{"agent_id":"plato","agent_name":"Plato","slug":"the-theory-of-forms","label":"The Theory of Forms: what are the Forms?","topic":"The Theory of Forms","question":"What are the Forms?","position":"The Forms are eternal, unchanging *eide* — paradigms of which sensible things are imperfect imitations. Beauty Itself, Justice Itself, the Good Itself; the Forms are the proper objects of *episteme* while sensibles are objects only of *doxa*. The position developed across the dialogues. In the Phaedo and Republic the Forms are strongly metaphysical — separately existing, knowable through dialectic, the cause of the being of sensibles. In the Parmenides I subjected the doctrine to self-critique: the Third Man argument poses a real difficulty (if Beauty Itself is a Form because it is beautiful, and the beautiful Form requires another Form to explain its beauty, an infinite regress threatens). The late Sophist works with a modified theory in terms of the communion of kinds — Forms partake of one another, Same and Different and Being weave through the rest. The position is not static.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The Forms are eternal, unchanging *eide* — paradigms of which sensible things are imperfect imitations.","n":[]},{"t":"Beauty Itself, Justice Itself, the Good Itself; the Forms are the proper objects of *episteme* while sensibles are objects only of *doxa*.","n":[]},{"t":"The position developed across the dialogues.","n":[]},{"t":"In the Phaedo and Republic the Forms are strongly metaphysical — separately existing, knowable through dialectic, the cause of the being of sensibles.","n":[]}],[{"t":"In the Parmenides I subjected the doctrine to self-critique: the Third Man argument poses a real difficulty (if Beauty Itself is a Form because it is beautiful, and the beautiful Form requires another Form to explain its beauty, an infinite regress threatens).","n":[]},{"t":"The late Sophist works with a modified theory in terms of the communion of kinds — Forms partake of one another, Same and Different and Being weave through the rest.","n":[]},{"t":"The position is not static.","n":[1,2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"Phaedo 65d-66a, 74a-75d (the equality argument), 100b-105e; Republic V 476a-480a (Forms vs sensibles), VI 506b-509c (the sun analogy), VII 514a-518b (the cave); Parmenides 130a-135c (the Third Man and other self-critiques); Sophist 247e-258e (the communion of kinds, Forms in late form); Symposium 210a-212a (the ascent to the Form of Beauty). Reception: F.M. Cornford on the early-middle Forms; Harold Cherniss on the unitarian metaphysics; G.E.L. Owen on the Third Man argument; Gregory Vlastos's middle-period Forms reading; David Sedley on Plato's metaphysics; Aristotle's critique in Metaphysics A.9 and M-N.","works":["Phaedo 65d-66a, 74a-75d (the equality argument), 100b-105e","Republic V 476a-480a (Forms vs sensibles), VI 506b-509c (the sun analogy), VII 514a-518b (the cave)","Parmenides 130a-135c (the Third Man and other self-critiques)","Sophist 247e-258e (the communion of kinds, Forms in late form)","Symposium 210a-212a (the ascent to the Form of Beauty)"],"reception":"F.M. Cornford on the early-middle Forms; Harold Cherniss on the unitarian metaphysics; G.E.L. Owen on the Third Man argument; Gregory Vlastos's middle-period Forms reading; David Sedley on Plato's metaphysics; Aristotle's critique in Metaphysics A.9 and M-N.","status":"The central Plato metaphysical question and the most worked- over in the scholarly tradition. Cornford defended the strong-metaphysical middle-period reading; Cherniss the unitarian continuity; Owen the rigor of the Third Man; Vlastos a Forms-as-criteria reading; Aristotle's Metaphysics rejects the separate existence of the Forms. The interpretive difficulty is genuine; the texts do not fully resolve.","era":"428/427-348/347 BCE","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Complete Works","page":"p. 393","canonical":"","quote":"I think these issues have been something is \"itself by itself,\" if it is itself responsible for its own proper being, independently of other things. When the phrase is understood in this way, \"by itself\" means \"in virtue of, or because of, itself.\" Both of these meanings should be kept in mind whenever this phrase recurs in the translation.","label":"Complete Works, p. 393"},{"n":2,"work":"Complete Works","page":"pp. 397–398","canonical":"","quote":"And wouldn't it follow that each particular knowledge that belongs to us is in turn knowledge of some particular thing in our world?\" \"Necessarily.\" \"But, as you agree, we neither have the forms themselves nor can they belong to us.\" \"Yes, you're quite right.\" \"And surely the kinds themselves, what each of them is, are known by the form of knowledge itself?\" Yes.\" \"The very thing that we don't have.\" \"No, we don't.\"…","label":"Complete Works, pp. 397–398"},{"n":3,"work":"Complete Works","page":"pp. 393–394","canonical":"","quote":"\"On the contrary, these things are in fact just what we see. Surely it's too outlandish to think there is a form for them. Not that the thought that the same thing might hold in all cases hasn't troubled me from time to time.","label":"Complete Works, pp. 393–394"},{"n":4,"work":"Complete Works","page":"pp. 398–399","canonical":"","quote":"Only a very gifted man can come to know that for each thing there is some kind, a being itself by itself; but only a prodigy more remarkable still will discover that and be able to teach someone else who has sifted all these difficulties thoroughly and critically for himself.\" \"| agree with you, Parmenides,\" Socrates said.","label":"Complete Works, pp. 398–399"},{"n":5,"work":"Complete Works","page":"pp. 395–396","canonical":"","quote":"\"Is each of the thoughts one, but a thought of nothing?\" \"No, that's impossible,\" he said. \"Of something, rather?\" \"Yes.\" \"Of something that is, or of something that is not?\" \"Of something that is.\" \"Isn't it of some one thing, which that thought thinks is over all the instances, being some one character?\" \"Yes.\" \"Then won't this thing that is thought to be one, being always the same over all the instances, be a…","label":"Complete Works, pp. 395–396"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-socratic-problem","label":"The Socratic problem: who is Plato's Socrates?"}]}