PHILO-120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Rationality
12 Aug 2020
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Document Summary
A form is a perfect, non-material, unchanging version of a type of thing and makes individual objects the type of thing that they are. For instance, there are many imperfect triangles but they are all triangles in virtue of participating in the form of triangleness. The form of triangleness explains how we can have certain, full knowledge of what a triangle is, even though are senses only encounter approximations of triangles/imperfect triangles. For plato, the forms are similar to parmenidian unchangeable being, while the sensible, material world is like heraclitus"s view that everything is in flux. The most perfect form is that of the good. The good is to the intelligible realm as the sun is to the visible realm. Objective: they exist independent of our minds. Transcendent: they exist beyond the material/sensible world. Eternal: they are not subject to time or change. Intelligible: they cannot be grasped by the senses, on the intellect.
