On Platonic Ideals

Throughout my life, I've been interested in philosophy. I took several philosophy classes in college, continuing to take them after I fulfilled my humanities requirements because I enjoyed the topic. It helped that my professor was entertaining and engaging as well. The philosophy section of my bookshelf is surpassed only by general fiction, which is basically a catchall category for me. It comes neck and neck with my Steinbeck collection, Steinbeck being in heavy contention for my favorite author. I had a very brief discussion with a friend recently about the book The Giver. I've never read or heard it directly from the author, but there is no doubt that the society in The Giver is based on Plato's Republic.

But it doesn't end there. Reflections of The Republic are pervasive in popular culture. The society in Huxley's Brave New World is reminiscent of The Republic. Krypton, Superman's home planet, is based on The Republic, so much so that Henry Cavil can be seen holding a copy of The Republic in the movie Man of Steel, an Easter Egg for those with a keen eye. The Matrix and Flowers for Algernon draw parallels to the Allegory of the Cave, which Plato introduces in The Republic. The Republic is a scaffolding for many tales, and it's worth reading as it gives extra richness and context to some of our already favorite stories. Ironically, we use Plato's description of the ideal society as the backdrop for our dystopian stories.

Thus far, I have used "The Republic" to refer to both the book and the republic society described in the book. Moving forward, "The Republic" will refer specifically to the book. While The Republic is pervasive in our culture, many of us have likely not read the book and may be unfamiliar with some of the concepts presented in it. I want to explore the concept of Platonic ideals developed in the book as I find it to be a helpful tool in explaining a condition I discovered I have. Some of you likely have this condition, too. But more on that later; for now, let's dive into the Allegory of the Cave, the most known excerpt from The Republic.

Here's a quick synopsis for those unfamiliar with the Allegory of the Cave. A group of prisoners have been chained inside a dark cave since birth, facing a wall. Behind them, a fire burns, casting shadows of objects onto the wall. Because the prisoners have never seen the outside world, the shadows constitute reality. A prisoner is eventually freed and removed from the cave, where he discovers that the shadows were only poor representations of the real world. The allegory goes on, but we can leave it here.

The "real world" in the Allegory of the Cave represents Platonic Ideals or Forms. The ideal is the true nature of a thing, a blueprint, a perfect representation. While it may be helpful to think of it as residing in our minds, Plato argues that the ideal is a concept that resides beyond space and time with our minds akin to antennas that can pick up the signals. We all have access to these ideals, but when we try to bring them into being, we corrupt them. In the allegory, we can be both the prisoner and the fire. Like the fire, we have access to the true ideal of an object, but our attempts to recreate it only produce corrupted shadows. And, like the prisoners, we are forced to interact with the shadows as proxies for the real thing.

Plato uses ideals to discuss abstract topics like beauty and justice that are worth diving into. But to really get a grasp on what ideals are, let's start by looking at a more common, concrete example, a chair. Think of a chair. What makes it a chair? If I asked you to describe a chair, it might go something like this. A chair is a rigid object with four legs and a platform to sit on. But that description also works for a bench or a stool, so let's refine it. A chair is a rigid object with four legs, a platform for one person to sit on, and a back. What about arms? A chair can have arms, but it doesn't need to. And what about legs? A chair usually has four legs, but an office chair has one leg and five roller feet. We can imagine a six-legged chair easily. A beanbag chair has no legs and isn't rigid, either. So, a chair is an object which may or may not be rigid; that typically has four legs, but sometimes has more and sometimes has less; with a platform that one person can sit on; that may or may not have arms. We could go on forever, right?

If it's so hard to describe an object as simple as a chair, how do we know what a chair is? We have a concept in our minds of what a chair is; call it the Platonic ideal. When we see an object, we compare it to that ideal and decide whether it fits. Some objects, like the classic wooden dining room chair, are very close to the ideal, and we can agree on them easily. This is a chair. Some objects, like a beanbag chair, are farther from the ideal but still usually agreed upon. This is a weird chair, but still a chair. Some objects might have divisive opinions or be grounds for debate. Is a car seat a chair? And some objects are clearly out. A house is not a chair. Speaking of divisive, is a hotdog a sandwich? How about a taco?

Likewise, when we create, we use that ideal as a blueprint. When we build a chair, we tap into the ideal chair we have in our minds and use this as our template. However, Plato argues that we can never replicate the ideal perfectly. Like the fire, we may be able to access the ideal of a thing, but we can only bring crude representations of it into our world. This matters much less for something as trivial as a chair; we can use it just as well if it functions. But for a concept like justice, the corruption of the ideal that comes with our attempts to recreate it can have real consequences.

At the risk of getting too into the weeds, this is where I'm going to wrap up my primer on Platonic ideals. There's much more to explore, but I think I've gotten enough of the information across to be useful for now. A Platonic ideal is the true nature of a thing. It resides outside our realm, but like an antenna, we can tap into and receive it. However, our attempts to create using the ideal as a blueprint are inevitably corrupted. So why did I spend time and effort explaining any of this? Well, put simply, I think in terms of Platonic ideals. What does that mean? In my next post, we're going to dive into aphantasia.