A Critique of Plato’s World of Forms

‘A Critique of Plato’s World of Forms’ is best achieved through the study of Plato’s work. Through the study of his work, we discover a striking interplay of Plato’s ideas as he offered his insight about man’s nature, the nature of human knowledge and the realities of the universe. Because a philosopher writes with a knowledge of the thoughts of his predecessors, this work is at once a critique of Plato’s thought and a creative contribution to the growing knowledge of philosophy. The main thrust of this book is an in-depth appraisal of Plato’s World of Forms, the essence of his metaphysical doctrines and how the theory of forms became the core of Plato’s philosophy. Like the Greek philosophers, Plato was more concerned about the question of change in the physical world. Truth according to Plato is that things participate in the world of ideas from where they get their being but to a lesser degree. What Plato was saying is that a philosopher should endeavor to perceive things with reason and not with the senses. That is why he started by saying that the world of forms is the antithesis to the sensible world. The world of forms has a higher level of existence and it can only be comprehended in thoughts or by reflection. This means that we cannot perceive it through the senses but through extra-sensory means. However, Plato’s famous theory of forms is a bold effort to show that behind the mercurial world of senses, there is a world of reality accessible to reason alone, a world composed of timeless real instead of transistory apparent role of the senses.