For Plato, philosophy was a way of life, connected to a particular way of seeing the world. The distinctive character of Platonist philosophy was its two-tiered worldview: an imperfect world here below, visible to the senses, and another perfect world above visible only to the mind, consisting of Platonic Forms.
It is noteworthy that Plato expounds at great length on the difference, and the relation, between the imperfect world visible to the senses and the perfect world visible only to the mind. But he does not actually give any specific content to this "otherworld" by giving a specific list of these otherworldly Forms and defining each. Much less does he try to give any rational argument that limits the number or kinds of Forms there might be. Plato's worldview leaves it open to each Platonist to fill this otherworld with Forms that each one must construct for herself.
The ideal Platonist does not feel at home in this world, and does not take this world as a context for defining her identity. In modern language, she is necessarily an "alienated" person, feeling alien to the world around her. The true home of her soul is an "other world" of perfect virtue-Forms. Platonism was thus more like what we would call a "personal spirituality" than a "philosophy."
In this sense, we could say that Plato proposed perfect virtue-Forms as a substitute for the very
morally-imperfect gods and goddesses of popular Greek religion. Ideally
the Forms, not these divine beings, should serve as the
focus for the ultimate and unconditional loyalties of the ideal Platonist.
He sometimes speaks of the Forms as "divine," and of the goal of the ideal
Platonist to "become like the divine as much as is possible to mankind."
To repeat again what he says in his dialogue Theaetetus:
In the divine there is no shadow of unrightness, only the
perfection of rightness. And nothing is more like the divine than any one of us
who becomes as right-minded as possible. 176c
Evils can never be done away with [in this world]... they [do
not] have any place in the divine world, but they must needs haunt this region
of our mortal nature. That is why we should make all speed to take flight from
this world to the other, and that means becoming like the divine so far as we
can, and that again is to become right-minded with the help of Wisdom. 176a
That is:
The concrete visible social world around us, including the
conventional moral norms of this society, is inevitably imperfect at best.
The contrasting moral perfection of the Forms, understood by
Platonist philosophical "wisdom," makes them
worthy of being thought of as a "divine" world, taking "divine" to represent
what has ultimate moral authority, what deserves our unconditional commitment. A good Platonist
mentally shifts her attention and her loyalties from this
imperfect world to the perfect "divine" world of the Forms.
*****
No concrete person, institution, or set of rules deserves unreserved loyalty and commitment, since everything concrete is a mixture of good and not-good, and is liable to change from being good to being not good. The most important function of Perfect Forms is to give a person a focus for moral commitments deserving of unreserved loyalty and commitment. Perfect Forms also give a person standards and norms for self-evaluation that she can know are perfectly reliable.
But a person should not expect to actually become as perfect as the Forms she is striving to approximate in her life. In this sense the Forms do not "exist" in this world. The goal of a Platonist is, in Plato's language, to "participate in" the perfection of the Forms to greater and greater degrees.
Plato considers the objection to his Form theory, that "the Forms do not exist" because no concretely existing person ever perfectly embodies any of the Forms. Speaking of the Form of the virtue of Rightness, he defends his theory (1) by comparing the Form of Rightness to an artist who creates on canvas a person of such beauty that no concrete person could ever be this beautiful, and (2) by describing the function of this Form as a "model' (paradeigma, "paradigm") which a good Platonist should hope to "participate in."
If we discover what [the Form of] Rightness is, will we demand that the right-minded man not differ from it in any way, or will we be satisfied if he comes close to it and participates in it...?
It was for the sake of having a model [paradeigma] that we inquired about "What is Rightness Itself?" and if a man became perfectly Right-minded, what kind of person he would be in becoming so.... so that looking toward [the paradigm]... we might be compelled to agree in reference to ourselves that whoever is most like those [right-minded men] will have a kind of existence [moira] most like to theirs.
It was not for the sake of proving that it is possible for these things to [actually] exist... Do you think an artist any less [an artist] if, having painted a model [paradeigma] of what would be the most fine [kallistos] man, putting in the painting everything important for this, he would not be able to prove that it is possible for such a man to exist?
We are [only] trying to create in words a model [paradeigma] [of Rightness]....
*******
When interpreting any given author, it is important to attend, not only to the overt content of what the person says, but what kinds of problems he is addressing and what kinds of questions he is trying to answer. Most Plato-interpretation today assumes that Plato was trying to answer problems arising from an awareness of historical change and cultural diversity. This gives rise to a certain interpretation of his "otherworldly" worldview, as inextricably bound up with a theory of universal Absolutes transcending all historical change and cultural diversity.
Next I want to show in some detail what it would mean to interpret Plato's otherworldly worldview as an answer to a very different set of problems and questions. To flesh this out, I want to describe, in very modern form, an alternate view of the main problems and questions that otherworldly Platonism has answers to.
Example #1:
Jane falls in love with Jim. She finds this a very inspiring
and uplifting experience, making her feel that life is great. She becomes very
idealistic about love, and life in general. But after awhile the relationship
with Jim turns sour and the couple break up. Jane is depressed, but falls in
love again. She is uplifted, but again disappointed. After several such
experiences, she loses faith in love.
