Theory of Forms

really ‘there.’ Many philosophers have contributed to this particular branch of thought. However our understanding of metaphysics would be less significant without the strong foundation of work by ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. One of the most important pieces of work to touch Western Society was Plato’s Theory of Forms. Plato’s work attempts to answer questions about reality and the world we live in. Moreover his writing has received both scrutiny and praise. This writing will act as an evaluation on Plato’s theory so that we have a better view of where his theory…

“Phaedo” takes place during the time that Socrates was to be executed after being falsely convicted. Before his death, Socrates explored many theories regarding the body and the soul with his pupil Plato. Plato presents four different arguments to prove the immortality of the soul, that all though the human body perishes after death; the soul still exists. Firstly, he explains the Theory of the Opposite Forms that something came to be living only after having first been dead. Then his second is…

For example all items have an essence in which humans can identify. If a boy was shown a horse and a flower he would be able to differentiate the two. This isn’t to be confused, with linguistics, but rather as an ability to identify something as what it is. The theory of form is essentially saying that there is an alternative world of ideas which the human mind uses to identify things in the current world. Say there is soccer ball, the soccer ball has the form of a circle. If a soccer ball…

we read, Socrates argues that one has knowledge of the form absolute equality prior to birth, and that learning is a “recovering of knowledge which is natural to us” (40). Socrates’ argument for theory of recollection and that one cannot acquire knowledge of absolute equality through empirical means does succeed despite some minor issues with it. Socrates first proves that there is no example of absolute equality in one’s own experience. To do this Socrates and his interlocutors first have to…

Plato: His Metaphysical Perspective on Ultimate Reality Plato is known in western culture as one of the greats when it comes to philosophy, he is most notably recognized in the field of metaphysics. He was born as an Athenian Greek around 428-348 B.C.E and was the disciple of the great Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. Plato wrote many books discussing philosophy through dialect and in fact, Plato was the one to record all of Socrates teachings. The works most known today are the Republic…

student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, he read and studied in the area of philosophy in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E in Greece. He was influenced by many other famous philosophers but Socrates has the biggest impact on his life. Plato is known for many works such as Republic where his work blended political philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics. Plato is also widely known for his theory of Form where he explains that the world that we live in is just the imitation of what the…

the knowledge of abstract, unchanging entities (i.e., mathematics) that are not subject to the vagaries and mistakes of everyday life. To illustrate his theory, Socrates asks one of Meno’s slave boys to draw a square with sides of two feet, and to calculate how long the side of a square would be if it had twice the area of the one the boy drew. Socrates,…

they are talking about the theory of forms in which they are discussing. I will be discussing that the whole-problem theory can be defended, but to a certain extent. I will start off with Zeno reading a book to Socrates and their discussion about the theory of forms. I will then move on to my criticism, on why I agree with the idea that the form won’t be the same and I will disagree with the point of the forms not being equal. Exposition: Zeno begins by reading a book and then Socrates asks him…

The third man argument refers to a criticism of Plato’s theory of forms. Plato believed that for every class of objects, a group of objects that share that same defining property or essences there was an ideal form that is over and above it. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes that for the theory of forms, for every property F there must be a form, F-ness, where all objects with F get that property. “From the existence of a plurality of F things and the fact that, for any such…

what is real, something “which always is and has no becoming…”. To Plato, this is the layer that transcends space and time. This is how Plato’s Forms came about. He thinks that since all there is at the layer of Becoming are imperfect copies, there must be a perfect copy at the layer of Being which transcends time and space. Plato names this transcendent perfect copy, Form. Argument I agree with Plato that our world - the layer of Becoming - is constantly changing. What was deemed beautiful…