The World Beyond

Is Plato’s claim to have knowledge of a world beyond sense experience doomed to failure?

Plato claimed to know the world of the forms – a world of ideals, an eternal world that contains the prototypes of reality. This he discovered through his academic endeavours and in particular through the rational discipline of Mathematics. He assumed this to be a world whose underlying premise was the Form of the good. This question assumes that there is a purpose towards which this knowledge was directed, which is likely to have been understood by Plato in terms of the divine craftsman or Demiurge as he understood him. So is Plato’s theory doomed to fail?

First of all we can see there are a number of strengths to Plato’s theory – perhaps this is why it has stood the test of time. The theory of the forms enables us to grasp the difference between the transcendent and the immanent, the eternal and the temporal. It assumes that there is a knowledge that is true regardless of the different types of sense experience that we may encounter down the years. It may therefore lead to the type of education that can prepare the philosopher for the challenges of politics, as indeed it has been seen to so do. Supporting this is the underlying moral purpose of the simile of the cave that Plato used to describe Athenian society. The illusion of ignorance combined with poor moral concept do have some hope of being cured through a knowledge of reality – the world beyond. This is the message of Plato’s cave.

Secondly, from a more educational rather than societal point of view – Plato’s theory can help us distinguish between opinion and knowledge. Plato believed there to be a form of goodness, justice and beauty. This was predicated on the unqualified concept of the forms rather than being a changing aspect of the experience of particulars, which are all qualified by personal subjectivity and opinion. A true knowledge can only be gained by knowing the Good, and this can be found in the world of eternity beyond. This enables us via comparison to properly know our experiences of goodness and justice.

On the other hand there are some more controversial aspects of Plato’s theory such as the reference to necessary knowledge being via the forms. For example science can quickly understand particulars through observation and sense experience without necessarily having to go through the process of contemplating the forms. For example it would not make sense for a scientist to have to go via mathematics to examine the human cell. A sufficiently powerful microscope would suffice. This illustrates the problem of Plato’s divisional theory. Knowledge may well be projected towards a realm of ideals that lie in the future. Analogies are used to describe this world. But in fact because of the vast spatial and time differences involved they may keep us from developing discoveries today. This is not to say that the forms don’t exist in some way, but rather that they may be more dynamically interactive with the world of sense experience.

Another issue that began to be identified was one of person. Although Plato does have a concept of personal reality in connection to the Forms, (the Demiurge or the divine craftsman we have mentioned) there is little development of this notion in his thought in the Republic, which relates more to abstract knowledge that has no definite human nature. How then can it be a knowledge that succeeds if it does not relate to human nature in someway? In as much as Plato’s thought is pure abstract knowledge that relates to an undefined transcendence it is doomed to failure. Augustine began to address this point in developing a Christian theology and western psychology. Because of the way in which Christ the second person of the Trinity remained both transcendent as God and yet shared our experience and time as a man with a human nature, then knowledge of a world beyond can have a successful outworking today. To a modern world of greater possibility Plato’s theory might also be understood to be intrinsically unjust since it is asks us to base society on a world that is intelligible but not sensible. How can an intelligible realm succeed in creating a just society if the concepts it believes itself to be founded upon are not rendered sensible to people in some way? This must surely be one of the most serious political objections to Plato’s theory of the forms.

In conclusion, Plato’s theory of the forms has had undoubted success in helping to create an intellectual climate for the modern world. Since Plato believed that particulars can at least in principle participate in the Form of the Good he provides hope for some kind of successful future. However, because of the divisional and hierarchical character of the theory it lacks a clear personal apprehension of human nature derived from a world beyond. As in the past so in the modern day a Christian theology is required to enable Plato’s theory to make sense today.