Reflecting, she realizes that she was really "in love with
love" -- she loved the experience of being in love. But now she thinks to
herself, "Love doesn't really exist." In the words of the old song: "Falling in
love with love is falling for make-believe." The love she was in love with does
not exist in "the real world." Life does not seem as bright as it used to be.
Jane ceases being idealistic about love and about life, becomes more cynical,
more jaded.
Plato's "two-world" view is very realistic in acknowledging
the cause of Jane's cynicism, but finds a way of remaining idealistic in spite
of it. The uplifting and inspiring love she was in love with is real, not
"make-believe." It just does not exist in what Jane mistakenly takes to be the
only "real world." It exists in a realm beyond the world of specific concrete
experiences, the otherworldly realm of Platonic Forms.
Specific concrete experiences like falling in love with Jim
"participate in" the perfect Platonic Form of love, but Jane should be careful
not to think of this specific concrete experience as "love itself." She should
not mistake an individual concrete experience that participates in Love for Love
itself. This is the cause of her let-down, because when her actual experience of
life with Jim falls short of its early idealistic promise, this leads her to
feel that Love itself has failed her.
Jane can remain idealistic and inspired, feeling that life is
great, despite her disappointing experiences, if she mentally isolates and
separates Perfect Love from any specific concrete experience of love.
This "Perfect Love" is something like a
"Platonic Form" of Love. Plato would advise Jane to regard Perfect Love, and all
the Platonic Forms of goodness, to be the true home of her soul, that to which
she can and should devote herself unreservedly, the focus of her ultimate
loyalties. They alone will never let her down.
This does not mean, of course, that she is devoted to the
Form of Love instead of concrete love-relationships. A good Platonist
will look upon the perfect Form of Love as a "paradigm" to model her
relationships on, and devote herself to making her concrete love-relationships approximate,
"participate in," the paradigmatic Platonic Form of Love as closely as possible.
Example #2:
Suppose I look up to some famous figure as an inspiring
concrete representation of some particular admirable personal quality, for
example, Mother Theresa as a model of selfless compassion for suffering
humanity. This inspires in me an idealistic desire to imitate her. Suppose I
then read a newspaper story showing that the actual Mother Theresa is not as
selfless as her public image presents her to be, and I become disillusioned with
the ideal of selfless compassion itself, losing my desire to become selflessly
compassionate myself. This outcome could have been avoided if I had been able to
mentally separate the concept or Form "selfless compassion" from the concrete
person Mother Theresa, and made this Platonic Form the focus of my idealism.
Instead of defining my moral identity as an "imitator of Mother Theresa" I could
have defined my moral identity in relation to a concept of selfless compassion
abstracted from this concrete person.
We sometimes take other people as "role models," and try to
be like them. A good Platonist instead takes pure and perfect virtue-Forms as
"models" (paradeigmata) for imitation). A
high-school basketball player taking a professional player as a "role model"
might not
expect to actually achieve the same level of play. The professional player who
is the role-model serves as an inspiration, and also provides an image of very
specific skills to try to learn, in order to approximate the skills of the
role-model -- Plato would call this "participating in" the play and skill-level
of the professional. These are good analogies to the function of Platonic Forms
in the personal life of the ideal Platonist.
Example #3:
Many people associate moral norms with norms of their own
society, as enforced by social pressure. But today social pressure, "what our
culture teaches us," is most often thought of as a negative force whose
unfortunate influence is an object of constant and widespread criticism. In some
cases this disenchantment with society's teachings leads to a general moral
skepticism. In other cases it leads to the feeling that there is some kind of
moral crisis in our times because our society is unique in its failure to teach
its citizens true values.
The model of Platonist thought developed here suggests a
different and more radical perspective for viewing this problem. That is, it
seems in the nature of social pressure that it should focus on simple
definitions of what is good and not good, defined in terms of externally visible
conduct. Only my closest long-term friends can know my internal invisible
virtues and vices. The general public can only judge me by my external conduct,
and can only pressure me to conform to relatively external standards connected
to visible conduct. Thus the problem of social pressure as a negative force is
not a problem unique to our society which might be resolved by widespread social
reform. There never can be a society in which social pressure comes close to
representing pure goodness deserving of unreserved commitment. Alienation from
conventional social norms should be regarded as the normal situation of all
individuals with a sense of true values.
The solution to this problem is individual, not social,
requiring that an individual define her moral identity in relation to
transcendent concepts of True Goodness separated from all reference to visible
conduct that could be the object of social pressure.
This need not be separated
from efforts at social reform. The aim of someone devoted to transcendent
Platonic Forms of Goodness should be to shape her own personality, and the
social life around her, in such a way as to participate in and approximate these
Forms to an ever higher degree.
Example #4:
The above problem, arising through connecting moral norms to
social pressure, is related also to problems that arise when moral norms are
connected to the course of events in history. Many modern thinkers have tried to
derive a sense of moral purpose from a study of history. Such thinkers try to
derive from the study of history a conception of some moral directedness, a
movement toward moral progress in human history. For such thinkers, recent
history (the unprecedented destructiveness of 20th century warfare, genocidal
campaigns in Germany, Armenia, and Rwanda, the collapse of the utopian dreams of
idealistic Communism, the dreariness of contemporary democratic politics, and so on) is
again a source of disillusionment.
