Seventh Letter
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Plato describes "The Form of the Good" (τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέαν) in his dialogue, the Republic, speaking through the character of Socrates. The Sun is described in a simile as the child or offspring (ekgonos) of the Form of the Good (508c-509a), in that, like the sun which makes physical objects visible and generates life on earth, the Good makes all other universals intelligible, and in some sense provides being to all other Forms, though the Good itself exceeds being. It is an absolute measure of justice. Plato also explains his theory of justice in the Republic, in relation to his conception of a city in speech, both of which necessitate rule of the rational mind; in other words, philosopher-kings, who can grasp the Form of the Good.
Plato writes that the Form (or Idea) of the Good is the ultimate object of knowledge, although it is not knowledge itself, and from the Good, things that are just gain their usefulness and value. Humans are compelled to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully without philosophical reasoning. According to Plato, true knowledge is conversant, not about those material objects and imperfect intelligences which we meet within our daily interactions with all mankind, but rather it investigates the nature of those purer and more perfect patterns which are the models after which all created beings are formed. Plato supposes these perfect types to exist from all eternity and calls them the Forms or Ideas. As these Forms can not be perceived by human senses, whatever knowledge we attain of the Forms must be seen through the mind's eye (cf. Parmenides 132a), while ideas derived from the concrete world of flux ultimately is unsatisfactory and uncertain (see the Theaetetus). He maintains that degree of skepticism which denies all permanent authority to the evidence of sense. In essence, Plato suggests that justice, truth, equality, beauty, and many others ultimately derive from the Form of the Good.
Aristotle was critical of the Forms of Good, and discussed it several times in both of his major surviving ethical works, the Eudemian and Nichomachean Ethics.
See also
- Summum bonum
- Theory of forms
- Virtue
- Seventh Letter
- The Divided Line
- The Allegory of the Cave
- Value (ethics)
- The One
