Plato claimed that non-material abstract Forms (like Beauty, Justice) are more real than physical

[Divine Power]

Third Man Argument (Aristotle): If a Form is needed to explain similarities among things, then a new Form is needed to explain the similarity between the Form and the things leading to an infinite regress, I see it as Too abstract, leads to infinite regress, disconnected from the world, does that make it true?

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Plato made a claim, alright.
Let's see the evidence for it.
Without evidence, the claim is arbitrary and can should must be dismissed for lack of cognitive content.

 

[Divine Power]

Plato made a claim, alright.
Let's see the evidence for it.
Without evidence, the claim is arbitrary and can should must be dismissed for lack of cognitive content.

Do you have evidence that his claims are wrong?

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Do you have evidence that his claims are wrong?

No, no, that's not how it works.
To be false, a statement must first say something. The falsehood of an idea is established by reference to a body of knowledge, knowledge contradicting the idea. When you know that a thing isn't so, then you know it by reference to your awareness of what is. Arbitrary assertions, lacking evidence, provide no such awareness, so they do not even reach the level of being false.
Arbitrary ideas are not propositions at all, they are pseudo-propositions. They are words with the linguistic form of a proposition, but without cognitive meaning.
The rational response to an arbitrary assertion is to dismiss it, that means do not assume its truth, do not assume its falsity, do not take it as a hypothesis, do not try to refute it, do not pass go, do recognize it as fantasy and turn your attention to reality.

For an idea to be disproved, for it to qualify as false, you must already accept and adhere to the principle of dismissing the arbitrary. Otherwise, there can be no disproof and nothing can be established as false (or true). The refutation of any claim presupposes that the arbitrary is not logically entitled to a refutation, that it has no cognitive standing. Otherwise, there is always the comeback "maybe you erred" or "maybe you're dreaming all this".

 

[The Last Stand]

If a Form is needed to explain similarities among things, then a new Form is needed to explain the similarity between the Form and the things leading to an infinite regress, I see it as Too abstract, leads to infinite regress, disconnected from the world, does that make it true?

Can you give an example?

 

[Divine Power]

No, no, that's not how it works.
To be false, a statement must first say something. The falsehood of an idea is established by reference to a body of knowledge, knowledge contradicting the idea. When you know that a thing isn't so, then you know it by reference to your awareness of what is. Arbitrary assertions, lacking evidence, provide no such awareness, so they do not even reach the level of being false.
Arbitrary ideas are not propositions at all, they are pseudo-propositions. They are words with the linguistic form of a proposition, but without cognitive meaning.
The rational response to an arbitrary assertion is to dismiss it, that means do not assume its truth, do not assume its falsity, do not take it as a hypothesis, do not try to refute it, do not pass go, do recognize it as fantasy and turn your attention to reality.

For an idea to be disproved, for it to qualify as false, you must already accept and adhere to the principle of dismissing the arbitrary. Otherwise, there can be no disproof and nothing can be established as false (or true). The refutation of any claim presupposes that the arbitrary is not logically entitled to a refutation, that it has no cognitive standing. Otherwise, there is always the comeback "maybe you erred" or "maybe you're dreaming all this".

>To be false, a statement must first say something.
I disagree a bit with that but i respect your thoughts.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Do you have evidence that his claims are wrong?

That's the opposite of how things work. I claim that you've eaten puppies before. Can you prove that you've never eaten a puppy?

Also, Plato's greatest contribution to the world was that modeling compound we used as kids to make shapes. The fact that it was mostly edible was pure genius.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

>To be false, a statement must first say something.
I disagree a bit with that but i respect your thoughts.

