Plato’s Theory of Forms: Unveiling the Ideal World
Plato was a Greek philosopher, a disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. His life was spent in the hectic period when Athens lost its hegemony in the Greek world after its defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, the brief rule of the Thirty Tyrants, and the weak democracy that executed Socrates. He did not know the glory reached in the age of Athenian Pericles, which seemed like a dream of the past. The fact of living in a hectic period resulted in him having a great desire for stability and justice in the political order.
The central theme of the text is the interpretation of the Myth of the Cave, and the significance of the Idea of the Good, the source of all Truth and intelligibility, the ideal world and top producer of all reality, and the importance of knowledge to do justice. As to the main ideas of the text, the author points out the separation between two worlds: the visible area and scope intelligible or sensible world and ideal world, and refers to the centrality of the Idea of Good in the ideal world, on top of which would place as producer of all truth and reality, knowledge of which would be necessary to act with justice.
The relationship between these ideas and their explanation lies in the interpretation of the Myth of the Cave which is made in this passage, whereby the sensible appearances remain prey to our mind, but it is the ability to free up from the very small matter that is actually (mere shadow or reflection of the ideal) to the supreme reality of Ideas, practicing in our minds the same effect as the light in our eyes. In our mind is the memory (recollection or anamnesis) of Ideas, we knew before incarnating, and the path of knowledge is to fan the memory. So there are two worlds, for Plato, the sensible and the ideal. The first is perceived by the senses and is barely real, just a reflection of the ideal. The other is fully real is the ‘intelligible field’ or ideal world, consisting of absolute entities, immaterial and eternal, accessible to our minds, but independent of it. These ideas in the search for which Socrates was killed are absolute truths that give reason and meaning to everything we see, which is only a clumsy reflection of them, due to the distorting effect that produces the subject.
Getting rid of this distortion is the way of philosophy, a liberation of the mind that returns to its natural range, which is the ideal. This ideal world would have a triangular hierarchical structure, and at the top would be the Good, the key to all reality and knowledge. The separation (horismós) between these two worlds is the translation of the dramatic situation of human split, someone who is destined for the ideal world, but has fallen into sensitive. Therefore, the path of knowledge, according to the text (the way of the soul to the intelligible field) is a way of liberation from the material world to the ideal, from the shadows to light, and in that ideal world bright idea the Good is the culmination of reality and the production of all truth. She tends the rational part of us, who may therefore not be free if it amounts to, or have to stay a prisoner of the little knowledge that are material things, if we do not take that path. This path is composed of four phases:
- Eikasía: The mere apprehension of the images, shadows appariential ahead of the senses, and hardly require rational effort. It is the usual state of most people, to Plato, prisoners of appearances due to the great influence of his soul concupiscible.
- Pistis: The beginning of the way out, when we began to suspect that the truth does not lie on appearances alone, but it transcends them.
- Dianoia: Dialectical discursive knowledge would you get when you enter in the ideal world (usually in mathematics) and serves as a gradual training of the mind, to go to open and can finally see the fullness of good, supreme Idea light mode that provides truth and reality to other ideas (and their reflections, things), never losing an inch of herself.
- Noesis: This would be the way that so liberating Condensed Plato mentions in the text.
The first two being mere opinion (Doxa), because they relate to the sensible world, and the second two certain knowledge (episteme), because they consist of a discovery of what ideal.