Describe Plato’s theory of the forms with emphasis on the argument for the immortality of the soul and his theory of recollection. Do you agree with Aristotle’s criticisms?Plato
...ious opponents in previous works. It is thought that through this piece, Plato could clarify any questions raised regarding his theory on forms. Nonetheless, Aristotle was able to criticise Plato’s theory in his book Metaphysics. Aristotle states that the arguments put forward for the existence of forms is not convincing, for example, the form of beauty; yes some objects share the label of beautiful, but that does not mean that there exists an independent and real entity called beauty. This goes for all forms and their likenesses. There are too many forms for each object; for example, I participate in the form of humanness, but also in ‘negations’ such as not a cat, not a man, not a chair, not a tree and so on. I also participate in ‘relations’ for instance, I am smaller than a house, I am bigger than a mouse and so on. I, along with every other creature or object on the planet, participate in an infinite amount of terms that I am not and few that I am. The amount of forms well out-numbers the amount of actual physical objects in the world and Aristotle points out that we supposedly cannot have knowledge of the physical realm, but we have many different forms for each object. Aristotle questions the fact that Plato does not actually offer a solution to the problem of knowledge, but simply makes matters worse by suggesting that realms exist in the universe, causing even more confusion and even more questions. Plato’s opinion on physical objects only having a mere likeness to it’s ‘form’ , in Aristotle’s view, is not clearly explained and is rejected as a metaphor; how can a physical object participate in an intelligible one? Another criticism of Plato’s theory is, for example, the form of a woman; if there is a perfect form of a woman and the women on earth are only a poor imitation of the form of woman, there must be a third woman between the form and those on earth. How can the intelligible realm come up with the form of woman, without relying on the physical realm to provide that perfect woman, or in fact, the form of any object? (the form of tables, dogs, cars, trees and so on). In other words, where do these perfect forms come from? Surely from the physical realm? As it is the physical realm which manufactured the first car, tree, table etc, and the physical realm which bore man, woman and dog and so on, not the intelligible realm. A final criticism by Aristotle is that Plato does not give a solution to the problem of change; he saw change as a hindrance to grasping knowledge. In my opinion, change brings more knowledge and Aristotle offers another theory of knowledge which takes change very much into account. Aristotle dismisses the idea that there is an intelligible realm and that forms are separate from the objects themselves, on the contrary, he argues that the changing physical world aids us in our understanding of knowledge and that it is the physical world which teaches us concepts and helps us to understand scientific matters, not some mystical intelligible realm. To Aristotle, Forms are a component of things which are all around us. Rather than forms being a ‘blueprint’ for objects in the physical world, Aristotle viewed all objects in the world as ‘substances’, he said that a substance is made up of matter and form. The matter being the raw material and the form being the actual shape/pattern of that object (for example, a substance of a baby is made up of matter (organs etc) and its form is human). Not every baby or tree or dog look identical, they are all separate substances because they all have, even if slightly, a different shape and perhaps Aristotle’s argument also included the view that every object is, in some way unique and is not, in Plato’s view a poor imitation of a perfect form in some unreal world. Every substance undergoes a certain degree of change (a baby grows into an adult/a seed grows into a tree/a car will corrode) and this change of the same substance is what helps us to understand the world around us and aid our knowledge of it. A major difference between Plato’s and Aristotle’s viewpoints is that of substance. Aristotle would argue that a substance is one thing and that its qualities or properties simply a part of that substance. Plato on the other hand would argue that a substance participates in various forms. For example, Melissa is a woman who is beautiful; Plato would say that the individual I call ‘Melissa’ participates in the form of woman and the form of beauty. Plato rates universal forms higher than actual being. In contrast, Aristotle would argue that Melissa’s ‘forms’ are inseparable from Melissa herself, in other words, Melissa is her own person and her predicates (classes) cannot exist independently, except for in that substance (Melissa). Plato firmly believed that the intelligible realm is the more important of the two realms because real knowledge, which is innate, comes from the intelligible realm. Plato argued that knowledge is something that cannot be learned, he said that learning is impossible and you either already have knowledge or you do not. Plato believed in reincarnation and he said that ‘learning’ is simply a matter of ‘remembering’ what you already knew from your past life and that the process of reincarnation makes us ‘forget’. Therefore, education is really all about recollection. In his book The Meno, Plato supports his argument through an experiment carried out on a young boy by Socrates. He attempts to demonstrate to Meno, that learning is only a process of recollection by asking a slave boy various questions, who has apparently never been taught the answers to the questions asked. Socrates asks the boy mathematical questions and in doing so, Socrates convinces Meno that the boy in fact already knew the answers to the questions and therefore must have known them from a previous life. From this, Socrates also is able to state that if his soul possessed this knowledge from a previous life, then in fact the soul is immortal. There are many criticisms of the Meno. The boy is an unsuitable subject as he is too old and has a lot of prior knowledge (he knows counting, adding, shapes and basic geometry). He can also speak Greek; learning a language involves content. Socrates is guilty of putting the answers into the boy’s mouth by smuggling information through his questions. Facial expressions and changes in tone of voice can also indicate which answers to give and Socrates uses visual aids to help the boy. The boy also only ever gives one word answers which does not signify real knowledge or understanding. The boy never gets the answer and neither in fact does Socrates. In The Meno, Socrates states that the boy would be able to recall every branch of learning through this technique, which is untrue as some disciplines are different in type; some are gained purely by experience. Perhaps the biggest and most valuable criticism of Plato’s theory of learning is that if our knowledge comes from a previous life, then how did we learn in that previous life? Surely we would have had to learn what we know at some point? We would also have to believe in reincarnation to support his theory. Plato argues for this in his other book The Phaedo, which is regarding Socrates death sentence and the fact that he does not fear death because he bel...