From the present perspective, such disillusionment can again be seen as a result
of the failure to formulate concepts of moral norms completely separated from
concrete reality. Platonic thought suggests that it is in the nature of the
forces that actually prevail in the world and govern concrete events that they
will always be a mixed bag when it comes to true goodness. We might derive some
concepts of moral goodness from the study of history, and we should do our best
to steer our own communities in the direction of moral progress. But we should
never expect to be able to identify moral goodness itself with anything
concretely existing or concretely effective in the natural world or the world of
human history.
Example #5:
In the US, conservatives on the right often want histories
that glorify the US, presenting its founders as paragons of virtue, and its
policies as always just. This tends to foster an attitude of "my country,
right or wrong," i.e. an attitude of unconditional and unreserved loyalty to US
society or government as very concrete entities. There are obvious cases
where such unquestioning loyalty to a government or prevailing forces in a
society is not admirable, as in the case of Hitler's Germany.
Leftists, on the other hand, sometimes dedicate themselves to writing histories debunking and unmasking the pretensions of this kind of conservative history writing, uncovering and drawing to our attention all the faults of America's founders, and the injustices perpetrated by past Americans and their governments. This can lead to mere cynicism. If the so-called "justice" supposedly illustrated in America's founders and America's history is no justice at all, who can blame me for not being just? As long as I am no more unjust than most other people in my society, who can blame me?
Platonist otherworldliness would address this problem by urging individuals to take concepts of what is admirable, derived from the study of history or from their own upbringing or personal experience, and develop abstract and refined versions of these concepts, separated from anything concrete. The issue is not whether anyone else has a right to blame me for the way I act or who I am. The issue is becoming a great person leading a great life, as opposed to wasting my life, leading a mediocre life, or leading a life I myself would regard as not worthy of any respect or admiration.
Example #6.
A related difficulty arises through focusing on moral
dilemmas, and expecting that there should be a rational solution to these
dilemmas.
One student described the following situation that presented
her with a dilemma:
Suppose a friend in need asks me to give him a room to stay in for awhile. Kindness seems to require that I let him stay with me for awhile. On the other hand, giving a friend a room to stay in for awhile may cause the friend to gradually become lazy in finding another job. My kindness may cause my friend to develop an unhealthy dependence on me. My kindness may also result in the loss of my own privacy, if my friend has many other friends and relatives he has to communicate with regularly.
"Giving my friend a place to stay" is concrete visible behavior. This example
shows that concrete visible behavior is often a mixture of some things admirable
and some things not admirable. Following some rule couched in terms of concrete
visible behavior ("Always give friends a place to stay," or "Never give friends
a place to stay"), will as Plato says, "Sometimes amount to doing what is right,
sometimes doing what is not right." This will be true whenever we try to
precisely define moral goodness in terms of some rule for external behavior. (A
politician can always follow any rule you give her, for the purpose of gaining
people's confidence so she get elected and take advantage of them.)
The moral of the story for Plato is that we can get precise
definitions describing something only and always admirable, unmixed with
anything not admirable, but we can only get this by defining abstract concepts
of virtues, not concrete actions.
Plato has an interesting way of saying this. Speaking of the
concepts of right and not-right, he says:
Because both of these [right and not-right] taken together make
two
Each is only one [separate concept].
But because of mixing with actions, with bodies, and with each other, they
appear under a multitude of appearances.
That is, the perfect abstract Platonic Form of each virtue is single, so that the
perfect Platonic concept of Rightness contains in it nothing of its opposite,
"unrightness." As abstract concepts, these are two completely separate concepts.
But this is not true of concrete actions. Concrete behavior
(giving a friend a room to stay in) rarely represents something completely good
unmixed with anything not good. Following general rules for concrete behavior
("Always give friends a place to stay") will result in sometimes doing the right
thing and sometimes not doing the right thing. We should not expect any concrete
behavior, or any rule for concrete behavior, to precisely represent
only-goodness. A Platonist who knows unmixed virtue-Forms would see each
concrete action as a result of these Forms "mixing with [concrete] bodies and
actions and each other."
This does not deny that dilemmas exist and must be faced. On
the contrary, Platonism suggests that only in the "other world" of Forms can we
grasp clear and pure goodness unmixed with anything else. The concrete social
world we live in is full of "gray areas," where we should not expect there to be
purely good or purely bad concrete courses of action.
Example #7.
Sue is preparing a surprise birthday party at her apartment
for Sheila, who is a plumber. Sue misleads Sheila by telling her that her sink
is plugged up, in order to get her over to the apartment for the party.
Jane is a con-artist. She misleads her poor grandmother Mary into investing her
life-savings in a non-existent company, then skips town with the money.
Kimberly is a maid for a millionaire. In December her
children are starving, so she brings them some leftover food from the
millionaire's refrigerator, without permission.
Jane lied and Sue lied, neither told the truth, neither was
being honest. Jane stole and Kimberly stole.
But it is difficult to hold that the "white lie" Sue told to
her friend is equal in badness to the manipulative lie that Jane told, or that
Kimberly's stealing for her starving children is equal in badness to Jane's
stealing from her poor grandmother. Cases like this are often the source of
moral skepticism, doubts as to whether there exist clear norms of goodness and
badness, or whether we can have reliable knowledge of goodness and badness.
