Plato's Theory of Ideas

Here is the first essay I wrote for my Oxford tutorial. It is on Plato's theory of Ideas which is mainly developed through the Republic.

In the Republic, Plato uses many different allegories, analogies, comparisons, diagrams, and images. Arguably the most famous of these is the allegory of the cave. Comparing shadows to statues and the Sun to real things, Plato defines the Idea of Forms. Although Plato’s allegory introduces the superior relevance of Ideas to sensible things, the allegory shows some fallacies in Plato’s philosophy.
Earlier in the Republic, Plato makes a notable argument in using the examples of the Dreamers. Plato distinguishes three different objects of reality: knowledge, belief, and nescience (476c 2-7). Here, the object of belief is considered to be ‘semi real’ because there is no conception of the belief, merely an experience of it. It is interesting for Plato to make the claim that it is even possible for something to be ‘semi real,’ as if the becoming of existence undertakes the process of alteration. Coming to be is not a process of change, because ‘change,’ of course implies the existence of a changeable property both before and after the adjustment. Knowing then that something that is coming to be cannot have properties preceding its coming into existence, it can be said that coming to be is not a change. If coming to be is not a change and for something to exist it must have properties, then there cannot be an ‘in between’ stage of existence and nonexistence; there cannot be ‘semi properties’ for a ‘semi existing’ object. This is inconceivable.
It could be argued however, that the said ‘semi real’ existence is not a process of coming to be, rather a static object in terms of its realness. If this is true, then again, any property of the object would be a semi property; and of course, by definition it is inconceivable to have a semi property. Also, the static object would have the property of being unchanging in terms of the level of its realness. Having this attribute gives the object a property and thus is actually real.
Plato also fails to distinguish between the person, and the Idea when he gives the example of the dreamer (476 c 2-7). A person may experience a form of beauty and have no conception of it. In other words, the Idea of beauty is independent of our failure to conceive it (or in this case, refusal to conceive it). The problem here is the failure to distinguish between failing to justify a belief and the Idea of beauty itself. A person can experience something overwhelmingly beautiful, not have a clue how to define it, and still have experienced it. Since knowledge requires the justification of a belief, the person, in this case, cannot have knowledge of the experience even though they and the Idea came into contact.
Plato (or Socrates) makes an interesting claim of the discovery considering Socrates’ message from the oracle at Delphi. In the allegory of the cave, Plato explains how people bound by their own ignorance are trapped until they are set free and become lovers of wisdom. It is interesting to note Plato’s use of comparison in the passage where he speaks of the prisoners on being able to see the shadows of the objects themselves (514 b-c). While it seems true that the ‘bound’ might not be able to fully comprehend the substance of the statues and animal carvings made from wood, rock, or other materials, it cannot be said however that they have no ability to sense the differences between the images. A four-legged animal could be distinguished from a tree, a fish, and two humans speaking, fighting, or making love. The ‘bound’ then have some experience of properties the objects project, even without the experience of the objects themselves through certain properties of the shadows and the echoes of unseen sounds. Therefore the bound have some sense of discernment between the different objects though this ‘sense’ is the only tool of which they have to discern. This mere sense, is of course not to be trusted and sometimes deceives, which is why the bound’s feeble attempt to define the objects and predict future events are more trivial than the knowledge of the object themselves.
In the allegory, Plato makes an obvious reference to the trial and death of Socrates when he says that the ‘bound’ would “grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there and kill him” (517 a 6-7). The interesting inclination that Plato embraces however is an attitude that Socrates seems to have rejected. In Plato’s view, once the bound is set free and has time to contemplate the objects around him, he becomes enlightened (518 a). In other words, the lovers of wisdom become wise. Socrates would have rejected this notion because he viewed himself a fool (Plato’s Apology 21 a-d). It seems that Socrates would have rejected the claim of ultimate enlightenment because it ignores a distinction between philosophy and the philosopher. According to the allegory, a person set free, given the time to adjust can know. Where as Socrates might have said something along the lines of “the more I know, the more I know that I do not know.” The problem here is not philosophy, but the philosopher. Socrates understood that he was incapable of understanding all of reality, much less understanding all of reality simultaneously.
Another aspect that Socrates would have emphasized, and Plato seems to be unable to escape, is the need for the bound to be “set free,” as opposed to freeing themselves (515 c 5-6). When the man reaches the outer rim of the cave and contemplates real animals, humans, objects, and the Sun, he does so by means of philosophical reasoning. Is the means by which to contemplate real things the same means by which a man must be set free? It should be noted that anyone who inquires can reason philosophically.
In Plato’s passage on the divided line, he explains geometry as being contingent upon visible images (511 a), which must be assumed to proceed in mathematical reasoning. Philosophical reasoning is not contingent upon visible images and is not forced to make assumptions which is why philosophical reasoning is superior to mathematical reasoning according to Plato’s divided line. More relevant to the point at hand however, is the reality that philosophical reasoning can be done by anyone without prior assumptions.
How does this influence the allegory? If it is true that philosophy can be done by anybody, and philosophy is the means to ultimate enlightenment, then it would seem that anyone can escape; but they cannot escape, they must be set free. According to Socrates’ view, we cannot set ourselves free to reach ultimate enlightenment. Not because of the nature of philosophy but because of the nature of man. Our incapability to see things as they really are often keeps our reasoning from reaching truth. While it should not be said that we cannot reach truth by reasoning, that is illogical because it is a truth claim that is ultimately based on reason, it should be realized a certain doctrine of the human condition: that there will always be something false somewhere in everyone’s belief which they think is justified.
What then can set us free from this bondage of ignorance? If it is knowledge itself that releases us from this captivity of ignorance, then everyone can be set free. More than that, everyone has been set free and still chooses to sit in the place of their bondage ignorant of their freedom. If this is true, then both knowledge and ignorance are present at the same time in the same object applied to the same subject. This is of course impossible because if they were set free by knowledge, they would have knowledge of their liberation and their captivity would be voluntarily executed.
Another way to look at this would be to slightly alter the allegory in reference to a statement above: that it is not the captivity that forces the poor thinking, but the thinking that forces the captivity. This could be argued, but it is not convincing because it requires people to interrupt their own naturally false way of thinking to be set free. One other possible line of thought would be to say that knowledge would be made known to the captives before they were made captive. So as to say that even they have the opportunity to be set free, they choose ignorance because of their habitually bad thinking. This seems to be more convincing because it includes a person’s self-captivity of poor thinking, though they are still in ignorance.
Still it seems to be a large claim to say that because we can define Ideas, we can have full comprehension of them. This seems to ignore a dimensional limitation of human thought capabilities. While it is true that a person can have knowledge of an Idea, it is impossible to conceive all Ideas simultaneously, which is a limitation in human knowledge. It seems to be more possible that in reality, people cannot actually gaze upon the Sun, but by the Sun people can see everything else .