Plato Ideal Forms Analysis

Plato is correct in his belief of the Theory of Ideal Forms. Everything has only one true form while everything else is an imperfect replica. Many ideals are sought after in the physical world but may not be reached. These ideals, however may not be reached, have certain forms that represent them. These forms are not perfect and are simply copies that lead us to believe we have found the ideal. The idea that there are imperfect copies that represent certain ideals comes from Plato’s Theory of Ideal Forms. There is one original form for everything. There are also many things that resemble the original but these are imperfect in some way. These imperfect copies still have something in common with the original despite not perfectly representing …show more content…
An example of likeness is the philosopher version of a statue. When creating the statue of a person or figure philosophers would use the exact feature of whatever they are copying. This would be done to make the statue as close to a perfect resemblance, a likeness, as possible. It does not matter if the features of the statue look proportionate or not as long as the copy is as similar to the original as possible. The sophistry method of creating a statue isn 't to make as accurate as a copy as possible but to make a beautiful one. Sophists would be willing to alter proportions of a replica, an appearance, in order to make the replica more appealing. As the visitor states in Plato’s “Sophist” “that which is not somehow is, and then again that that which is somehow is not.” (Sophist, 31). This implies that an appearance is equal to a likeness of something. The view that likenesses and appearances are equal is common in sophistry. However, this cannot be true because a likeness is an exact replica while an appearance is modified in order to enhance certain features. The metaphysical contains these abstract ideals not able to be reached. Likenesses are as close as the physical can come to ideals present in the meta physical. The metaphysical are the divine and can be viewed as the gods. The gods create and hold these perfect ideals while people in …show more content…
Justice has many forms in the physical world but none of these are the one true form of justice. Somebody in the United States may view justice for a murderer as a lifetime jail sentence. On the other hand somebody in middle eastern country may view justice for a murder as death. All of these forms of justice can be viewed as imperfect and flawed. The physical system of justice can be seen as faulty in incidents such as, an innocent person being convicted of murder. This innocent person would be sent to jail for live or may even lose their life while the actual murderer is still free with no repercussions for their crime. While the metaphysical form of justice would be perfect and would convict the actual murderer one hundred percent of the time. Another example of the gap between metaphysical and physical ideals is government. The perfect government would be made up of a group of individuals that work to protect the rights of its citizens and keep them safe. Instead some governments do not look to protect the rights of all its citizens. Governments in the middle east restrict the rights of women by creating laws preventing women from showing their face in public and restricting other basic rights. Some governments restrict freedom of speech and press by punishing citizens that speak out against the government. The physical world has flawed ideals that are replicas of more