Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Strengths of Plato's
Idea of Forms
- Plato may be correct in saying that we do search for 'ideas' and
seem to have some vague idea that there are ultimate realities,
which he calls the 'Forms' of things.
- No one might have ever explained to us the connection
between, for example, lots of different cats but it could
possibly be argued that we sense they belong together
- Instinct, through our soul (immortal, seen
the World of the Forms) being incarnated
into a new body
- Plato argues that our immortal soul 'knows'
these Forms as it existed in a realm of the
Forms before coming to the world of
appearances
- Argues that soul has some
'knowledge' of what perfectly straight
is even though we have never
actually seen it in this world
- When we think about inventing things, isn't it the case
that we always have an idea first? Could we have
remembered the idea from the world of the Forms?
- Ideas must have come from
somewhere. Plausible assumption
- Maybe, our senses are
as unreliable as Plato
suggests.
- We can question if they are
certain enough for us to
build our world view upon
them
- Our view may be clouded or hindered by our senses
- Perhaps the Realm of the Forms does
work well regarding concepts such as
Justice, Truth, and Beauty
- Does having ultimate Forms
of these overcome the
difficulties of relativism and
we stop asking what we think
is good (for us) and instead
find out what ULTIMATE
GOODNESS is?
- Takes away the idea that there is no one truth
- We can only criticise Truth, Beauty and
Justice because they are absolute truths
- See the bigger picture
- Stops us from closing
our mind off to many
ideas and truths
- And these were the concepts he wished to focus on
- It is a comprehensive view of
existence - understood on different
levels
- Gives us a plausible answer to how
we are able to think. Not just thought
of as a biological process
- It triggers new questions to be asked!
- Expansion of
knowledge and
thought
- It links to Christian
philosophical thinking
- The World of Forms could link
to heaven