Plato appreciation thread. Aristotelianfags GTFO.
Let's discuss Forms and Ideas without any pure empiricist faggots denying the existence of abstract principles.
I think Plato was wrong in asserting that there are forms of artificial objects like beds and chairs. Suppose there was a form of the automobile. Then, since the forms are eternal and outside spacetime, it would have to have existed forever. But then how come man only invented the automobile almost two millenia after plato died? He discovered the previously unknown form of the automobile? But that's not how Plato's theory of knowledge works. You don't discover new forms, you remember them. In this case the automobile, if anything, would have to have been invented much earlier because more ancient peoples were less materialistic and remembered the forms better. I think Aristotle's view that there can only be forms of natural objects and the forms of artificial objects are created by us with reason and imagination solves this issue, and it has been incorporated, if I'm not mistaken (the Platonist scholar Thomas Taylor seems to think so) , by the Neoplatonists.
>the Forms exist
>why?
>because they exist
It's not empiricism, there's just no reason to believe it.
>forms
There's not much to discuss. Honestly, Plato shouldn't be degraded to the level of a meme like this.
>Aristotelianfags GTFO
Aristotle's commentary on Plato is highly significant. You can GTFO.
>>1154228
Forms are abstract, simple concepts. A car contains a circle in the wheels, heat from the engine etc.
This is easier to think of.
>>1153965
>plato
You have never seen an actual circumference in the material world. Every round thing you have seen has had some kind of imperfection. That is a fact.
If we have never seen a circumference, how can we know or dusciver the mathematical properties of circumferences?
Because those properties apply to the idea of circumference.
>>1154358
What are then, the basic blocks of forms? Set theory?
>platonists BTFO
>>1154515
Forms are not made of parts. Duh.
>>1154535
This is basic stuff. Forms do not change.
For the sake of the arguement let's say the shovel has not been invented.
Well a shovel consists of a cylendrical shape and a diamond shape. The Form of these shapes has always existed.
Now for the material. Well wood consists of things such traits as firmness and metal of heaviness. Both heaviness and firmness have a Form that has already existed.
One thing you need to get is that there is a hierarchy, the lower things are on the hierarchy the more they are removed from the forms. Non-thinking, physical things are at the absolute bottom of the hierarchy, they are not going to have a very strict relationship to the Forms.
>>1154575
>Well a shovel consists of a cylendrical shape and a diamond shape. The Form of these shapes has always existed.
>Well wood consists of things such traits as firmness and metal of heaviness. Both heaviness and firmness have a Form that has already existed.
Yea, but that would mean some forms are made of parts.
>>1154583
You arn't getting it.
Let's say I grab a bunch of random stuff and some glue. Than I glue them all together and call this item a widget.
There is no form for the widget. But there is a form for something like the shape of the items, the stickness, the color etc. These forms are not made of parts. However the widgit is made of parts.
>>1154596
Then what specifically makes something a form instead of a "widget"?
>mfw no one realizes that plato defeated the is-ought dichotomy by placing the good ontologically prior to being
>>1154603
Bear in mind I havnt' read a lot of Plato but this is the general thing.
Abstract concepts, stuff that exists as an idea rather than a physical reality, is the type of stuff that has a Form. So good, courage, textures, numbers, etc. have forms.
Plato was aware that we had the ability to just point to any assorment of matter and come up with a new noun to describe it. Much like how I can call whatever I want a widgit. So the truth of things can be clouded by language.
In general the heirachy goes like this.
The Forms>Ideas>artistic representations of things, purely material things
The higher up in the hierarchy the more in tune with the Forms something is. There are also descripinancies. For instance a man that devotes himself entirly to bodily, physical urges is going to be far less attuned to the Forms than someone who is contemplating ideas and keeps his emotions in check. This is why a stoic-minded, philosopher who is always asking questions and trying to learn is the highest type of person and the lowest type would be a drug addicted hedonist.