Doubts raised by examples like this are central to Socratic
questioning. They can be resolved, but only by abandoning the attempt to define
goodness in terms of simple and concrete rules like "tell the truth," or "don't
steal." People will always be confused about moral goodness so long as they try
to define goodness in these simple and concrete terms. Rules for concrete
visible behavior are always ambiguous with respect to true goodness. We can only
define moral goodness in a very clear, precise, unambiguous way by formulating
definitions that are abstract, separated from anything concretely visible, and
that refer to internal "virtues," parts of a person's personality that manifest
themselves in visible conduct, but are not in themselves directly visible from
the outside.
This principle addresses common problems arising from the fact that different societies impose different rules on their members as to what is allowable and not allowable in terms of external conduct, rules for example concerning what kind of killing is allowable and not allowable (killing animals but not people; prison officials killing a convicted murderer but not a private citizen killing a burglar stealing a lawn-sprinkler off your lawn; allowing killing enemies in war, but not allowing capital punishment, and so on). "Killing" is a visible external action. Platonism asserts that we should never expect any rule for visible conduct to invariably tell us the difference between right and wrong, admirable and not-admirable conduct.
One could begin resolving problems associated with concrete rules about killing, by shifting one's focus from external rules "Do not kill" to a related internal virtue, consisting of an admirable habitual attitude to take toward others, as for example, the fundamental attitude we might describe as "respect for human life." An individual can think that it is obviously OK to kill a murderer attacking an innocent person, and still think that in general "respect for human life" is an admirable attitude. The task for this person would be to try to formulate a more abstract, difficult to define, description of the internal virtue of "respect for life" that would not necessarily prevent one from killing a murderer on such an occasion.
*****
All these problems can be cast in terms of the question: What
should we think of as "the real world"?
The concrete visible world surrounding us is overwhelmingly
present, and overwhelmingly powerful in the impression it makes on our senses
and in its effects on our emotions. This is why we tend to think of it as "the
real world."
But only very inexperienced or very naive people can ignore the fact that, from
the point of view of moral values, this real world is grossly imperfect at best.
All the problems described above provide the basis for the feeling some people
have that "goodness does not exist" -- because to "exist" is to be part of the
"real world," understood in the above sense.
People keep trying to find some person, institution, or cause
that deserves their unreserved admiration, that they can commit themselves to
unconditionally. But this quest seems due to be continually frustrated,
particularly today in the face of media whose primary function is exposing the
faults of prominent individuals and powerful institutions. One does not want to
be "taken in" by false pretensions to goodness that are not really admirable.
If "alienation" describes a situation in which individuals
feel that the forces actually prevailing in their society do not deserve their
respect, then "alienation" is rampant in the US today in almost all sectors of
society, all social classes, among people of all political persuasions.
Platonism regards such alienation as normal to the human
condition, a fundamental feature of human social life, not fundamentally
remediable by social reform. Every person with refined moral sensitivities
should feel alienated. There never can be a society in which the forces that
prevail in society deserve our unreserved respect, and in which conforming to
"what society teaches us" will invariably mean leading a truly admirable life.
******
Plato sometimes expresses his solution to the problem of
alienation by advocating a change in what should be regarded as "most real."
Perfect Platonic Forms constitute a metaphorical "world" of their own. These
Forms are apt to feel very unreal in the sense that the perfect goodness they
represent wields so little power in "the real world." The Forms can only be
grasped by abstract and ethereal concepts removed from anything visible and
concrete, therefore from anything really powerful in social life.
From a Platonist point of view, the basic problem here is
this:
Concrete visible reality makes the strongest impression on
our minds and emotions, but it is what least deserves to be taken as a context
for self-definition and self-evaluation, determining the meaning of life and
what finally matters.
Consequently, for purposes of deciding these "ultimate"
questions, the ideal Platonist regards the Forms alone as constituting what is
"really real" (ontōs on), the really real
context in which to see herself and
evaluate her life. Concrete visible reality is not completely un-real, in the
sense that it completely lacks goodness. In one colorful phrase Plato describes
the visible world as "rolling around between being and not-being." In the
Parable of the Cave (excerpted below), he uses the metaphor of "shadows" cast on a cave wall by
"real things" crossing the cave-entrance. Platonic Forms alone have the full
"reality" of goodness. Good things in the world are good insofar as they
participate imperfectly in the goodness of the Forms, just as shadows
imperfectly represent the real objects that are casting the shadows.
This is the "otherworldliness" of the ideal Platonist. For
purposes of self-definition, self-evaluation, and deciding what finally matters
in life, she overcomes the natural human tendency to be swayed most by what
prevails in the concrete social world around her, and regards the world of
perfect
Platonic Forms as what is most really real.
The parable of the Cave presents Plato's worldview in the form of a fictional parable. This parable pictures the negative relation between concrete reality and the Forms. Human concrete-mindedness makes people tend to mistake concrete visible actions and results of goodness for the invisible reality of goodness itself. Plato compares this to an imagined situation in which prisoners are chained in a cave only able to face forward to a wall in front of them. People at a cave entrance up behind a wall in back of the prisoners, invisible to them, carry statues of men and animals back and forth, casting shadows on the wall in front of them. The cave-dwellers, who have never seen the real world, mistakenly think that these shadows [the concrete appearances of goodness] are the real world [are true Goodness itself]. "These men are like us" says Plato.
