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Allegory of the Cave

Theory of Forms
Plato, Aristotle, Ockham

Which is which?
What are they doing with
their hands?
Where are they?
See the full painting here

Greek Philosophers (500BC 200BC)


Timeline

The
Great
Three

Plato, 20, meets Socrates,


60

Plato
(429 347)

500 BC

200
BC

Socrate
s (469 399)

What is an allegory?
Its a story that teaches you about something

other than what is in the story.


What is an analogy?
A comparison made to show a similarity.

Watch this YouTube video of the Cave Allegory


Read this excerpt from Platos Republic, Book
VII, if you prefer reading to watching

Platos Cave Allegory has a number of purposes:


1. distinguish appearance from reality

it is possible to have the wrong understanding of


the things we see, hear, feel, etc.

2. explain enlightenment

moving from shadows to the real


involves pain, confusion
makes you an outcast
is a one-way trip
improves you, but
makes you a nerd
makes you mentally clumsy
cannot be taught, you must see for yourself

Platos Cave Allegory has a number of


purposes:
1.distinguish appearance from reality
2.explain enlightenment
3.introduce the Theory of Forms (or Ideas)
the allegory provides for an analogy:
as shadows are to physical things, physical things
are to the Forms (Ideas)

In virtue of what are these two things red?

Its not the paint, dye, pigment, light waves, frequency of waves,
etc., that makes the circle on the left red, that makes the circle
on the right red, because all that stuff is over there (on the left)
rather than over here (on the right) similarly, its not the
paint, dye, pigment, light waves, frequency of waves, etc., that
makes the circle on the right red, that makes the circle on the
left red, because all that stuff is over here (on the right), rather
than over there (on the left).
So, in virtue of what are they both red?
Notice that red is a singular term the subject is plural, but the
predicate is singular! These are not reds. How can this be?!
How then, can two things be one thing?!

In virtue of what are these two things circular?

Its not the curve of the border that makes the circle on the left
circular that makes the circle on the right circular, because
that curve of the border is over there (on the left) rather than
over here (on the right) similarly, its not the curve of the
border that makes the circle on the right circular that makes
the circle on the left circular because that curve of the border
is over here (on the right), rather than over there (on the left).
So, in virtue of what are they both circular?
Notice that circular is a singular term these are not
circulars!
How then, can two things be one thing?!

Plato thinks we need universals to account for our


knowledge. If, as Heraclitus said, the only thing real is
flux or change, then we couldnt know anything (nothing
our thoughts were about would match our thoughts,
since what underlies our thoughts is always changing).
Consider the statement:
blue is darker than yellow
What would happen if every blue and yellow thing winked
out of existence? Would the statement be false?

Plato believed that these Forms, or Universals, are:


Eternal
Unchanging
Necessary (exist [subsist?] necessarily)

If they were not so, blue is darker than yellow


and the truths about geometry, and innumerable
others, could all be false. But, when you think
hard about them, they apparently cannot be
false.

Qualities
colors
shapes
sounds
textures
temps
flavors
odors
aspects of
all
etc.

Relations
lighter/dar
ker
rounder/sq
uarer
higher/low
er
rougher/s
moother
sweeter/so
urer
etc.

Kinds
animal
vertebrate
human
metal
steel
apple
book
sandwich
etc.

Where are these Forms?


Because everything in space and time
comes into being at some time and in some place,

and
goes out of being at some time and in some place,

the Forms, eternal and unchanging, must be


outside space and time.
Some call this place Platos Heaven
Some call the Forms Divine Ideas

Problem:
How do Platos non-temporal, non-spatial, eternal,
unchanging Forms interact with the temporal, spatial,
temporary, changing world of our experience?
Plato tells us: by a relation of participation or sharing
Another way to say it, Forms are instantiated in physical
things.
This red thing has an instance of redness,
this being in between is an instance of inbetweeness,
this dog is an instance of dogness.

But, how do physical things participate in Forms? Or, how


are the Forms instantiated in things?

Aristotle rejected Platos Forms as entities that exist


separate from the things that instantiate them.
He held, instead, that the Forms exist only
in re (in things), and
not ante rem (not before things)

and, that we know them by lifting them out of sensible


objects by abstraction
simple (just noticing a feature of something)
common (recognizing two features are one and the

same)
precise (cutting off reference to all other features)

It is the last kind of abstraction Aristotle believes Plato


uses, illicitly, to derive his concept of separated Forms

There are Forms only for those qualities, relations, and


kinds that
have existed,
exist, or
will exist

What it means to be a universal is to be predicated of


many.
His emphasis on language led medieval commentators
to follow suit, and seemingly led to both
Conceptualism (universals are concepts in the mind),

and,
Nominalism (universals are a mere puff of voice;
universal words)

William of Ockham (of Oak Hamlet, Surry, England) rejects


both Platos and Aristotles views about Universals.
Ockham is a Nominalist (some scholars now think he should
be considered a Conceptualist instead).
From Paul Spades Stanford article on Ockham:
He [Ockham] believed in abstractions such as whiteness and
humanity, for instance, although he did not believe they were
universals. (On the contrary, there are at least as many
distinct whitenesses as there are white things.) He certainly
believed in immaterial entities such as God and angels. He
did not believe in mathematical (quantitative) entities of
any kind.

Ockham, from the Internet Encyclopedia of


Philosophy:
There is no universal outside the mind really
existing in individual substances or in the
essences of things. The reason is that
everything that is not many things is
necessarily one thing in number and
consequently a singular thing. [Opera
Philosophica II, pp. 11-12]

Ockham provides an argument to support his view


from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, again:
it would follow that God would not be able to annihilate
one individual substance without destroying the other
individuals of the same kind. For, if he were to
annihilate one individual, he would destroy the whole
that is essentially that individual and, consequently, he
would destroy the universal that is in it and in others of
the same essence. Other things of the same essence
would not remain, for they could not continue to exist
without the universal that constitutes a part of them.
[Opera Philosophica I, p. 51]

Does this argument work equally well against both


Platos and Aristotles conceptions of universals?

If Ockhams view is best characterized as


Resemblance Nominalism, or Resemblance
Conceptualism, what arguments weigh
against it?
Read Rodriguez-Pereyra, if interested. (You are
not responsible for anything from this link)

Socrates image: http://www1.fccj.org/cgroves/2211docs/2211test_3.htm

Platos and Aristotles images: http://heritage-key.com/blogs/malcolmj/top-10-ancient-greekphilosophers

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