Plato's Theory of Forms

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Plato's Theory of Forms

Plato called the elements of true knowledge 'Forms'.

Summary of the theory of Forms

All things experienced through the senses are particular things.
We never sense abstract things, only particulars - we can see a beautiful face but not beauty itself.
Many things can be beautiful, so they share something called beauty even though they are different.
Therefore, there is a universal idea of beauty which really exists or it could not be shared by many different things.
This Plato called a Form.

The Form of Beauty

The Form of Beauty is indestructible because even if you destroyed all beautiful things, you would not destroy ‘beauty’.
And it is independent because beautiful things share in it but it is not limited to them.

Particulars: football example

Particulars like footballs are always a mixture of properties like roundness, whiteness etc.
Particulars are also relative. A ball can be large or round, but only relative to larger or rounder things.
This means that our knowledge of a particular thing will always be a mixture or relative to other facts.

Knowing particulars is opinion

Another way of saying this is that knowledge of particulars is actually opinion and not true knowledge at all.
- E.g., I might say “That ball is big!”. But it is only relatively big, not absolutely big - there will be other bigger balls.

Separation: episteme & doxa

For Plato, knowledge and opinion, or episteme and doxa respectively, are two different faculties.
- This is because opinion can be mistaken but knowledge cannot. You cannot know what is false. And as knowledge is about what is real, but ignorance is about what is not real (because if you are ignorant of something, you do not know of it at all), there also must be an intermediate faculty called opinion, which is a mixture of knowledge and ignorance. This is what knowledge of particulars is.

The Nature of Plato's Forms

For Plato, knowledge relates to the world of Forms and opinion to the world of the senses. This means that the Forms must exist separately from the particulars.

Simple

They are simple - not a mixture of anything.

Permanent

They do not change. If they could change, they could be what they are not - which is a contradiction.

Perfect

They are the standard by which the particular things which contain them are judged.

Separate from particulars

They do not exist in time and space - you do not destroy beauty by destroying every beautiful thing.

Logically prior to particulars

They are logically prior to the particulars, which is to say they take precedence over them.
This is because the particulars are what they are by virtue of the Forms, whereas the Forms are what they are by virtue of themselves.

The Good is the supreme Form

The Good is the supreme Form because it is only by this Form that all the other Forms are capable of being known.
- Eg, what do the Forms of Beauty, Justice, Truth etc all share in common? They are all themselves good, so they must participate in the Form of the Good.