we know that every time we attempt to draw a circle it isn’t ‘quite right’? For Plato, it is because there is a Form of a circle, and this tells us something about what the Forms are. They are perfection. When you see a beautiful flower it is not perfectly beautiful, but partakes of perfection. Similarly, a table might be perfectly functional but you might well be able to conceive of a better table; one that is sturdier, longer-lasting and so on.

  When we say that design in furniture is getting better, Plato raises the question how do we know it is getting better? What is this ‘better’ that we are aware of? We can see how this affects many aspects of life. When we say that society, quality of life, morality, etc. is progressing then we are making the assumption that there is something to progress towards. Plato, as well as Socrates, believed that there is such a thing as moral truth; that morality is not a relative matter, dependent upon the society or time you live in. When one society claims to be more morally advanced than another it is the same as saying there is such a thing as independent moral standards.

  If we return to the Analogy of the Cave, our prisoner’s journey towards daylight is an educational one. Through proper training – that is, in becoming a true philosopher – he will attain knowledge of the Forms, and, as a philosopher, it is his duty to return to the cave and enlighten his fellow man. At the same time, the Forms cannot be taught. We know them already, but refuse to acknowledge them for to do so is a painful and confusing process; it takes us away from the security of our illusions. The prisoners in the cave are, for Plato, the people of Athens. They are in a state of ignorance. Even the ‘highest’ among them – the politicians and educators of Plato’s Athens – have no greater knowledge than the ‘lowest’.

  THE FORM OF THE GOOD

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Socrates,’ said Glaucon, ‘don’t stand aside just when you’re at the finish, as it were. Even if you only discuss the good in the same way you discussed justice, moderation and the rest, it’ll be enough for us.’

  ‘Yes, my friend,’ I said, ‘and more than enough for me too. I’m afraid I won’t be able to manage it; I’d cut a sorry figure, eager though I’d be able to do it, and you’d laugh at me…What I am willing to talk about is something that is clearly the offspring of the good, and bears a close resemblance to it – if you’re happy for me to do that; if not, let’s pass on it.’

  Plato, Republic, 506d–506e

  From the above quote, Socrates expresses his own unwillingness to explain what the good actually is for fear of being ridiculed and misunderstood, but prefers to present its ‘offspring’. By that he means making use of analogy in the way that a son is like his father, but is not really his father.

  In the Analogy of the Cave, the Form of the Good is represented by the sun. The sun is the source of all things: it gives light so you can perceive other objects, and it gives life to all other things. The sun is responsible for the changing of the seasons, for the weather, and for the food we need to live.

  Plato believed that there is a hierarchy of Forms. Whereas there are particular Forms for beauty, for justice, for a chair, and a bed, and so on, there is one Form over and above all of these: the Form of the Good. All existence and perfection ultimately flows from the Form of the Good. Like the sun, it gives light and life to all other things, including the other Forms. Therefore, when you have awareness of the Form of the Good you have achieved true enlightenment, ‘nirvana’ if you like. When the early Church Fathers developed Christian theology, they borrowed heavily from the works of Plato. In Christianity, the Form of the Good becomes God: the source of all things, immutable, eternal, perfect and invisible.

  The following provides an outline of what these Forms are:

  • The Forms represent Truth or Reality. This cannot be attained by the senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing) rather by the exercise of the mind, that is, through the use of the intellect. Throughout this book, the conventional translation of ‘Forms’ has been used, although in Greek the term eidos or idea would translate better as ‘idea’. However, translators have often been wary of using the word ‘idea’ as it perhaps suggests that it is something that humans have ‘come up with’ themselves rather than being to some extent independent of human thought.

  • The world of sense-experience (the object
s we see, touch, etc., around us) ‘partakes’ in the Forms in that they contain likenesses of, for example, perfect beauty, good, red and so on. When we recognize that an object partakes in, for example, the Form of Beauty, it is because we recollect our knowledge of the Form of Beauty that was acquired before birth. In other words, our knowledge of the Forms is innate; we are born with it and through a process of education we are able to recollect this knowledge.

  • The Forms are eternal and unchanging, whereas the world of the senses is temporal and changing. In that sense we cannot know things that are in a constant state of flux, for what is there to know?

  Criticisms of the Forms

  The Theory of the Forms has perhaps caused more controversy and confusion than any other aspect of Plato’s philosophy. Here is a brief outline of just a few of the concerns raised by the Theory:

  • Is there a Form for literally everything? For example, if it is the case that you can reduce the world to the most basic particles, is there a Form for atoms, or even a Form for the nucleus of an atom? In which case, is anything really universal and static?

  • Connected with the above concern, to what extent can you reduce the Forms to objects? Is there a Form for the planet Earth? In which case, can there then be separate Forms for all the objects of the Earth?

  • In what sense do these Forms exist? Plato talks about the Forms as distinct and separate ‘things’ that are immutable, eternal and invisible, but what does this really reveal about their actual nature?

  • In terms of there being Forms for morality, how is it possible to separate morals from everyday actions? The philosopher Aristotle, Plato’s one-time pupil, believed morality couldn’t be eternal and unchanging. Can there really be ultimate moral standards? In Chapter Six of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics he launches into a critique of Plato’s concept of universal Good or the Form of the Good. It is certainly understandable that Aristotle needs to address this issue, despite the fact that Plato was a friend of his, because it was a popular conception of the Good at that time. Whereas Plato argued that there must be one universal Form of the Good that applies to all things, Aristotle states that there surely cannot be one universal idea of the Good, or an ‘essence’ of Good, as the term is used relative to particular individuals, places, circumstances and times. How, then, can one single ideal encompass both the absolute and the relative given that it does not have one particular meaning? For example, what an individual understands as a good diet in one culture or time could differ greatly to that of another culture or time. Likewise, a slice of chocolate cake would be ‘good’ if it were your first slice, but perhaps not so if it were your tenth in succession! Good, in this sense, is context-related.

