Plato\'s Theory of Forms Plato

Plato's Theory Of Forms

Plato argues that when we speak of the world, we speak not of particular reality about a specific person or object, but of an ideal reality consisting of ideal Forms. He uses the metaphor the cave to show that what we see in the visible world are merely shadows of this ideal reality. We see the shadows and describe them, but what we are really describing are the things themselves, their ideals, which exist apart from their shadows in an ideal, and in Plato's formulation, objective and actual, existence. We may talk about a chair -- for example, this chair that I sit on at this moment. But how do we know that it is a chair? We know this because it conforms to what we know a chair to be. It has four legs and a seat and a back. It can hold my weight. Without these characteristics, this chair would be a mere object of some other kind. In other words we know what this particular chair is only by reference to its ideal. We know the form of this chair because it reflects the Form of a Chair.

Plato believes that we can experience the world and know the objects and persons in it only insofar as we make these kinds of references to ideal Forms. He believes the Forms to have more reality than what we see around us in the visible world. The world we see around us is elusive and transitory. (This chair can be burned into a pile of ash and no longer take the form of a chair.) The ideal world of Forms, however, is permanent. (Nothing can destroy the Ideal Chair.) We see the concrete world and know it only by making reference to the abstract reality of the Ideal Forms.