Plato's Theory of Forms...

[Scott Mayers]

I've read all of Plato's works a long time ago and the most surprising thing to me at the time on learning of these ancient philosophies how much of what we think and discuss today was as already discovered and rediscovered again and again. What bothers me is how each new generation of philosophy tends to deny the past often with an apparent improvement that only actually determines the same intentional position but uses new language the philosophy of the day understands. It seems from reading them that a more modern interpretation completely misinterprets the old often in some absurd way.

I often read a philosopher in the context of their present time of writing and this is what seems to be what distinguishes the problem. Each new interpretation of a past one tends to forget the original actual meanings of words by imposing their present use in reading the past ones. I find it odd, for instance, how in our modern context, what we discuss today as in here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/phys ... ndamental/ where it proposed all of reality as information, is merely a renewal of Platonic idealism rediscovered without those discussing it recognizing it as the same thing. What is confusing to me is how those who might seem to agree to this modern equivalent interpretation as being in distinct contrast to traditional Platonic interpretation (as I've interpreted it).

Now perhaps my own interpretation of the equivalence of many philosophical issues could be in error. This is the issue I want to raise here.

So to begin, I interpret Plato's Forms as an early means to make sense of the trouble of understanding logical universals [similar to the problems later questioning set theory], the concepts that evolved into logic as "formal definitions", and to what today's interpretation by many that all we are is Information, where totality acts as a kind of 'computer' that uses data and structures to manifest reality. "Manifest" here refers either to information imposing actual reality OR to how some interpret it, that nothing actually exists but we 'manifest' an type of illusion to our reality. To me, I think that both interpretations are identical as it doesn't matter whether you define our experience real or not because we all actually understand that regardless, we still understand that something occurs. For instance, one could be hallucinating some event. But while we might question whether they are experiencing something that others may or may not be able to agree it "true", should the person actually be experiencing some event, even if 'untrue' with regards to others, the event even made up by potential brain activity gone wrong, it still represents something 'true'.

A movie we might watch for instance, represents a 'real' entity that consists of information. But though we recognize this as lacking substantial meaning outside of entertainment, we don't question that real people were required to create these things. But why? Without answering this, I'll leave this open to the floor to encourage interaction here (rather than merely blogging my own views, that is )

[raw_thought]

The third man argument destroyed Plato's theory of forms. More interestingly is when you replace "forms" with "universals ". Universals are then shown to not exist!
And then what becomes of "concepts"?

[Hobbes' Choice]

The third man argument destroyed Plato's theory of forms. ?

How is that?

[raw_thought]

The third man argument was designed to be a refutation of Plato’s theory of forms.
This site explains it,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_man_argument

[Hobbes' Choice]

The third man argument was designed to be a refutation of Plato’s theory of forms.
This site explains it,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_man_argument

In other words you don't know.

[raw_thought]

????
It is very easy to understand.
The third man argument creates an infinite regress.
Good grief, that has got to be one of the rudest and least informed posts I have ever read.
To be honest I did not feel like typing paragraphs explaining philosophy 101! But i wanted to be polite.

[raw_thought]

So somehow I didn't know anything about the third man argument. But somehow knew that it can be used to refute Plato's theory of forms.
That makes no sense.

[Wyman]

The third man argument destroyed Plato's theory of forms. More interestingly is when you replace "forms" with "universals ". Universals are then shown to not exist!
And then what becomes of "concepts"?

The argument presents grave problems for the theory, but I don't know that it 'destroyed' it. It presents the problem of how to describe the
the relationship between universals and particulars and the problem of self-reference. Russell's paradox is based on the same problems. But set theory did not get 'destroyed,' but instead modified.

[Hobbes' Choice]

????
It is very easy to understand.
The third man argument creates an infinite regress.
Good grief, that has got to be one of the rudest and least informed posts I have ever read.
To be honest I did not feel like typing paragraphs explaining philosophy 101! But i wanted to be polite.

