Plato’s Theory of Forms: Understanding Reality and the Soul
The Maieutics
The maieutics is a technique that involves questioning a person to make them arrive at knowledge not yet conceptualized. The maieutics is based on dialectic, which is the idea that the truth is hidden in the mind of every human being. This is placed on the second level of the Socratic process. Free of prejudice, the disciple is invited to continue the dialogue to explore in depth the consistency of truth. It starts from the idea that knowledge is latent in human consciousness, and the need to make it emerge. The maieutics is the belief that there is knowledge that is accumulated in the consciousness by tradition and the experience of past generations. Therefore, in the maieutics, the individual is invited to discover the truth that lies latent in them without having made it conscious, while the irony, historically created by Socrates, has the individual combat the error of what they understood as truth, when it is false.
Summary of Plato’s “Republic”
This text is extracted from the book “Republic” by Plato. It begins by explaining how to actually implement what is or seems unreal and how to reach the intelligible or understandable level. This simply puts the beginning of the text in the first half. The second part of the text deals with a particular theme: the idea of the Good. This is used to answer the question posed in the first part of the text and clarify it. It explains that within the knowable (what you can get to “know” or “knowing”), we can appreciate this idea as well. Once you have received this idea, Plato explains that we must infer that it is the cause of all things (the principle of causality). After providing the function of this idea of good, in the sensible world or in the sensitive area, it provides “light” to distinguish sensible things. Moreover, in the world or intelligible field, this idea is the producer and the bearer of truth that is necessary to achieve wisdom. Therefore, it is the idea of the universal and necessary.
Definition of Terms
Good
The definition of good in itself would be what has that feature of perfection, and also what is to be “good” or trying to achieve good. But Plato understands it from another perspective. For Plato, the good is the supreme idea, the supreme principle which gives meaning and explains reality at the same time that it is something universal.
Hint
It is a mental representation that relates to something real. For Plato, this corresponds to that world where there are intelligible things, words representing things in the world of sense. These ideas are immutable, eternal, and universal. For Plato, this is the true reality.
Visible Scope
Plato refers to the tangible world. This is a “physical” world in which things are “physical” and we perceive them with our senses. This is a world which reflects ideas incorrectly. Plato believed that this world is corruptible, mutable, and particularly material.
Plato’s Theory on the Sensible World and the Intelligible World
The theory of Plato’s reality (ontology) is a theory about ideas that not only allows a theory about the values that he believes important but also explains away the Universe. Plato, like Protagoras, understands things as things in themselves, “not as” things for me. Therefore, to draw up a fair state, a just cop, we have to take into account things like “things in themselves.” To understand this theory, Plato distinguishes:
- Sensible Things: Those things that are corruptible, or that may be corrupt. Those things that can be modified or even eliminated. Materials and individuals are trying to imitate ideas without ever succeeding. These things belong to a physical reality or a “physical world.”
- Ideas: This is what Plato sees as the true reality. For Plato, ideas are completely separate things and, unlike sensible things, are immaterial, immutable, and therefore universal. They are timeless and have a normative character with regard to sensible things, i.e., not just saying what things are but also what they should be. Here you can distinguish things that are unlike many that are particular sensitive.
Once classified, the two types of reality Plato understands that ideas are a mess and are disorganized but still form a “system,” in turn, a unit at the apex of this hierarchical idea of good which gives meaning to all and coordinates others so that they are ordered. This hierarchical unit would read:
“Idea of Good” -> “Ideas” -> “Aesthetic-Ethical Ideas” -> “Sensible Things.”
They relate to each other by a relationship he calls a “dialectical relationship.” So if we know only the good idea, we can develop a polis or fair state. The idea of good is the supreme principle that gives order, meaning, and intelligibility to reality. For Plato, the idea of goodness is the idea or value and even the universal cause of everything. It follows that he who knows best knows reality.
Once exposed, the fact that Plato divides what supposedly is already known in two (dualistic world):
- A world of sense: Sensible things belong to it; it is a world that can be changed (mutated), is corruptible.
- An intelligible world: In which are the ideas. This is a universal and eternal world.
It should be noted that Plato divides reality into two worlds is the “idea of being” between Heraclitus (sensible world) and Parmenides (intelligible world). To the knowledge of Plato, these ideas can you hold for life or only in an indirect way, can only be known after death or before birth. During life, we know ideas through an imperfect form of things or the world of sense. Once you know that world of ideas or the intelligible world can govern, control, dominating the sensible world, the only way to build a just state, and it works. (The application that has the cops or Athens) Well, and the philosopher as a whole is faced with the thought of Plato as well. For Plato, thought is seeing the look of the figure. It follows that theorizing is to try and see things in themselves and the relationships between ideas (dialectical), i.e., take the ideas. And while this happens and make sure we can guarantee a good policy and good functioning of the state or polis.