>>1154607
[DESIRE TO KNOW MORE INTENSIFIES]
>>1154666
In the allegory of the cave, the escaped prisoner can't see the real objects at first, because they are so bright. What brightens them? It's the sun, obviously. So if the objects illuminated by the sun are the 'truth' (compared to the shadows of mere appearance), then 'the sun' is something even further, beyond the truth. the sun is the Good.
Remember: A balanced diet, regular exercise, and engaging in the dialectic will keep you in top Form.
>>1154358
According to whom? You? Too bad we're discussing Plato and his philosophy ITT.
Idealists are just adding an extra step to perception. Even if the nonexistence of material things can be proven, it does not change that we interact solely with the material. What is the purpose of theorizing about the immaterial when it can not be observed or interacted with?
I'm certainly open to hearing the other side.
>>1154607
>Not realizing that the One, the Good, the True, the Beautiful, and Being are synonyms, and that none is ontologically prior to the other
>>1154996
>Even if the nonexistence of material things can be proven, it does not change that we interact solely with the material.
How do you assume this. Frankly there is a much better arguement that you never really interact with the material. When you experience something you are not expericing the 'authentic' thing you are seeing a mental image of it. This is basically German idealism, in which the material world is basically real but totally inacessable. Burke's philosophy goes a step further and says there isn't even a material world at all, since nothing about it can ever be demonstrated (ie anything you discuss is just a sensation in your head, an idea).
Plato is probably the most material friendly idealist. There is a material realm that we interact with, but there is a seperate realm of ideas. This realm involves things that never exist materialistically (for instance pure numbers, or pure ideas such as courage). Plato concludes that the realm of ideas is superior to the material realm.
>>1154711
Philosophy is the way out of the cave. The Sun is Sophia - Wisdom. By becoming philosophers, men reach the Sun (Wisdom), and can then see the Truth (illuminated objects and not mere shadows of them).
>>1154656
>The Forms>Ideas>artistic representations of things, purely material things
Curious, but are you drawing distinction between Forms and Ideas? You've already qualified yourself, mind, by noting that you haven't read much of Plato, but whether there's a distinction between Forms and Ideas, and if so, what that distinction amounts to has bothered me quote a bit over the last year.
It seems important that the Good in the Republic is "the Idea of the Good" and not the Form. But why that should be the case isn't clear to me.
(It does seem clear to me that "Idea" doesn't mean the same thing as "mental concept" or "mental idea"; the dialogue Parmenides, besides showing how incoherent it would be to take the forms and ideas as thoughts, also pointedly uses certain forms of "Idea" to mean "visual look", e.g. how Parmenides looked as an old man.)
>>1156137
That's not quite what the analogy says tho. The Sun is explicitly the Idea of the Good, and somehow Truth falls out of that or is somehow ontologically subsequent in either primacy or manner of being. Wisdom would be comprehension of the Whole, which the Good and Truth are parts of. Knowledge of them alone might be something worthwhile, but it wouldn't be wisdom insofar as partial.
>>1155751
That's, uh, very very debateable.
As a start, the Good is explicitly said to be "beyond Being" when discussed in the Republic. And while it seems appealing and almost intuitive to say that the One of the first hypothesis in the Parmenides (namely, the One that Is that it turns out Is Not) suffers nonbeing in such a way as to be completely unable to be identified with Being (that would make the One a Two instead) and the Good (which is *beyond* being, but not necessarily partaking of Nonbeing). As for the True, as per what I noted at >>1156252, truth is subsequent to the Good, and something like a cause or source or principle for it, and not the same.
The Beautiful you could maybe argue to be the same as the Good, since there is some precedent in the dialogues for Socrates offering certain suggestions of that sort.
>>1154583
That actually seems right to conclude. It's certainly one of the biggest evident problems in Plato's writings that he's trying to work out.