Let me give you an example.
Suppose that a parrot squawks "it's raining now". Sometimes when the parrot squawks that, it is raining, other times it is not. But the parrot does not go from speaking the truth to uttering falsehood with the changes in the weather. The parrot squawks are just squawks. Words do not have an intrinsic connection to reality. The reference to reality depends on the mental actions of the speaker or listener.
Like, if we go just by the sounds, "it's raining now" sounds like "it's reigning now" and "it's reining now", so clearly any reference of parrot-sound to the weather depends on the meaning supplied by the human being that listens to them.
A statement must attribute some definite characteristics to a clearly designated subject, it is a conceptual identification of a specific fact. A proper proposition combines two or more valid concepts to make a judgment. Not the same thing as a sentence - a sentence is the linguistic form, but the proposition is the meaning or judgment that is being expressed. Propositions serve to advance knowledge by identifying facts and integrating them into the conceptual framework. A valid proposition must be grammatically correct, consistent (non-contradictory), and referential - that means that its terms must refer to actual things in reality. Without this, it's not a real proposition.
A proposition is true if it corresponds to reality and false if it contradicts facts. An arbitrary assertion cannot even be called false because it doesn't even say anything definite enough to evaluate. To be false, a statement must say something that can be checked against reality.

 

[Pelican Bones]

I regret to inform everyone that the marble statue pfps are at it again

 

[Divine Power]

Plato made a claim, alright.
Let's see the evidence for it.
Without evidence, the claim is arbitrary and can should must be dismissed for lack of cognitive content.

Plato claimed that non-material abstract Forms (like Beauty, Justice) are more real than physical​

Why do you ask for evidence of something that's intangible?

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Plato claimed that non-material abstract Forms (like Beauty, Justice) are more real than physical​

Why do you ask for evidence of something that's intangible?

Because there is no such thing as intelligibility without evidence.
What Plato does is flip the proper order of cognition upside down. He detaches the concept from the referent, making abstraction primary over perception.
Concepts like beauty and justice are mental integrations derived from perceived concretes. Their validity depends on their grounding in reality. They are not entities existing in another dimension. If a concept refers to nothing, it means nothing.
Plato turns abstractions into floating, causal agents (reification). But abstraction is something the mind does, abstraction is not a realm in which beings exist. We humans form the concept of beauty by identifying common features across concrete instances. We don't discover some metaphysical "Beauty" that causes them.
I am asking for evidence because I demand epistemic accountability. If the "Form of Justice" or "Form of Beauty" exists, then it must be observable in its effects or expressions. If not, then it's not knowledge.

 

[The Last Stand]

If a Form is needed to explain similarities among things, then a new Form is needed to explain the similarity between the Form and the things leading to an infinite regress, I see it as Too abstract, leads to infinite regress, disconnected from the world, does that make it true?

Oh, in regards to Plato's forms!

I had tried to make sense of it by using video game genres as an example. Example: in the 2000s, any game that would incorporate an open world to explore, a non linear progression of missions to do, multiple means of traversal, weapons to use, and an urban environment to roam around in would be classified as a "GTA clone." That is because GTA III took those individual concepts and combined them into one with great success, enough for people to notice and imitate that formula.

Let's call that formula a "form." Obviously, something has to come from something, those concepts still existed without GTA in some form. Maybe another form could be derived from it, but it's pointless to endlessly backtrack to find the "true origin" of something.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Oh, in regards to Plato's forms!

I had tried to make sense of it by using video game genres as an example. Example: in the 2000s, any game that would incorporate an open world to explore, a non linear progression of missions to do, multiple means of traversal, weapons to use, and an urban environment to roam around in would be classified as a "GTA clone." That is because GTA III took those individual concepts and combined them into one with great success, enough for people to notice and imitate that formula.

Let's call that formula a "form." Obviously, something has to come from something, those concepts still existed without GTA in some form. Maybe another form could be derived from it, but it's pointless to endlessly backtrack to find the "true origin" of something.

What you're describing is a conceptual template, aka a culturally emergent pattern. It is valid to call that a formula, or even a genre-defining prototype. But Plato's "forms" are not templates that are formed after observation. Plato claims they are timeless, non-physical causes of all particulars.
Your example of GTA clones is grounded in history and context. Plato, instead, attempts to anchor reality in a realm beyond perception.