Politics in Athens
As for politics, in Athens, the Sophists were quite influential in this regard and agreed with convention and political empiricism. The first speaks of the laws are agreements that can vary depending on what you think (laws), and the second says it’s good for the people what the people think is good. Plato had in mind the idea of justice since the Sophists’ own laws were used against Socrates. Plato believed that people who govern must be philosophers who know the idea of good for there to be a just society.
Commentary on the Text or Contextualization
The chosen text belongs to the book “Phaedrus” (247 CE) by Plato. This book belongs to his mature writings, as are “Banquet,” “Republic,” or “Phaedo,” where his “Theory of Ideas” would reach the highest point in its evolution.
Genre, Nature, and Type of Text
The genre of this text is didactic. Its nature is philosophical. The types are expository, argumentative, and analytical.
Theme
The true reality.
Problem and Thesis
The question raised in this excerpt from “Phaedrus” is: What elements make up the place where the true reality dwells? The thesis, or reply from the author to the problem, is about the two great ideas of Plato’s philosophy: The existence of concepts or “ideas” eternal and immutable and double body/soul.
The text puts us in a place “that is beyond the heavens,” where “living (…) the real reality.” According to Plato, there are eternal realities, which are in a separate world not perceptible by our senses. These universals are called “Ideas” (ideia or eidos) (sight of something in his being that is). These archetypes (eternal models of things, that establish a link between the supreme deity and the world of matter) of the objects of this world, which are mere copies or “shadows,” subjected to a continuous flow. Man tends to the true knowledge – but not the knowledge that begins to be or exists in all kinds of what we call real, part of the “World of Ideas.” While the senses are more than a point of play that offers a false reality and unstable, the Ideas are the true reality, eternal and immutable, and things are just a reflection of that reality, which exists in them. Ideas are in a hierarchical community so that the inferior are covered by the above on a scale that culminates in the idea of Good. Plato proposed that the physical world objects appear or participate only in the perfect forms and that only they can be the object of true knowledge, what is are eternal and immutable spiritual or abstract models, in whose image everything is molded, all phenomena of nature are only “shadows” of eternal Ideas.
Conclusion
Plato establishes a reality divided into two: one part is the “World of Sense,” on which we can achieve only approximate and imperfect knowledge using our senses. All that integrates the world “flows,” and nothing remains. Nothing is in this world, but these are things that arise and perish. The other part is the “World of Ideas,” about which we can get some knowledge through the use of reason. This world can not be recognized by the senses. Citing an example from “Sophie’s World”:
“Why are all horses alike, Sofia? Maybe you think they are not at all. But there is something that all horses have in common, something that makes us never have trouble distinguishing a horse from any other animal. The individual horse “flows” (…), but the “mold horse” is eternal and unchanging. (…) That horse is modeled after a pattern which remains unchanged from horse to horse. (…) All horses have a common denominator, a common origin, are made from the same mold.”
The other point of Platonic philosophy that addresses this text revolves around the body and soul. For Plato, man consists of soul and body, but absolutely the most noble is the soul because it is spiritual and therefore eternal and immutable. Spirituality is given by his source; he comes from a previous existence. The soul was in the “World of Ideas,” a world “to be true knowledge can only be seen by (…) the soul,” but as punishment for a wrong committed, was thrown into the body, and He dwells temporarily until you can return to their place of origin. The soul-body union is accidental but not independent. The interdependence is explained by going to the three parties that make up the soul: the appetitive (found in the stomach and to be pleasurable sensations), the irascible (which is in the chest and falls to the Affects), and the intellectual or rational (which resides in the head and is in contact with the Ideas). The soul yearns for the return to the contemplation of Ideas, “deals to capture what is akin, rejoices at the sight of so being; is fed from the contemplation of truth and is happy (…). Behold the same justice, moderation itself, and knowledge (…). And, having reveled in the contemplation of the other things are equally true, the soul plunges back into the inside of the sky to return home.” This will directly and in full contemplation by granting him the perfect practice of virtue, for each part of the soul. Thus, it identifies four fundamental virtues: to the appetitive part corresponds temperance, moderation by which man masters his passions; to the irascible, strength or courage; to the rational side, prudence or wisdom. Above all, is justice, virtue par excellence. When the body dies, the soul remains. If during your journey through this world has achieved purification through virtue, the soul returns to its place of origin; if not, it will be reincarnated into another being until they achieve perfection. In “Phaedrus,” Plato describes the soul:
“The soul is like a winged chariot, pulling the two spirited horses, one white and one black, governed by a charioteer moderator.”
Outline of Ideas
Main Idea
What elements make up the place where the true reality dwells?
Secondary Ideas
- What notes are all these elements together?
- Where is the true reality?
- What we perceive through the senses, is it the true knowledge?
Abstract
The soul rises from the “world of the Senses,” which is attached to a body, to their place of origin: the “World of Ideas.” He contemplates the true reality, pure knowledge, virtues and longing to stay there, but going back down to return to his “temporary home.”