In Plato's parable, the individual who manages to climb out of the Cave represents the ideal Platonist philosopher. This is the very purpose of philosophy in Plato's mind: to raise our minds beyond the imperfect concrete visible appearances of goodness (cave shadows) to grasp the abstract essence of perfect Goodness itself (the '"real world" outside the cave).
Plato has the parable end rather drastically: the individual who got free tries to return to the cave to free his companions. But they are so attached to the world of the cave shadows, and so threatened by the idea that this is not the real world, that they want to kill him. Again it seems likely that this parable is Plato's way of representing the life and death of his ideal philosopher, Socrates.
Imagine men living in an underground cave-like dwelling place, which has a way up to the light along its whole width, but the entrance is a long way up. The men have been there from childhood, with their neck and legs in fetters, so that they remain in the same place and can only see ahead of them, as their bonds prevent them turning their heads. Light is provided by a fire burning some way behind and above them. Between the fire and the prisoners, some way behind them and on a higher ground, there is a path across the cave and along this a low wall has been built, like the screen at a puppet show in front of the performers who show their puppets above it.
See then also men carrying along that wall, visible over its top, all kinds of artifacts, statues of men, reproductions of other animals in stone or wood fashioned in all sorts of ways.
[These men] are like us.
Such men could not see anything of themselves and each other except the shadows
which the fire casts upon the wall of the cave in front of them? And is not the
same true of the objects carried along the wall?
If they could converse with one another, do you not think that they would
consider these shadows to be the real things? Such men would believe the truth
to be nothing else than the shadows of the artifacts.
Consider then what deliverance from their bonds and the curing of their ignorance it would be if something like this naturally happened to them:
Whenever one of them was freed, had to stand up suddenly, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light, doing all that would give him pain, the flash of the fire would make it impossible for him to see the objects of which he had earlier seen the shadows. What do you think he would say if he was told that what he saw before was foolishness, that he was now somewhat closer to reality and turned to things that existed more fully, that he saw more correctly? If one then pointed to each of the objects passing by, asked him what each was, and forced him to answer, do you not think he would be at a loss and believe that the things which he saw earlier were truer than the things now pointed out to him?
If one then compelled him to look at the fire itself, his eyes would hurt, he would turn round and flee toward those things which he could see, and think that they were in fact clearer than those now shown to him.
And if one were to drag him thence by force up the rough and steep path, and did not let him go before he was dragged into the sunlight, would he not be in physical pain and angry as he was dragged along?
When he came into the light, with the sunlight filling his eyes, he would not be able to see a single one of the things which are now said to be true.
I think he would need time to get adjusted before he could see things in the world above; at first he would see shadows most easily, then reflections of men and other things in water, then the things themselves. After this he would see objects in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night, the light of the stars and the moon more easily than the sun and the light of the sun during the day.
Then, at last, he would be able to see the sun, not images of it in water or in some alien place, but the sun itself in its own place, and be able to contemplate it.
After this he would reflect that it is the sun which provides the seasons and
the years, which governs everything in the visible world, and is also in some
way the basis of those other things which he used to see.
What then? As he reminds himself of his first dwelling place, of the wisdom there and of his fellow prisoners, would he not reckon himself happy for the change, and pity them?
And if the men below had praise and honors from each other, and prizes for the
man who saw most clearly the shadows that passed before them, and who could best
remember which usually came earlier and which later, and which came together and
thus could most ably prophesy the future, do you think our man would desire
those rewards and envy those who were honored and held power among the
prisoners, or would he feel, as Homer put it, that he certainly wished to be
"serf to another man without possessions upon the earth" and go through any
suffering, rather than share their opinions and live as they do?
If this man went down into the cave again and sat down in the same seat, would
his eyes not be filled with darkness, coming suddenly out of the sunlight?
And if he had to contend again with those who had remained prisoners in recognizing those shadows while his sight was affected and his eyes had not settled down - and the time for this adjustment would not be short - would he not be ridiculed? Would it not be said that he had returned from his upward journey with his eyesight spoiled, and that it was not worthwhile even to attempt to travel upward?
As for the man who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could somehow lay their hands on him and kill him, they would do so.
[This section interprets the Cave parable in the context of broader themes of Platonic thought. The "real world" outside the cave is called the "noēton topon" literally the "understood place," the place (topos) of what-is-understood (noēton). It is a "divine" realm. As Plato indicates earlier in the Republic, noēsis is the mental capacity for grasping abstract virtue-concepts, contrasted with aisthēsis, sense-perception, capable of grasping only the concrete world visible to the senses. Later in the passage this same capacity of noēsis is referred to by the synonym phronēsis, and also called a "divine" (theios) ability. ML]
This whole image... must be related to what we said before [about the perfect Forms of Goodness]. The realm of the visible should be compared to the prison dwelling, and the fire inside it to the power of the sun. If you interpret the upward journey and the contemplation of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the realm of Understanding, [ton noeton topon] you will grasp what I’m suggesting.
