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| Part of a series on Platonism |
| Platonic idealism |
| Platonic realism |
| Middle Platonism |
| Neoplatonism |
| Articles on Neoplatonism |
| Socratic dialogue |
| Socratic method |
| Platonic doctrine of recollection |
| Platonic epistemology |
| Theory of forms |
| Form of the Good |
| Participants in Dialogues |
| Socrates |
| Adeimantus |
| Alcibiades |
| Aristophanes |
| Callicles |
| Glaucon |
| Gorgias |
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| Parmenides |
| Theaetetus |
| Thrasymachus |
| Timaeus of Locri |
| Notable Platonists |
| Plotinus |
| Porphyry |
| Iamblichus |
| Proclus |
| Discussions of Plato's works |
| Dialogues of Plato |
| Chariot allegory |
| Allegory of the cave |
| Metaphor of the sun |
| Analogy of the divided line |
| Philosopher king |
| Plato's five regimes |
| Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? |
| The Myth of Er |
| Third Man Argument |
| Demiurge |
Plato describes "The Form of the Good" 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 things in the cosmos, though the Good itself surpasses being.1 It is the ideal or perfect nature of goodness, and so 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 said that the highest form of knowledge is the Form (or Idea) of the Good, from which things that are just gain their usefulness and value. Humans have a duty to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully without philosophical reasoning. According to Plato, true science was conversant, not about those material forms and imperfect intelligences which we meet within our daily interactions with all mankind, however it investigated the nature of those purer and more perfect patterns which were the models after which all created beings were formed. Plato supposes these perfect types to have existed from all eternity and calls them the Forms or Ideas. As these Forms can not be perceived by human senses, whatever knowledge we derive from that source is unsatisfactory and uncertain. He maintains that degree of skepticism which denies all permanent authority to the evidence of sense. Having discovered or created the realm of Forms, he surveyed it throughout. Plato defined its most excellent forms from goodness as the "Hierarchy of Forms". This suggests that from goodness comes such things as justice, truth, equality and beauty, among many others. Plato then determines what was the supreme and dominant principle of the whole. It is the Form of the Good.
References
American International Encyclopedia, A Comprehensive Reference Work, J.J. Little & Ives Company, Great Britain 1925
- ^ "Therefore, you should also say that not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power". Republic 509b, translation G.M.A. Grube.
See also
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