What are the Platonic forms?

I’m officially still in my Plato era (until I fully get into my Aristotle phase). So, here’s a little dive into the master’s main doctrine.

What are Platonic Forms? What are Plato’s reasons for introducing Platonic Forms? How are Platonic Forms different from ordinary objects, such as birds and trees?

Platonic Forms are abstract, eternal, and unchanging objects. They are the essences (fundamental characteristic or underlying reality) of physical objects. Since they do not exist in time and space, they are only accessible to reason. In the Republic (525b), Plato makes the distinction between the realm of ‘being’ where the Forms belong and the realm of ‘becoming’ where physical objects belong. This distinction highlights the eternal and unchanging aspect of the Forms, whereas the physical objects are prone to change and decay. As they are eternal and unchanging, they are more real and perfect than the ordinary physical objects such as cows and trees that are subject to our everyday sensory experience.

Plato’s allegory of the cave (514b-518d) elucidates Plato’s metaphysical and epistemological reasons for introducing the Forms. According to the allegory, the shadows on the wall are the objects of our everyday experience whereas what the prisoner sees outside are the Forms. Thus, Plato suggests, the Forms are the ultimate source of all things, of all the shadows. The objects of our experience are faded copies of the original Forms.  Epistemologically, they are the basis of all knowledge and truth. Since the physical world is contingent and changing, knowledge based on sense perception necessarily limited to the world of appearances and cannot elucidate the true nature of things. Therefore, there must be eternal and unchanging non-material realm of ‘being’ accessible to reason to serve as a basis for knowledge and truth. The entities belonging to this realm are the Forms and they justify human knowledge.

Why did Aristotle reject the Forms?

Aristotle wasn’t a fan of Plato’s theory of the Forms. In Metaphysics, he overviews previous theories of the first philosophy, including Plato’s. He offers several arguments, the main one being what came to be known as the Third Man argument. In short, the theory of the Forms leads to a rabbit hole of infinite regress: a rose partakes in the form beauty, Forms apply to themselves, so the form beauty partakes in the form beauty₂, and so it goes infinitely…

This argument in fact originates from Plato himself. In his brilliant dialogue Parmenides, he provides the most enduring counter argument to his own arch doctrine. Parmenides ends inconclusively, yet, even though he doesn’t do it himself, one imagines Plato must have thought the problem could be solved as he continues to uphold his theory of Forms in his later works.

In Eudemian Ethics (1212a, 1-30), Aristotle particularly argues against the Form of the Good which is, according to Plato, the highest value represented by the ‘sun’ that illuminates all the other Forms (Republic, 508b). Aristotle argued that the notions of a ‘good man’, a ‘good rose’ and a ‘good runner’ all partake in some kind of good but different kinds of good cannot be reduced to what they have in common. Since there is a variety of goodness, there is no unified concept of goodness, and the Form of the Good doesn’t exist. Moreover, even if the Good existed, it would have no utility for ethics. This is because to know what is good for humans, we need to enquire about a specific kind of good and not a general Form.

Is Plato’s view or Aristotle’s criticism more convincing?

I think Aristotle’s criticisms against the Form of the Good are not fully convincing. Plato would accept that different things partake in different notions of the Good, however the Form nevertheless exists as a standard of goodness. A man or a rose is good in so far as they correspond to the Form of the Good. Even though Aristotle’s virtue ethics offers more adequate practical guidance (we’ll get into that later), the criticism that the Form of the Good offers no utility to ethics is not entirely charitable. Plato would respond that the Form of the Good is accessible to the intellect and can be studied with the method of elenchus, or dialectical inquiry.

So…

Interest in the Forms has endured the test of the centuries, and the debate between these two guys arguably unleashed the first paradigmatic divergence in Western philosophy. The Forms were reclaimed by many philosophers and philosophical traditions, sometimes in unexpected ways. Some of my favourites being the Names in Sufi metaphysics and the Archetypes in Jung’s psychoanalytic theory. They have a timeless appeal, which is quite fitting the theme.