Relationship between Forms and Particulars

ParticipationPlato argued that particulars in the empirical world participate in, instantiate or resemble the Forms, meaning that the Form is somehow present in the object.

EXTENDWhy can’t the Form be physically present in the object?

Example:Mrs Robinson instantiates the Form of beauty.

Which Forms might the particular person Mr Lee participate in?

man

TEST YOURSELF

Many seemingly very different physical objects may participate in the same Form:

Beauty

EXTENDResearch the philosophy of types and tokens.

Forms (or ideas)…

….are like blueprints or archetypes for things in the empirical world.

How do you think a Form might be like a blue print?

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CorrespondenceJust as some of your play-do creations correspond better to your idea of cat than others… some objects in the empirical world of our sense experience correspond better to Forms than others, because they better participate in the Form.

Form of Cat: Particular cats in the empirical world:

goodbetterbest

A B C

D E F

Which instantiates the Form of beauty better? Order from worst to best.

Research ‘correspondence theory of truth’.EXTEND

TEST YOURSELF

Contingency

Plato argued that the Forms must exist necessarily (can’t cease to exist) and that particulars are contingent (dependent) on the Forms for their existence.

Hint: think about the nature of Forms and thenature of particulars.

TEST YOURSELF Why do you think this is the

case?

RecollectionPlato believed that we can identify what different things are, because we are able to we recognise the Forms within different particulars:

What does the word ‘recognise’

imply?

Plato’s logical argument for the immortality of the soul

• In order to recognise something, we must have experienced it before.

• Our bodies cannot experience the Forms, as they are physical and temporal.

Therefore;• We must have existed in a non-physical, non-

temporal form before we were incarnated (born into our bodies) i.e. the soul.

All learning is recollection

Research Plato’s discussion of innate knowledge and his Theory of Recollection in his Meno and in his Phaedo.– see the section where the slave boy draws a square.

EXTEND

Although we have not seen 'true beauty' in this world, we all have an innate, instinctive understanding of what 'beauty' means.

Beauty

However, trapped in the body, the memories of the soul are very dim. We are distracted from philosophical pursuits by our bodily appetites.

EXTEND

How might this idea link to the materialist argument that the physical world is our reality, or the empiricist argument that our common sense tells us that what we can physically sense is what is real? Research Plato’s phrase “soma sema” (the body is a prison or tomb for the soul).

Speed Dating

Act out the relationship between your concepts.

Strengths

• Accounts for how different things can somehow be the same.

• Helps us understand why there are imperfections in the world around us.

Weaknesses• Immortality of the soul or just pre-mortal

existence?

• It is not clear exactly how the physical things participate in the Forms, particularly how something non-physical and physical relate to one another.

• The idea that some things are more real than others.

EXTEND How is it that Plato is able to argue for the immortality of the soul, rather than just its pre-existence?

• Our ability to recognise or identify different things e.g. Persian, Russian blue and Tabby, as being somehow the same (all types of cat) could be explained in other ways than recollection of Forms.

How?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2_vNvEl5Aw

Perhaps because we are shown examples of things that have certain properties in common e.g. symmetry, blueness etc?

The case of beauty is more difficult: the three beautiful things are all quite different, yet there seems to be something common that they share that transcends the things themselves.

EXTENDResearch the philosophical Problem of Universals.

Look baby, it’s a BOTTLE.

Word Linkrecollection

participate

recognise

instantiate

Form

pre-mortalsoul

particularinnate

contingent

properties

TEST YOURSELF