Plato's theory of ideas

(Originally written August 10, 2016 in Book 26)

The Classical Mind
W.T. Jones

Ch. 4 - Plato: The theory of ideas (continued)

For Plato, a good state for good men to live in was only achievable when philosphers became kings or kings became philosophers. Democracy was a failure because it was ruled by many and the many were ignorant, emotionally unstable and selfish.

Plato was both mystical and rational in his teachings.

Plato's primary concern was to discover the basis for a good state where a good man can be moral and happy. In order to answer the questions like, "what is a good state?" or, "what is morality?" Plato had to show that these questions were answerable. He had to prove the existence of knowledge and the capacity to have it. "Plato realized that these problems about change, the one and the many, and appearance and reality had to be solved before he could satisfactorily answer the Sophists" (Jones, 122).

Plato solved the dilemma of Heraclitus' flux and Parmenides' nothing changes by claiming there are two worlds. The physical world is Heraclitus' perpetual flux. The world of ideas is however, like Parmenides' immutable, unchanging world. Unlike man's ideas which owe their reality to a particular man, the ideas of Plato's theory owed their own reality and it was more real than the physical world. These are the "forms".

The forms are non-physical, non-spatial and non-temporal. These forms cannot be known through perception. They are only objects of pure thought.

If for instance one is thinking about a triangle, he is thinking about the form triangle, not a particular triangle in the world; but, the universal one. The particular triangle he is seeing is an example that is participating in the universal triangle existing in the world of ideas.

The physical objects of this world aid man in thinking about the universal forms that those objects participate in (pertain to/resemble).

"In this physical world, then, everything is changing and nothing is ever exactly what it is; it is always becoming something different. In the world of forms, however, everything (as Bishop Butler said in another connection) is always that it is and not another thing" (Jones, 126). Because we think about the forms that are unchanging and not about the objects of this world that are changin, we can possess knowledge.

There are four states of mind: intelligence, thinking, belief and imagining. Intelligence is the highest state with the most larity and certainty. Imagining is the lowest.

Of the physical world one can have an opinion, not knowledge. He uses his imagination to percieve images, shadows and reflections. He may have beliefs about things or objects.

But, of the world of forms he may have knowledge. He thinks about the lower forms, the forms of things or objects in the physical world that participate in said form; i.e. He percieves a dog, Gallifrey, and has opinion of him but thinking, he thinks of dog, the universal form in which Gallifrey, a particular dog, participates in. Of the higher forms though, he uses intelligence or intuition to form knowledge. These higher forms are the ethereal forms.

Belief illuminates imagination. Knowledge illuminates belief and imagination. Intelligence illuminates all.

Each step up to the highest form illuminates everything beneath it. It frees the knower from conditions on his knowledge. If one were to get to the pinnacle of illumination he would intuitively know the form of the good.