Criticism of the Forms

(Originally written November 10, 2016 in Book 26)

The Classical Mind
W.T. Jones

Chapter 5 - Plato: The Special Sciences

Criticism of the Theory of Forms

The problem is how things of this world interact with the eternal forms to gain reality. It is difficult to see how Plato's spatio-temporal world is not just mere appearance.

Plato even suggests in the Parmenides that the notion of participation is confused.

Plato's attack on the theory of forms in Parmenides shows just how intellectually honest Plato was.

"He believed that the truth, insofar as men can attain it, emerges in the thrust and counter-thrust of argument conducted jointly by truth seekers" (Jones, 207). Plato's whole career through the dialogues was an exercise in truth-seeking.

Platonism moves on the assumption (according to Platonic Physics) that everything corporeal is a combination of the elements (fire, earth, water and air). Thus, there doesn't need to be a form for "mud" or "hair". Hair exists as a combination of the elements which are participating in the eternal form of each element.

Participation is the big hole in Plato's theory. He described participation as being akin to an object and its shadow. But this analogy breaks down because the relationship between an object is spatiotemporal and forms exist outside of time and space.

The problem for Plato is how to bridge the gap between the physical world which would be unknowable if they are not objects of the form (because of the problem of permanence) and the form world, which is knowable; but, if there is no participation then it too is unintelligible.

Plato bridged this gap with his notion of "psyche". The "psyche" (soul) was capable of knowing the eternal forms. Psyche contained the mind, which can knwo forms. Psyche also contained the passions (emotions) which are in tune with the physical world. Hence the psyche, contained in every man was the bridge between the form world and the sensible one.

But this creates only a complicating duality in the psyche itself.

He held that knowledge, at its best, trancends the conceptual communication modes.

Plato, in his work, was not totally systematic. But he provided a framework for Aristotle to work in a more unified way.