Plato’s Theory of Forms
The Good: The source of all knowledge; first principle;
supreme value; the sun in the Allegory of
the Cave
| "WORLD" OF BEING | REALITY | KNOWLEDGE | FORMS (perfections) | OUTSIDE THE CAVE |
| What we strive for | Discovered through education | Fixed and proven | Ideas like Justice, Goodness, Equality, etc. | Real objects |
| Enlightenment | Education as recollection | Received prior to birth | Exist independently of individual minds | Intelligible world |
| "WORLD" OF BECOMING | APPEARANCES | OPINION | COPIES (imperfect instances) | INSIDE THE CAVE |
| Our everyday existence | Unexamined ideas | No foundation | A just man; a good meal; equal lines, etc | Shadows, puppets |
| Our biases, prejudices | Passive education | Accepted w/o question | Are modeled after forms | World of beliefs |
Plato believed that there was a truer reality beyond what we see with the physical eye. In the "world" of being, perfection exists. For example, we experience a just person in the "world" of becoming (the here and now), but true and perfect Justice exists in the world of being or perfection, the world of the Forms. In our prior existence apart from our body, we experienced the Forms and knew perfection. However, we forget this knowledge at birth. With the right kind of education, we can remember what we learned previously (the Myth of Recollection) and we can think of things like perfect circles, even if we cannot draw them or see them in the physical world. For Plato, this Theory of Forms explains how the human mind can think of perfection and abstract ideas. Of course, Plato lived a long time before cognitive psychology that gave us a more scientific understanding of the human brain and its functions, so it’s not such a bad explanation and does fit with common beliefs of his times.
Prepared by Anne Knop, Senior Associate Professor of Philosophy, Manor College, 2008
(c) 2000-2008 by Anne Knop. Only students in Manor College's PL 100 course have permission to make unlimited copies of this page. Others may request permission by e-mail: anneknop@manor.edu
http://apps.manor.edu/aknop/index.htm