Like, according to Plato, GTA clones do not imitate GTA III. GTA clones participate in the eternal, non-physical Form of Grand-Theft-Auto-ness. GTA III itself was not innovative. It merely reflected more perfectly the transcendent Idea of Urban Open-World Crime Simulation that exists beyond space and time. Every mission structure, every getaway car, every side quest is not designed. It is recollected. Rockstar Games did not develop GTA. They remembered it.
^ your brain on Plato

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The issue is that some forms represent themselves. Concepts like beauty can't be represented by other things. At best you can argue something is beautiful because it is similar to something that is commonly agreed as beautiful.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

The issue is that some forms represent themselves. Concepts like beauty can't be represented by other things. At best you can argue something is beautiful because it is similar to something that is commonly agreed as beautiful.

No concept represents itself. Concepts are integrations of observed concretes. Beauty is not a thing that "represents itself", it is a judgment formed by perceiving and valuing specific attributes in reality. Saying "beauty is beauty" is circular, saying "this is beautiful because it resembles what we call beautiful" is meaningless. Concepts must be grounded in observed facts, not some recursive consensus.
"A chair is a chair because it looks like other chairs". Meaningless unless and until you define what makes something a chair. Until you've done that, you have said nothing.

 

[The Last Stand]

At best you can argue something is beautiful because it is similar to something that is commonly agreed as beautiful.

I think Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe are both beautiful. I COULD compare their beauty against one another, but that would miss the entire point. Their beauty is inherent on the sum of their parts. They're not one of the same, other than them being female and actresses.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

No concept represents itself. Concepts are integrations of observed concretes. Beauty is not a thing that "represents itself", it is a judgment formed by perceiving and valuing specific attributes in reality. Saying "beauty is beauty" is circular, saying "this is beautiful because it resembles what we call beautiful" is meaningless. Concepts must be grounded in observed facts, not some recursive consensus.
"A chair is a chair because it looks like other chairs". Meaningless unless and until you define what makes something a chair. Until you've done that, you have said nothing.

Even babies understand concepts like beauty, before they are able of any meaningful communication with the outside world. And this concept is shared with 99.99% of humanity. It's not meaningless, it is simply indefinable.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Even babies understand concepts like beauty, before they are able of any meaningful communication with the outside world. And this concept is shared with 99.99% of humanity. It's not meaningless, it is simply indefinable.

Recognizing a thing is not the same as defining a thing. The fact that infants can respond to symmetry or facial cues does not mean that they grasp the concept of beauty. All it means is that they are sensitive to biological patterns. Shared reactions do not make a thing conceptually self-evident.
Concepts aren't invalid when they're hard to define, they're invalid when people refuse to define them and pretend that universality fills that gap. If beauty really were truly undefinable, then it would be unusable. But you just used it. That means it has content.
So your only choice is to define it or admit it's an approximation

 

[Divine Power]

Because there is no such thing as intelligibility without evidence.
What Plato does is flip the proper order of cognition upside down. He detaches the concept from the referent, making abstraction primary over perception.
Concepts like beauty and justice are mental integrations derived from perceived concretes. Their validity depends on their grounding in reality. They are not entities existing in another dimension. If a concept refers to nothing, it means nothing.
Plato turns abstractions into floating, causal agents (reification). But abstraction is something the mind does, abstraction is not a realm in which beings exist. We humans form the concept of beauty by identifying common features across concrete instances. We don't discover some metaphysical "Beauty" that causes them.
I am asking for evidence because I demand epistemic accountability. If the "Form of Justice" or "Form of Beauty" exists, then it must be observable in its effects or expressions. If not, then it's not knowledge.

>Because there is no such thing as intelligibility without evidence.

That depends on how you define 'intelligibility.' If it's purely epistemological, sure, evidence is crucial. But linguistically or conceptually, something can be intelligible in form even if it's factually ungrounded

 

[The Last Stand]

GTA clones participate in the eternal, non-physical Form of Grand-Theft-Auto-ness. GTA III itself was not innovative. It merely reflected more perfectly the transcendent Idea of Urban Open-World Crime Simulation that exists beyond space and time. Every mission structure, every getaway car, every side quest is not designed. It is recollected. Rockstar Games did not develop GTA. They remembered it.
^ your brain on Plato

That doesn't even make sense.