Explain what Plato meant by the Form of the Good Essay

Plato was an Ancient Greek philosopher whose writings and theories have greatly influenced the development of Western philosophy. Perhaps his most famous possibility is that of the Forms hand well-nigh ideas or concepts of what a THING is. It was Platos belief that as soundly as this terra firma, the material world or the world of Appearances, as he c whollyed it thither exists another dimension, where the true Forms of everything in the material world lodge in Reality, or the realm of the Forms. A Form, by Platos reckoning, is eternal, perfect and unchanging, contrasted the images or shadows of Forms that we implement in the world of Appearances.In the material world, energy is perfect, everything changes and withaltuall(a)y everything dies. However, Plato was a dualist, so he believed that as well as our mortal body we also have an immortal soul which existed in the beginning and will exist after our time in this world of appearances. The positioning where our souls re sided before we were born and will return to when we die is the realm of the Forms. This, harmonize to Plato explains why we have an innate (though dim) recollection of what Forms are, and why we can do it things like beauty and justice without being taught.Plato believed that the true philosopher was the one who knew well-nigh the Forms and was trying to appreciate and understand the Form of the dear(p). The Form of the Good is the highest in Platos hierarchy of Forms, the highest reality. It is the source and the unity of all the other Forms, and illuminates them so that if one has understanding of the Form of the Good, they have understanding of all the Forms. In Platos analogy of the Cave, the Good is represented by the Sun, which is the source of all the objects that the escaped prisoner finds above understanding. The Sun makes all the things above ground visible, just like the Form of the Good makes all the other Forms understandable.The doctrine of analogy of the Sun by Pl ato tells us more about the Form of the Good. Plato believed that potbelly was the most noble of the five senses, because the other four require nevertheless two things, a sensor and a sensed (eg. an ear and a sound, a nose and a smell). Sight, still, requires three an eye, a thing to be seen and the sun to provide light and make it possible for the eye to see it. Plato likens sight to causality reason requires somebody to understand/to be enlightened, a thing to understand, and the Good to make it possible to understand it. The Form of the Good cannot ever be wholly present in the world of Appearances however it can, like the other Forms, be reflected in a variety of ways.This, Plato argues, is the reason why we can call so many different things favourable because they all correspond to the true reality of goodness at to the lowest degree in part. A cake can be called good if it satisfies someones hunger and pleases their taste buds a chair can be called good if it is comfo rtable and doesnt break when you sit on it a somebody can be called good if they are kind to others, or if they volunteer in developing countries.But the Form of Good is all of these things, and more than all of these things, says Plato, and because all the Forms come from the Form of Good, every time Truth or Beauty or Justice is reflected in the world of Appearances, Good is being reflected too. Some people think that Platos theory of the Form of the Good doesnt work, because, they argue, around the world and through the ages there are different concepts and understandings of what it means to be good or what a good thing is, so there cannot possibly be a perfect singular Good to which all these different actions and people confine with. These people are known as moral relativists and they do not believe there is absolute morality, rather one must reconcile what is right and wrong from the particular situation they are in.For example, in some gardenings, it is never a good thing to take a life, even if that person has done terrible things including taking lives themselves. However, in other cultures, if the person has done terrible things society will agree that they should be kill for the good of the rest of society and to protect them from future crimes that the person could set in the future. Plato was a moral absolutist, someone who does believe in a total, unchanging good. Moral absolutists would argue that just because not every culture recognizes the true goodness for what it is, that doesnt make it any less good.