Does Plato Believe That Being or Change Is More Real?

¶ … Plato believe that being or change is more real? According to Plato, one of the greatest challenges of life is the question of "how can humans live a fulfilling, happy life in a contingent, changing world where everything they attach themselves to can be taken away?" (Banach, "Plato's world of the forms").

Plato's 'solution' was his famous metaphor of 'the cave,' namely that human beings are like individuals chained within a cave before a fire who can only see shadows which they mistake for reality, but which are not 'true' reality like the world of the forms. Thus "Plato splits up existence into two realms: the material realm and the transcendent realm of forms" (Banach, "Plato's world of the forms"). The world of the forms is unchanging, while the limited material realm is always changing.

The changing nature of the material world is rendered, in the metaphor of the cave analogy, to the flickering lights before the eyes of the gazers. It is insubstantial but it looks very 'real.' Simply because the dwellers of the cave cannot see the truth, only shadows, they are unable to understand what truth is at all -- which is why we need philosophy.

The world of the forms is only accessible through reason, thus it is necessary to detach ourselves from the material and instead solely focus upon the world of the forms, which is eternal. "Splitting existence up into two realms also solves the problem of permanence and change. We perceive a different world, with different objects, through our mind than we do through the senses. It is the material world, perceived through the senses, that is changing.

It is the realm of forms, perceived through the mind, that is permanent and immutable. It is this world that is more real; the world of change is merely an imperfect image of this world" (Banach, "Plato's world of the forms"). For example, we perceive a horse in reality, but there are many different permutations that a horse shape can take. The world of the forms, in contrast, has a horse shape in its most perfect, transcendent essence.

It is 'more real' than the changing material world given "the forms are the archetypes or perfect models for all of the properties that are present in material objects" (Banach, "Plato's world of the forms"). The form of the horse existed before the finite, material existence of the horse on earth and the horse on earth (and all horses on earth) is merely an imitation.

After all, like all material things in a state of change, it will ultimately perish but the form will last forever (Banach, "Plato's world of the forms"). This is why what can be perceived with reason is ultimately 'more real' and superior to what can be taken in through sensory data. The senses are apt to produce illusions, but reason, when correctly applied, will not.

Thus 'being' is innately more real than 'change,' given that 'change' is the innate property of the material world while 'being' is the innate property of the forms. The forms are always in a state of being while their material copies are in a constant state of flux and change. The forms are the alpha and the omega, the beginning or root cause of all things (Banach, "Plato's world of the forms").

Unfortunately, from our 'chained' vantage-point we mistake the copies and the false flickering of change as reality (the shadows on the wall of the cave) and are unable to see the constancy of the forms as real. "For those who only every view the world from inside the cave, there appears to be only one simple temporal world. For others, who observe from outside the cave, there exists a multiplicity of changing realities as well as one ideological permanent Reality.

The reality we experience, or the truth we conceive of, in matter, is but a shadow of the Reality or Truth of Forms" (Bennett, "A conversation with Plato). As evidence of this Plato would cite a common philosophical quandary: what is beauty? Over the course of our individual lifespan, of course, our ideas of beauty are likely to change. However, the form of what is true beauty, the essence of beauty itself is unchanging in Plato's view. Plato, in other words, was not a relativist.

He believed that there were static, pre-existing forms that were the absolute representations of truth.