What Does It Mean to Say That Goodness Is a Platonic Form

This article written by the students is one of many that can be found in our AS and A level philosophy section. Plato writes that the form (or idea) of good is the origin of knowledge, although it is not knowledge itself, and good things that are right and true gain their usefulness and value. People are forced to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do so successfully without philosophical reasoning. According to Plato, true knowledge is familiar, not about the material objects and imperfect intelligences we encounter in our daily interactions with all of humanity, but it examines the nature of those purer, more perfect patterns that are the patterns by which all created beings are formed. Plato assumes that these perfect types have existed since eternity and calls them forms or ideas. [2] Since these forms cannot be perceived by the human senses, any knowledge we acquire about forms must be seen through the spiritual eye (cf. Parmenides 132a), while the ideas derived from the concrete world of the river are ultimately unsatisfactory and uncertain (see Theetetus). He maintains this degree of skepticism that denies proof of reason any permanent authority. Essentially, Plato suggests that justice, truth, equality, beauty, and many others ultimately come from the form of good. We agree that we need concepts of perfect equality or perfect circularity or even perfect goodness to understand the world, but that doesn`t mean they have to have an independent existence. More than language has a kind of independent reality beyond the world to which it refers. Like the sun in the allegory of the cave, the property illuminates the other forms. We can see that justice, for example, is an aspect of goodness.

And again, we know that we have never seen examples of perfect goodness with our senses, but we have seen many special examples that approach goodness, and we recognize them as good when we see them because they fit our innate idea of the form of goodness. In Plato`s Republic, the sun in the allegory of the cave represents the shape of the property. Plato sums up his views in an image of ignorant humanity trapped in the depths of a cave and not even aware of his own limited perspective. They confuse the shadows on the walls of the cave with the real reality, while the reality in reality is in the world outside the cave, the world of forms. The rare individual escapes the limits of this cave and discovers through a long intellectual journey a higher realm, a real reality and the sunlight on the other side of the cave. Sunlight is discovered with a definitive, almost mystical awareness of goodness as the origin of all that exists. Such a person is then best placed to govern in society and has knowledge of what is ultimately most valuable in life, and not just knowledge of techniques; But this person will often be misunderstood by ordinary people in the cave who did not participate in intellectual insight. Ideally, it is the philosopher who is able to penetrate the world outside the cave of ignorance and reach the true reality of the world of forms. Furthermore, the word « good » when used by Plato should not be confused with the meaning of the word in the moral sense, for example, the « form of good » is compared to the form of truth rather than « This film is good. » Learn more. a) Explain what Plato meant by the form of the good? The basis of Plato`s philosophy is his theory of ideas or the teaching of forms, while the concept of forms is essential to Plato`s philosophy, over the years of philosophical study it has been difficult to understand what these forms are supposed to be and the purpose of their existence. In examining Plato`s forms and evaluating the theory, some conclusions turned out to be unclear and unanswered. However, the doctrine of forms is essential to Plato`s philosophy.

Plato came to his vision of forms on the basis of two premises: first, that knowledge cannot come through the senses; And secondly, we always manage to know things – for example, in mathematics. Plato believed in two worlds; the empirical domain of concrete and familiar objects known through sensory experience and the rational realm of perfect and eternal forms. According to Plato, the empirical field is not real, since sensory objects are not completely real. Beliefs derived from the experience of such objects are therefore vague and unreliable, while the principles of mathematics and philosophy discovered by inner and rationalist meditation on forms represent the only true « knowledge ». Things as familiar and concrete as trees, human bodies and animals, which can be recognized by the senses, are only dark and imperfect copies of their forms. In the Republic, Plato used the « allegory of the cave » to illustrate his theory of the world and its appearance vis-à-vis reality. In the allegory, Plato uses the metaphor of slaves living in a cave chained to a wall in the lower part of a cave that can only see one wall. . Learn more. Finally, we come to the last section of the line, the part that corresponds to the domain of forms and, more importantly, to the form of the good.

According to Plato`s logic, true knowledge eventually becomes knowledge of goodness; And that is why philosophers are best placed to govern. He who has a philosophical knowledge of the good is the one who is able to govern. Plato`s belief in the philosopher`s ability to rule is sometimes called the philosopher`s king (although Plato himself never used it). However, the rationalist`s answer would be to define what is used to make the discovery in the first place, and a rationalist would argue that it was not the combination of simple ideas that led Pythagoras to discover his theorem, but through the use of his reasoning, which is independent of experience and therefore a priori. Plato says that the sun is the « cause » of the visible realm. The connection here may seem weak, but it is clear: without the sun, most or all things on Earth would go extinct. This is probably what Plato means. In the comprehensible realm, the form of the good plays the same role: it is not only the reason for the comprehensibility of forms, but also the source of their existence. Although, as Plato says, the existence she enjoys is « beyond being, superior in rank and power » (509b). Plato`s mysticism – his belief that there are higher forms of existence – inherited from Pythagoras, is fully exposed here. .