It's not rude. Why would you think that an infinite regress is incommensurable with reality? The thought that an infinite regress somehow undermines another theory is ultimately just an opinion.
The form of a circle requires an understanding of Pi. Because Pi is never resolved does that mean a circle is meaningless?

[Scott Mayers]

????
It is very easy to understand.
The third man argument creates an infinite regress.
Good grief, that has got to be one of the rudest and least informed posts I have ever read.
To be honest I did not feel like typing paragraphs explaining philosophy 101! But i wanted to be polite.

It's not rude. Why would you think that an infinite regress is incommensurable with reality? The thought that an infinite regress somehow undermines another theory is ultimately just an opinion.
The form of a circle requires an understanding of Pi. Because Pi is never resolved does that mean a circle is meaningless?

Yes, I agree with this. This is my contention with the same problem argued with Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, another more formal version of the "Third Man" argument. That a set can be described as a set that contains all sets may be unable to define (as in make finite or closed), but as Calculus operates in the same way using limits, the same can also be presumed about things that are infinite. In this way, infinite concepts can be closed.

[Obvious Leo]

Scott. Can I take it that you are in the "mathematics was discovered" camp rather than with the "mathematics was invented" Kantians like me?

[Obvious Leo]

The form of a circle requires an understanding of Pi. Because Pi is never resolved does that mean a circle is meaningless?

Surely the concept of pi is contained within the definition of the circle. The circle is a mathematical object which can be defined as a line which is equidistant from a point in a 2D space. Without such a definition pi has no meaning.

[Scott Mayers]

Scott. Can I take it that you are in the "mathematics was discovered" camp rather than with the "mathematics was invented" Kantians like me?

Yes. Our creative portion regards the particular methods and symbolism we use but the underlying logic is and can be inferred necessarily through nature. That is, even logic/math is as much 'empirically' observed and it is even more powerfully certain than any other kind of observation we use within science.

While some appear to use it to validate certain things in our contingent reality to which such conclusions may not follow as being 'sound', this is only due to they way we can use hypothetical premises in a logical form, even where only imaginary. It doesn't dismiss how we can determine certain logical generalized truths about things like number, to be used as initial premises.

Some, for instance, attempt to use, "2 + 2 = 4", as a sample to try to emphasize that we simply define numbers based on a begged definition. But this is confusing only the particular symbols we use over the actual meaning behind it (the 'mistaking maps of the territory' thing that you even recognize is often made.) The semantic concept doesn't need a 'mind' to perceive it to be real. A more clearer way to describe the difference is by appropriately redefining the sample above for a definition of (2 + 2) or '4', as "2x + 2x = 4x", instead. Algebra, is thus the logic of the 'form' of numbers we infer where 'x' can stand for anything.

2(apples) + 2(apples) = 4(apples)
2(events) + 2(events) = 4(events)
⋮
∴ 2x + 2x = 4x

[Obvious Leo]

I regard logical positivism as a chilling doctrine because it denies the role of human reason in the conduct of human affairs. It is responsible for the fact that for over a century physics has been saddled with models which define a universe which make no sense and I regard thus as a significant impediment to the advance of human knowledge for which Plato should be held to account.

[Scott Mayers]

The form of a circle requires an understanding of Pi. Because Pi is never resolved does that mean a circle is meaningless?

Surely the concept of pi is contained within the definition of the circle. The circle is a mathematical object which can be defined as a line which is equidistant from a point in a 2D space. Without such a definition pi has no meaning.

Pi is defined as the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. But the actual VALUE of it is an irrational number and uses mathematical calculus to find an 'approximation' to any degree of precision needed. The point about such irrational numbers is that while we can NEVER actually spell out the exact number using our convention of decimal numbers, we can still determine it to as much precision as needed. The digits to the right of the decimal of pi is infinite in number. But it doesn't mean that since we cannot literally ever "completely" enumerate for this in decimal, that it isn't real.