In the realm of pure Understanding, the Form of the Good is the last to be seen, and with difficulty. When seen it must be reckoned to be for all the basis [aitia] of all that is right [orthos] and beautiful, to have produced in the visible world both light and the fount of light, while in the realm of Understanding it is itself mistress of truth and understanding [nous], and he who is to act intelligently in public or in private must see it.
Do not be surprised that those who have reached this point are unwilling to
occupy themselves with human affairs, and that their souls are always pressing
upward to spend their time there, for this is natural if things are as our
parable indicates.
Is it at all surprising that anyone coming to the evils of human life from the
contemplation of the divine behaves awkwardly and appears very ridiculous while
his eyes are still dazzled and before he is sufficiently adjusted to the
darkness around him, if he is compelled to contend in court or some other place
about the shadows of justice or the objects of which they are shadows, and to
carry through the contest about these in the way these things are understood by
those who have never seen Justice itself?
Anyone with intelligence would remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes, coming from light into darkness as well as from darkness into light. Realizing that the same applies to the soul, whenever he sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he will not laugh mindlessly but will consider whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed because unadjusted, or has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is filled with a brighter dazzlement. The former he would declare happy in its life and experience, the latter he would pity, and if he should wish to laugh at it, his laughter would be less ridiculous than if he laughed at a soul that has come from the light above.
If these things are true, [then] education is not what some declare it to be; they say that knowledge is not present in the soul, and that they put it in, like putting sight into blind eyes
Our present argument shows that the capacity to learn and the organ with which to do so are present in every person's soul. It is as if it were not possible to turn the eye from darkness to light without turning the whole body; so one must turn one's whole soul from the world of becoming [gignomenon] until it can endure to contemplate Being and what is most bright in Being [to on kai tou ontos tou phanotaton], which we say is the Good.
Education then is the art of doing this very thing, this turning around, the knowledge of how the soul can most easily and most effectively be turned around; it is not the art of putting the capacity of sight into the soul; the soul possesses that already but it is not turned the right way or looking where it should. This is what education has to deal with.
The virtue of Understanding [phronēsis] belongs above all to something more
divine [theios], which never loses its capacity but, according to which way it
is turned, becomes useful and beneficial or useless and harmful.
Have you never noticed in men who are said to be wicked but clever, how sharply
their little soul looks into things to which it turns its attention? Its
capacity for sight is not inferior, but it is compelled to serve evil ends, so
that the more sharply it looks the more evils it works.
*******
These Appendices are not essential. They are mainly relevant to those students familiar with modern philosophy and Plato-interpretations popular among modern philosophers. They explain how and why the present Plato-interpretation differs from these.
Normally, individuals define their identity relationally, in relation to
relatively tangible aspects of the society around them. This means that they
take certain tangible signs of success (wealth or prestige) as norms for
self-evaluation, a basis for self-confidence and self-esteem. Their self-esteem
might also be based on whether they live up to certain rules for behavior that
prevail in their society. Religious organizations often serve for their members
as another kind of context for defining their identity and serving as a basis
for self-esteem. Probably for the majority of churchgoers, this context is still
relatively tangible and concrete, consisting for the most part of externally
observable requirements for membership (following certain behavioral rules,
attending church services, conformity to church officials, etc.)
The otherworldly orientation of the ideal Platonist means
that she does not define her identity in relation to any concrete signs of
success or any norms for externally visible behavior prevailing in a human
society. She defines herself instead in relation to Platonic virtue-Forms, which
she takes as models for internal character-formation, so that her self-esteem
depends only on how well she is able to approximate or "participate in" the
particular Forms she formulates for this purpose. Thus she regards herself as a
bit of a foreigner in this world, since she regards the world of the Forms as
the true home of her soul.
This is the basis for Platonist "spirituality," i.e. thinking of ones' true self
as one's spiritual soul, which Plato describes as "kin to the Forms." The "soul"
is that part of the person able to think in abstractions and so able to grasp
abstract Platonic Forms. It is also what we would call a person's "character" or
"personality," so that the "health of the soul" consists in its virtues (the
degree to which it is able to participate in or approximate Platonic
virtue-Forms).
The question immediately arises, "Does the spiritual soul
really exist?" a question similar to "Do the Forms exist?" To address this
question, I want to introduce the idea of a "worldview," popularized in academic
circles by the work of the German philosopher/historian Wilhelm Dilthey
(1883-1911). Dilthey advocated treating the thought and beliefs prevalent in
each society as a "worldview," each being a different way of viewing the world
(Welt-anschauung in German).
Everyone has a worldview, and no worldview can be rationally shown to be the
single true way of viewing the world. A worldview is a particular way of viewing
the world, from a particular perspective, not an attempt to accurately describe
reality-as-it-is.
For purposes of critical reconstruction, we should treat
Platonism as a worldview, centered on the Forms and the spiritual soul which
defines itself in relation to otherworldly Platonic Forms. What makes Platonism
a good worldview is not that every element in it can be rationally shown
to objectively "exist." Nor should we claim that Platonism is the only good
worldview (no worldview can claim this).