>>1154596
A counter example: Virtue. How does the Form of Virtue relate to the Form of Courage or of Justice or of Wisdom or of Moderation? Is the Form of Virtue a whole that those "virtues" are parts of? Or are they "virtues" because they partake of the Form of Virtue? In the former case, we have a clear part-whole relationship where a Form is made up of other, somehow more basic, forms. In the latter case, you have the same thing, but end up differing in saying which direction the relationship goes (e.g., Courage would be made up of parts such as Virtue, One and Other and Same and Different in order to be distinct from other Forms, etc. etc.).
>>1157223
Depends what you mean by virture. If you mean Virtue with a capital V that's Aristotle which is a different system entirely I am not familiar with.
There is an idea that certain abstract concepts are compound ones, made of several other abstract concepts. In Gnostic (a very Platonic religion) this is expressed by celestial Forms being built onto each other like a family tree. For instance the example you gave about courage would put certain forms as the "parents" of other Forms. In this system the alpha "parent" is the Form of Good. I put parents in quote, because Forms aree eternal, they are not actually created but rather dependent on other forms.
I am not exactly sure how Plato himself views it, whether the compound "parts" are part of the realm of forms or just how it manifests itself in the human world, whether there are is a family tree of some sorts, or whether Forms are indeed made of other Forms. This is because I have only read his early works and I am told these are not well developed and he has a more complete system later on. The early works are rather speculative rather than authoritative, he doesn't so much say "it's this way" as "if this were true it might work this way" or "it's probably one of these two things but I'm not sure which"
There is a debate among scholars about how Plato is trying to present himself. One side, which is how most people read him, is that Socrates is supposed to be a mouthpiece that always has the correct information and whatever he says is what Plato believes. In this interpretation people that challenge Socrates are simply wrong and voicing counter arguements Plato anticipates. The other interpretation is that Socrates is not meant to always be giving the correct information, he's just putting forward possibilities and we get to see two sides of the argument between Socrates and the opponent, Plato is not claiming to have discovered the truth but is trying to get us to think about possibilities.
>>1157279
>Depends what you mean by virture. If you mean Virtue with a capital V that's Aristotle which is a different system entirely I am not familiar with.
For my example, all I mean is to point to the same problems alluded to in the Meno; whether Plato ever took a much more meaningfully developed stance on the matter is unclear to me. Even when the individual virtues are put in relation with each other in some definite way (the way Wisdom, Courage, and Moderation each rule over a certain class/soul faculty, ordered as a whole by Justice) ends up not being quite right within the text itself if a reader notices Socrates comments about a "longer way" suggesting the view's partiality, but also the way in which that discussion of the virtues depends on Glaucon's appreciation for the "demotic" virtues, kind of concealing the philosophically true stance on them.
>The early works are rather speculative rather than authoritative, he doesn't so much say "it's this way" as "if this were true it might work this way" or "it's probably one of these two things but I'm not sure which"
The later ones strike me as pretty speculative in that same manner as well, just much more tortuous about it. But then, I for my part subscribe to the school for whom
>Socrates is not meant to always be giving the correct information
I'm not sure to what extent I see possibilities more than insights that are both 1) true and 2) fundamentally aporetic. That's much harder for me to decide on.
RE: parts and wholes, it seems that Parmenides, Timaeus, Republic, Philebus, and Sophist/Statesman all have different ways of addressing the issue, and it's not clear to me to what extent they're reconcilable if at all. Hell, even with two dialogues as closely related as Sophist and Statesman, the main speaker, the Eleatic Stranger, changes his stance at the beginning of the latter dialogue, suggesting that Forms might be decided by art, suggesting something unnatural about Forms...
Let us try to address some issues concerning the forms from a Platonic and Neoplatonic stand point. I don't claim to base all of my post on the authorities; some ideas are indeed from Plato and Proclus, and some are my own interpretation of them.
