Explain The Platonic Forms
Explain the Platonic concept for “forms” Plato was a pupil of the philosopher Socrates, who was murdered for corrupting the youth of the city; he had been encouraging people to challenge the views and opinions of the city elders. Plato came up with an allegory of the cave, to explain the world we live in. the allegory suggested that people are ‘philosophically ignorant’ and are like the prisoners chained the floor of the cave. They can only see the shadows on the back of the cave; they are assuming that these shadows are in fact the whole of reality. The world outside represents the world of the forms; this is in a sense a perfect reality. The prisoner who escapes is like the person who achieves ‘philosophical enlightenment’ Plato’s forms
are sorts, kinds or types of things. They were not created, and they do not do anything. They are simply ‘there’. The forms are timeless, unchanging and beyond space. So everything we see is almost an illusion, it is if our senses are fooling us. Plato is saying everything that we see cannot be in its perfect form. Plato says that the created world, which we live in and see, by contrast, is made of contingent, imperfect ‘stuff’, it is subject to change and decay. The idea of form and matter are central to Plato’s view of the world. There are two worlds the finite world. This is a shadow of the ‘real’ world of the form. In the finite world the material objects exist, subject to change and decay. They take their identity from the way that they conform to their corresponding idea in the world of the form. In the world of the form though the objects and concepts for the material world exist in a state of unchanging perfection.. it is then the job of the philosopher to break free from the shackles of the finite world and find the world of reality in the world of the form. Plato thought that the soul broke free from the body in death and returned to the world of the form, which is where it first came from. The demiurge created the universe using changeable ‘chaotic’ material’, and using the forms as a model, the material that the universe is made from is constantly changing and being redistributed, Plato believed that we categorise the objects that we experience using our knowledge of those external forms. A ‘thing’ has its identity according to the way it conforms to its corresponding form. Plato believed that the forms exist independently of anything in the finite world. Plato thought that the highest form was the form of the good. Though any good act we carry out in this world is a pale imitation of the perfect good that exists in the world of ideas. Plato believed that ordinary things gain their nature by either imitating or participating. By imitating this would mean that the forms are independent of the physical world – they transcend or go beyond the material. The ordinary object simply imitates the eternal form. In participating, this would mean that the forms are present in the objects of the physical world, and are much less mysterious. The ordinary object has something of the eternal form in it. He said that we understand something to be ‘good’ and that we are born with a dim recollection of the ‘form’ of justice, or goodness.
are sorts, kinds or types of things. They were not created, and they do not do anything. They are simply ‘there’. The forms are timeless, unchanging and beyond space. So everything we see is almost an illusion, it is if our senses are fooling us. Plato is saying everything that we see cannot be in its perfect form. Plato says that the created world, which we live in and see, by contrast, is made of contingent, imperfect ‘stuff’, it is subject to change and decay. The idea of form and matter are central to Plato’s view of the world. There are two worlds the finite world. This is a shadow of the ‘real’ world of the form. In the finite world the material objects exist, subject to change and decay. They take their identity from the way that they conform to their corresponding idea in the world of the form. In the world of the form though the objects and concepts for the material world exist in a state of unchanging perfection.. it is then the job of the philosopher to break free from the shackles of the finite world and find the world of reality in the world of the form. Plato thought that the soul broke free from the body in death and returned to the world of the form, which is where it first came from. The demiurge created the universe using changeable ‘chaotic’ material’, and using the forms as a model, the material that the universe is made from is constantly changing and being redistributed, Plato believed that we categorise the objects that we experience using our knowledge of those external forms. A ‘thing’ has its identity according to the way it conforms to its corresponding form. Plato believed that the forms exist independently of anything in the finite world. Plato thought that the highest form was the form of the good. Though any good act we carry out in this world is a pale imitation of the perfect good that exists in the world of ideas. Plato believed that ordinary things gain their nature by either imitating or participating. By imitating this would mean that the forms are independent of the physical world – they transcend or go beyond the material. The ordinary object simply imitates the eternal form. In participating, this would mean that the forms are present in the objects of the physical world, and are much less mysterious. The ordinary object has something of the eternal form in it. He said that we understand something to be ‘good’ and that we are born with a dim recollection of the ‘form’ of justice, or goodness.