What the Platonist worldview has to recommend it is the way
it addresses the particular problems described above. That is, Socratic
reasoning provides a rational basis showing why it is that people are mistaken
whenever they define their identities in relation to anything concretely
visible. We can rationally know that worldviews centered on concrete visible
realities are always mistaken, in the sense that it is a moral mistake to take
anything concretely visible as a norm for self-evaluation and for defining one's
identity. The Platonic worldview is a morally better worldview because it
remedies this mistake. Conceiving of one's true self as a spiritual soul kin to
the Forms is a good way of defining one's identity because it is morally better
than basing one's self-image and self-esteem on more concrete and tangible norms
and signs of success in the world.
There are potentially thousands of virtue-Forms more perfect in their
goodness than the imperfect virtue-concepts people usually use for
self-evaluation and to model their characters on. So there is no need for
everyone to agree on their choice of which perfect virtue-concepts to
adopt for these purposes.
******
Treating Plato's ideas about the spiritual soul and the Forms
as a "worldview," is an alternative to treating these ideas as elements in what philosophers often call "Plato's Metaphysics," - - if
"Metaphysics" is understood in the context of a map-making conception of
philosophy.
That is, a worldview is different from an objective
reality-map. Suppose I am trying to create an accurate map of the islands in
Boston Harbor. This means I must include every island that is there, and no
islands that are not there. If George's Island belongs on anyone's map of Boston
Harbor, it belongs on everyone's map. If two maps disagree, only one map can be
correct.
Constructing a good objective reality-map is the main goal of the modern
physical sciences, and for a great deal of modern philosophy influenced by the
"scientific" ideal. What makes a map a good map is that it accurately represents
each element of reality as it is. Modern reality-maps try to represent
reality-as-it-is-in-itself, independent of the meaning that it has for human
beings.
"Worldview" on the contrary refers to the way a specific
individual or group views the world as a meaning-context, the world as filled
with human meanings, determining a person's view of the meaning of life, what it
means to lead a good life or successful life. (The concept of Worldview is
taken from the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, explained
further below.)
Treating Platonism as a worldview relieves this critical
reconstruction from having to show rationally that Platonic Forms and the
spiritual soul "exist," if to say that something "exists" is to say that it belongs
on everyone's reality-map.
Further, for many people, something only really "exists" if
it is a thing-like entity, like a rock, or a house, or a bodily-existing person.
But something can be an important and valuable part of a person's worldview
without "existing" in this sense. For example, idealized images of various
heroes and "role-models" play an important part in some people's worldview,
determining their personal aspirations and shaping their moral identities. What
makes an idealized hero-image (such as Mother Theresa) a good basis for defining
one's moral identity depends on the moral soundness and inspiring character of
this image itself, not on whether the hero-image accurately represents the
concrete person as she actually existed. An idealized image of someone might
provide someone a better model for someone to try to imitate, than the actual
person herself.
A Platonic Form is like an idealized and inspiring picture of a hero or role
model that a person might try to imitate, except that it is abstract. The habit
of thinking that something only deserves to be taken seriously if it "exists" in
the same way that rocks and houses and bodily existing persons exist -- this is
itself the kind of concrete-mindedness that Platonism shows is a moral mistake,
and tries to overcome.
********
"Metaphysics" is sometimes understood to be concerned, not
with objectively existing entities, but with so-called "necessary truths,"
truths like "2+2=4" that are so self-evident that no sensible person could doubt
them. Understood in this way, metaphysics still seems part of a philosophical
map-making exercise, in that to claim that something is a "metaphysical truth"
is to claim that it deserves a place on absolutely everyone's reality-map. There
can only be one true Metaphysics, consisting of Eternal and Absolute truths
transcending all cultural diversity and historical change.
But what kind of reasoning is capable of supporting such extremely ambitious
claims about transcultural Absolute truths? No one today thinks that Plato
provides any reasoning method capable of doing this, and influential recent
philosophers have raised serious doubts whether there is any rational method for
doing this.
The present critical reconstruction of Platonist thought
addresses this problem by treating Platonism as a worldview rather than a
metaphysics. The concept of "worldview" was popularized among scholars chiefly by the work of the
German philosopher-historian Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911).[1]
Dilthey's espousal of the "worldview" concept was largely the
result of his skepticism about Metaphysics. By his time in the late 1800's so many
philosophers had proposed many different metaphysical systems, each claiming that his system
represented the Absolute Truth. But these metaphysical systems differed
greatly from each other, and no one was able to come up with a convincing rational
method of establishing that his particular metaphysics was the one true
metaphysics.
Dilthey's concept of worldview has been attacked on the grounds that it inevitably leads to skeptical "relativism," assuming that if there are no Absolute moral truths transcending all cultural particularity, this means that all beliefs about right and wrong are ultimately based only on arbitrary decisions by individuals or societies to label something "right" or "wrong," which of course renders these labels meaningless because then anything can become right or wrong simply by being so labeled. (This is a problem that seems to have worried Dilthey himself, though his solution seems unclear.)
