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Is Plato's Account Of The Forms True

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Is Plato’s account of the Forms true? Plato is well known as a brilliant philosopher whose intelligence has surpassed the understanding of many other philosophers. He developed detailed concepts to explain the many questions that the world presents to its people. I believe that Plato is right in his theories, but I also believe that he is wrong with the way he portrays objectivity as superior to subjectivity. One cannot, and should not exist without the other. In a world free of human emotion, objectivity can certainly be the rule of order for the world. However, this is certainly not possible, and therefore makes the argument for the importance of subjectivity a valid one. I agree with Plato’s statements that all the objects we perceive …show more content…

A table is a table. Because of my objective experience, I can tell you it is flat and hard. If I come upon a flat object that is the size of a table and soft, my objective experience would tell me it isn’t a table but is more likely a bed or a pillow. My experiences with a bed and a table are very real and there is very little to argue about when it comes to their functions in this world. There is subjectivity if I discuss the difference between the softness of different beds or pillows or the type of wood on a table, but a bed is flat and soft and a table is flat and hard. On the other hand, a living thing like a tree is constantly changing. To say that it is an objective image to incorporate into our minds does not make sense to me. Every day, a leaf will fall, be a slightly different color or a bug will chew on it, and this makes the tree different every day, never the same. From the completely objective perspective, the tree IS different. I do not believe that living things fit into the theory of the Forms. I agree that there are Forms which shape our concept of the world such as roundness and square-like and color and taste and odor. However, to categorize the world in this way without including subjectivity renders it …show more content…

I disagree with Plato when he states that the more objective a concept is, the more real the thing it represents. We show that we believe this by the way we uses objectivity to distinguish appearance and reality. Banach (2006) states a version of Plato’s principle: The more objective you get, the more real you get. The Forms are more objective than material objects according to Banach (2006). Therefore, the forms are more real than material objects. While this may be true in a world without human interaction, what meaning does it hold for a world with humans, guided by subjectivity? What good is a completely objective world, because in one there is no love, no pain, no sorrow? A completely objective world disallows the human experience and the very realness that brings to it. The ethical problems that we face are humans living a fulfilling life; a happy life in a depending, changing world where everything they attach themselves to can be taken

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