Topics Philosophers

Question According to Plato's Theory of Forms, the things we perceive in the material world are mere "copies" of the Forms that exist in the World of Ideas. I want to ask this: These Forms include only abstract ideas such as beauty, justice and the like, or they also include tangible objects like trees etc.? if so, then, do they also include bad things like guns, atomic bombs and all the other objects that contribute to people's suffering? Thank you very much.

Accepted:
April 12, 2008

Comments

I think the only honest answer to your question one can give is this: Despite all efforts by scholars to determine the outlines and limits of "Plato's Theory of Forms," these continue to elude us, precisely because Plato never articulates them in a way that settles the matter. In some cases, this is because Plato only manages to allude to "the Forms" without filling in enough of the necessary theoretical details. But in other cases, he seems to supply different theoretical details in different works--in other words, what Plato tells us about the Forms does not always seem to be consistent. He does explicitly mention the things you call "abstract ideas" (though I think he would not be entirely comfortable with this description), such as beauty and justice. In Book X of the Republic, he also mentions a Form of Bed (or Couch), and other Forms for particular things in the world are also mentioned in various Platonic works.

I am aware of no places where Plato explicitly mentions a Form for a kind of weapon (though I am quite sure that he does not mention weapons that had not yet been invented, such as guns and atomic bombs!), but if he supposed there was a Form of Bed, I don't see why he would not also have to suppose there was a Form of Sword. Lots of things "contribute to people's suffering" including even just laws, of course. So on this issue, too, I see no impediment to including Forms of weapons in Plato's ontology, though as I said, he never really offers a whole theory that would allow us to settle this question decisively.