Critical-pluralist Platonism shows that such skeptical and "nihilist" relativism is not the only alternative to belief in transcultural Absolutes. Reason cannot prove that there is only a single valid worldview based on transcultural Absolute Truths -- hence this is a pluralist theory of worldviews. But there is a third alternative. The model of Socratic/Platonic reasoning developed here leads to a critical pluralism, showing that some possible worldviews - - indeed probably the concretely-conceived worldviews of most people - - are based on moral mistakes. If the function of a worldview is to serve as a basis for self-evaluation and self-esteem, and for defining one's identity, then not every worldview is a good worldview, and Socratic reasoning provides a method of rationally differentiating well-founded worldviews from worldviews lacking the necessary moral foundation. A worldview is not a good worldview just because someone or some society arbitrarily declares it to be so.
There are potentially thousands of virtue-Forms more perfect in their
goodness than the imperfect virtue-concepts people usually use for
self-evaluation and to model their characters on. So there is no need for
everyone to agree on their choice of which perfect virtue-concepts to
adopt for these purposes.
*****
The present approach to critical reconstruction of
Platonism resembles a "pragmatist" theory of reasoning and truth, originating with the American philosophers William James, C. S. Pierce, and John
Dewey, and developed more recently by others such as Richard Rorty.
Pragmatism is opposed to metaphysics, and to any conception
of philosophy as a mapping-exercise -- "the correspondence theory of truth," as pragmatists describe what they are
opposed to. Pragmatists assert that ideas developed by
philosophers should not be evaluated on the basis of whether they give us an
accurate account of objective reality-as-it-is (whether the ideas accurately and
exactly "correspond" to reality objectively out there). Ideas are good ideas if
they function well, if they serve well some particular purpose in concrete human
life. There are many different purposes that ideas might serve in human life, so
there are many different criteria for deciding whether a given idea is a good
idea or not.
Similarly, the present critical reconstruction of Platonist thought does not ask
whether Plato's Form theory accurately and exactly corresponds to and represents
reality objectively existing out there. This would require proving that
the Forms "exist" in something like the sense that the moon and the planet Mars
exist. It focuses instead on the function of
the Forms in the life of the ideal Platonist, i.e. to serve as ideal models for
self-administered character-formation.
In practice however, the thought of pragmatist philosophers seems very
oriented to external behavior and external results. Ideas are good when they
function to produce good behavior and good results. This differs greatly from
the Platonism reconstructed here, because:
(1) This tends to regard Platonic Forms not as
representations of goodness itself, but only as means to produce some other good
results,
(2) This tends to assume that ideas about what constitutes
"good behavior" and "good results" do not themselves need critical examination.
(3) This places the entire focus on externally visible
conduct and the results of such conduct.
Platonism insists, on the contrary, in this Critical
Reconstruction:
(1) Modeling oneself on a Platonic Form is an end in itself,
not a means to something else. There is no other reason to be good. The only
motive for being good that actually makes a person morally good is a desire to
be morally good.
(2) What goodness consists in is not easily known, but needs
a great deal of critical examination.
(3) What makes a person good is "virtue," something internal
to that person. Virtues manifest themselves in good behavior, but what makes a
person admirable consists in the internal virtue itself, not directly visible
from the outside. If a politician gives a large donation to a children's fund,
only for the purpose of appearing generous so as to be elected, one could say
that some "good" is done, but the goodness does not reside in the politician.
The actual external behavior of giving in this way is not a good criterion for
self-evaluation. A person can give externally and not have the virtue of
generosity (as in the case of the cynical politician), and a person can have the
virtue of generosity and not be able to give (for lack of funds).
Note also that the present approach "critically reconstructing" Plato's Form theory, is completely different from the interpretation of Plato common among American Pragmatist philosophers such as Dewey and Rorty. That is, they assume that the Enlightenment tradition is correct in interpreting Plato's Form theory as a kind of "Metaphysics" -- indeed in regarding Plato as the paradigm case of a Metaphysician. Rather than formulating a non-metaphysical interpretation of Plato as I am doing here, they take Plato as one of the chief targets of their attack on Metaphysics generally.
*****
I want to avoid claiming that Platonism is universally "necessary" for
everyone -- for example that this is an obligation we have a right to impose on
everyone, or even that this the only way a person can strive for or achieve
moral excellence. How would anyone know this? Making the validity of Platonism
depend on extravagant claims like this leaves unnecessarily vulnerable to
objections that would not arise if we make the claims more modest.
We should speak rather of those specific kinds of problems
which Platonist otherworldliness tries to address. These cannot be rationally
shown to be the only way of conceiving life's problems. But they are
problems that commonly arise. And the forte of Platonism is that it
offers rational solutions to these problems -- an important plus today when
rational thinking has become so much a part of so many people's lives, much more
so than in past ages.
There are potentially thousands of virtue-Forms that are more perfect in their goodness than the imperfect virtue-concepts people usually use for self-evaluation and to model their characters on. So there is no need for everyone to agree on their choice of which perfect virtue-concepts to adopt for these purposes.
**********
[1] Some interesting discussions can be found on the web by typing in Google "worldview Dilthey". Note that Dilthey himself was still anxious to avoid the "relativist" implications of his concept by trying to find some kind of transcultural Absolute truths, and so did not want to accept the legitimacy of the fundamental cultural diversity that seems the more logical conclusion of the concept of "worldview." I think his worry about transcultural Absolutes is unnecessary. "Critical pluralism" is an adequate response to the problem of relativism.