  • Further, Aristotle argues, the idea of good is used in numerous categories. There are different standards of good in different fields and walks of life. For example, ‘good’ could be a reference to moral goodness, but also to a good (as in ‘useful’ or effective) work tool or a good (as in relaxing, peaceful, or whatever your preference) place to go on a holiday. In addition, Aristotle uses an example of ‘whiteness’ to show that Good itself can be no different from particular good things in the same way a whiteness itself can be no different from particular white things. Even if such a Good were attainable, which Aristotle doubts, he fails to see what possible use it could be, given that we live in a world of particulars.

  • Plato also argued that if a person knows what is right and wrong, he will do what is right and avoid what is wrong. For example, if you have knowledge of the Form of Justice and from this you know it is wrong to steal, then you will not steal. Is this a realistic view of human nature?

  Aristotle’s criticisms

  Although Aristotle was a pupil of Plato and respected him greatly, he did not agree with Plato’s Theory of the Forms and he presents a series of criticisms against them in his work the Metaphysics, which can be paraphrased here: First of all, Plato’s argument that our sense-experience gives us only illusion presents a serious threat to the validity of science. While Aristotle will admit to the limitations of science, of empirical method, for us to have any foundation for knowledge at all and for anything to be meaningful requires us to assert the actual existence of at least certain objects presented to our senses, otherwise we can believe in nothing other than some mythical intuitive experience and, even then, how can we be sure that it is genuine?

  A more famous criticism by Aristotle – although to be fair to Plato he also used the same criticism in his own dialogue Parmenides – is the Third Man Argument (TMA for short). There are general terms we use to apply to a number of different things, for example, ‘dog’, ‘house’ and so on. Aristotle uses the example of the general term ‘man’ (Plato, in Parmenides, uses the example of ‘largeness’). There are many instances of ‘man’: Socrates is a man, Plato is a man, Aristotle is a man and so on, but whereas these are a number of instances of ‘man’ none of them are identical with the general term. Indeed, if you provide every single individual ‘man’ alive today you will not, as a collective, be identical with the general ‘man’. It seems, then, that ‘man’ in a general sense is ‘one over many’ as Aristotle refers to it, for it transcends its many instances. So what’s wrong with that, for surely isn’t that what Plato means by his forms?

  Aristotle argues that by saying there are many instances of ‘man’ then we are confronted with the following problem:

  1 Say there is man A, man B and man C. According to the ‘one over many’ there is Form of Man (call this Man1).

  2 But, keeping with the ‘one over many’ principle, Man1 can be added to man A, B and C, creating a new plurality of things: Man1, man A, man B, man C.

  3 But then there has to be a Man 2 to encompass all these instances.

  4 Again, following the ‘one over many principle’, we will need a Man 3 over Man1, Man2, man A, man B, man C.

  The result, of course, is an infinite hierarchy of Man, not just a third, but a fourth, fifth, ad infinitum!

  Plato at no point devotes a great deal of analysis of the Forms and in his later works, most notably the Parmenides, he seems more open to the difficulties and criticism of his theory. Nonetheless, Plato’s belief that there exists a Realm of the Forms is prevalent throughout the philosophy of his middle period especially, and so we will encounter it, and some of the concerns expressed above about it, throughout this book as we consider his views on not only epistemology but also human psychology, education, politics, ethics and religion. Despite the obvious problems with the theory, the main point is an important one: if there are such things as absolute standards then where do they come from?

  Key terms

  Analogy: Using an analogy is a way of explaining an often-difficult concept by showing its similarity to more familiar things.

  Theory of the Forms: Not so much a ‘theory’, but a philosophical possibility that what is real is something that is beyond our sense-experience.

  Dig deeper

  Annas, J. (1981), An Introduction to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Pappas, N. (1995), Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Republic (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

  Purshouse, L. (2006), Plato’s Republic: A Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum.

  Rowe, C. (trans.) (2012), Plato, Republic. London: Penguin.

  Fact check

  1 What is a definition of an analogy?

  a A comparison between one thing and another, usually for the purpose of clarification

  b A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable

  c The expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite

  d A rhyming couplet

  2 What is the Theory of the Forms?

  a The view that the world of our senses is all that there is

  b The view that reality is non-physical and beyond our senses

  c The view that there
is no reality

  d The view that God is the creator of all things

  3 In which Plato dialogue will you find the cave analogy?

  a Gorgias

  b Euthyphro

  c Crito

  d Republic

  4 In The Analogy of the Cave, what is the Form of the Good represented by?

  a Shadows

  b Fire

  c The freed prisoner

  d The sun

  5 Which Ancient Greek philosopher criticized the Forms?

  a Aristotle

  b Socrates

  c Pythagoras

  d Democritus

  6 In which dialogue did Plato himself examine some of the problems with the Forms?

  a Euthyphro

  b Apology

  c Parmenides

  d Gorgias

  7 What is the name of the argument against the Forms that concludes with the following: ‘The result is an infinite hierarchy of Man, not just a third, but a fourth, fifth, ad infinitum!’

  a The Thin Man Argument

  b The Third Man Argument

  c The Thirsty Man Argument

  d The Thrifty Man Argument

  8 What does Socrates think would happen to the freed prisoner if he returns to the cave?

  a The other prisoners would think he was mad and may even try to kill him

  b The other prisoners would greet him with open arms

  c The other prisoners would want him to free them as well

  d The other prisoners would treat him like a god