A hierarchy of the forms is alluded to in Plato, the form of the Good, for instance, is a sort of form of forms. This concept is fully developed in Proclus. In his system there is a differentiation between the level of intellect and that of the intelligible; there is, moreover, mediating them the two, a third level, the intelligible and at the same time intellectual. The justification for this comes from Plato's Timaeus where the demiurge (or universal intellect) is said to behold the intelligible world and use it as a model for the creation of the sensible world. But the forms of sensible things are merely the extremity of the intelligible world. You see, for Proclus each "ontological" level is a universe in itself, complete with its own gods etc., but each according to its own peculiarity (earth contains everything earthly, and heaven, heavenly, for instance, is a formula used by Proclus). Thus just as the earth is the extremity of the sensible world, so the forms of the bed, etc. are the lowest of the intelligible world; and just as the sun is the center of the sensible world, likewise the One is the sun of the intelligible (as described by Plato in the Republic).
>>1158765
>virtue and the form of virtue
Between the intelligible sun and the intelligible "earth" (as it were), a host of intermediary forms is mentioned by Proclus (always based on Plato), the form of Being, the form of Life (also called Eternity) and the form of Intellect itself: that is to say, the demiurge himself has a form! But the demiurge is not the cause of himself. Hence the intermediary role of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual level, to connect the demiuge to the intelligible world. For Proclus, there is no room for vaccum; everything is a continuum from the One down to the lowest matter, hence the need for intermediaries between every level. The intellect doesn't behold the forms directly, but through the lenses of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual gods, who receive and so to say refract the illuminations of the forms to the lower levels. And this is where I think the virtues are. Proclus identifies the intelligible and at the same intellectual world with the supercelestial place described in the Phaedrus and (following Plato) places here Adrasteia (Necessity) and, at least, Justice (one of the virtues). Here comes my own interpretation that Justice, being a form, is participated by the lower levels but herself participates of the form of Virtue in the above intelligible realm. This would make Justice and the other virtues intelligible (from the point of view of the intellect) and at the same time intellectual (from the point of view of the intelligible world) and in my opinion not stray too far from the system of Proclus.
>>1158824
>the form of the automobile
Another interesting thing in Proclus is the analysis according to "degrees of freedom". In the level of the One there is perfect freedom. In the next levels, down to the level of intellect, there's already the differentiation between subject and object, but everything is experienced at once, "concentrated" into one, or as Plotinus described, everything is inside everything. In the level os soul, there is a further restrain that is the restrain of time. Intelligible objects can no longer be grasped directly all at once, but in time and one after the other (this is the level of discursive reasoning). But in the sensible world there is a further restrain that things have to have their being in time and in space, and is the least free of all. Now what does this have to do with the forms? In my opinion, the form of the automobile mentioned in >>1154228 and the form of the chariot are really the same form but not yet fully developed in time and space. Humanity could not "skip" the stage of the chariot and invent the autombile right off the bat because of the restrains of time and space, but what we are seeing is really the unfolding of the same idea in time and space, not directly and fully developed like the intellect sees it. This would seem to account for our ideas of futuristic cars and other future developments of already existing things, as well as how some inventions seem to come intuitively for some individuals in an "eureka" or inspired moment: it was merely "an idea whose time had come".
> muh doxa
> muh episteme
>>1158765
>>1158824
>>1159007
Thank you for putting forward the Neoplatonic take on the subject. It's not often that one gets to see someone discuss their philosophic stances with some degree of learning!
I'm not sure I have anything to add, since my own readings of Proclus point to the same teaching; perhaps the only difference is to what degree either of us think it's properly founded on the Platonic texts. I think we both take it that Proclus (among others) has some solution to the Part-Whole analysis of Forms; I'm still not persuaded that Plato has one, though several mutually incompatible ones are alluded to.
Would it be worthwhile to inspect a few shorter passages about the forms, such as they appear in Meno, Symposium, and Phaedrus?
>>1154341
It's just autists getting weirdly tribal about things that deserve to be treated with more nuance.
You see this with continental-analytic threads too.
>>1162921
Reading Plato is always worthwhile. I'll be rereading these dialogues too and perhaps we will meet again.
