Transposing the Theory of Forms to the Mind
on the Basis of the Symposium and the Phaedo
Henry Whittlesey Schroeder
[Abstract on relevance to the perypatetik project:
Parallel to the argument made in the paper, the findings underpin the association of the central value of proximity (as opposed to proselytization/networking) with romantics. See Peripatetic Alterity and the introductions to Material Dissent and Of Flowing Vicissitudes for definitions.]
Person A grows up in New York City, comes from a modest family in community Y, but is socialized in community X for the (good) years of their youth. Person A then leaves New York and (unconsciously) also loses contact with community X. Thereafter, they are only exposed to community Y. Person A returns to New York after many years, but has minimal (unconscious) contact with community X. They have lost touch with the blending of communities X/Y of their past. Through a random encounter with someone, person A recollects the form of X/Y Blending from the period of preconsciousness, i.e., youth, and reascends to it. This recollection of a critical “Form,” in turn, places his mind in a state of quasi or transposed immortality, which in today’s terms is to be understood as harmony with one’s self or self-understanding. Plato’s theory of forms explains person A’s experience if it is transposed to the mind.
Introduction
To propose a modern-day reconfiguration of Plato’s theory of forms, it is initially necessary to understand the original theory. Two of Plato’s dialogues, the Symposium and the Phaedo, epitomize the philosopher’s use of dialectical exchange to present arguments. This paper is broken down into two sections. The first harbors a general recapitulation of four dimensions of Plato’s theory of forms on the basis of the Symposium and the Phaedo. This elucidation of the framework is then complemented, in section two, by a study of the aforementioned person A to probe the potential for transposing or modifying Plato’s theory and practically applying it in a contemporary context. This extension will center on positing the forms not necessarily (although possibly) in the immaterial world, but rather as shaping the disposition of the mind or spirit established in the preconsciousness stage of an individual’s life (effectively pre-adulthood). In turn, the reaching of these (personal) forms (via the scala amoris), the recognition of them as separate from associated particulars, and the process of preserving or recollecting them allow a person to live as the soul lives in Plato, warding off its opposite or receding if the opposite gains control. The conclusion wraps up the transposition of these four dimensions of Plato’s theory with a brief summary of each point in relation solely to the thought experiment with X/Y Blending in the prelude.
- Plato’s theory of forms – a concise account
Introduced in the Symposium by way of the scala amoris and fleshed out in the Phaedo, Plato expounds on four[1] dimensions of the forms through Diotima and Socrates: i) the process of progressing from the particulars in the material world to each form in the immaterial; ii) the difference between a material thing or particular (e.g., equal or similar sticks) and the form applicable (e.g., the Equal/Equality); iii) human life as a process of recollecting the permanent, unchanging forms; and, finally, iv) the causation resulting from the forms and the immortality of the soul.[2],[3] These four dimensions of the doctrine will be recounted in detail as found in the source texts and without recourse to other works by Plato or critical analysis.
1.1 The scala amoris – rising from the particulars to the forms
The first dimension of Plato’s theory of forms acts effectively as guidance or advice for people on how to behave. The scala amoris for reaching the forms is conveyed in Diotima’s monologue on what a person must learn to be “initiated into [the] rites of love” (Symposium 209e). First, such a person must love one body and beget beautiful ideas there (210a), then recognize that the beauty of one body is similar to the beauty of any other body (210b). From here, this person or lover, as Diotima refers to them, must think that the beauty of people’s souls is more valuable than that of their bodies (210b). This, in turn, stimulates the lover to pursue the birth of ideas, which is what you pursue if you are truly in love and prefer birth in the soul to birth in the body (206b). From the birth of ideas, it follows that this person or lover will turn their attention to the beauty of activities, laws and customs, forgetting about bodies (210c). The next rung on the ladder this person is climbing holds the diversification of knowledge, i.e., perceiving the beauty of knowledge not in a single instance, but in a “great sea of beauty” (201d). In the wisdom they gain there, this lover will grasp the essence or form of beauty or true virtue (212a), which (i) is permanent (“First it always is and neither comes to be nor passes away”), (ii) does not admit of dispute or opinion (“not beautiful in this way and ugly that way”), (iii) does not assume a bodily form and (iv) is not found in the material or bodily world (“in another thing such as an animal, on earth or in heaven”) (211a).
1.2 Instantiation vs. the form – equal sticks vs. the Equal
While the first dimension concerns the anthropogenic relationship between an individual and the forms, the second dispenses with the human, analyzing a form solely in relation to instantiation. This facet is elucidated in the Phaedo when Socrates is urged to expand on how a form does not admit of dispute or opinion. He approaches this first by distinguishing between instances of equal things on the one hand and the Equal or the form of Equal/Equality on the other. As part of the discussion on recollection, which can be triggered by a solely mental process of associating one (similar) thing with another (Phaedo 73d), the issue preoccupying Socrates and his interlocutors is that such similarity or such equal things appear to one person as equal and another as unequal (74b). Person A may tie their interactions with person B to X/Y becoming blended, whereas another person C would not liken their interactions with person B to X/Y becoming blended. Socrates’ point is that concepts in the material world, such as the equal length of two sticks or X/Y becoming blended, are subject to differences of opinion, but the form of Equality is never conflated with Inequality (74c). Analogously, the form X/Y Blending would never able to accommodate X/Y Separateness or X Uniformity: This lack of contradiction in the forms explains why they do not manifest themselves physically (point iii in grasping the essence of forms according to Diotima (211a)) and cannot be found in the material world (point iv in Diotima’s argument (211a)), as they would be subject to contradictory opinion under such circumstances.
1.3 Recollecting the (permanent, unchanging) forms
The third dimension of the forms returns to an anthropogenic concern, namely, the individual’s place in relation to them. To understand human-form interaction, however, it is necessary to digress on the critical issue of the permanence of forms: “First it always is and neither comes to be nor passes away,” says Diotima (Symposium 211a). [4] The permanence of forms, their being (as opposed to becoming), is also blended with human life as a process of recollecting the forms. Socrates addresses this characteristic of the forms indirectly in the context of the uniformity of the soul (78c-78d). Like the soul, he argues, the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, each thing in itself, is not affected by change, is uniform by itself and remains the same (78d). These forms also differ from their particulars because a person may use the senses for changing particulars, but can only grasp the forms by reasoning, by the power of the mind (79a). In contrast, a person has an uneasy feeling with regard to instantiations of the forms: They sense a deficiency since any object being judged as equal or beautiful is not such in the same sense as the form Equal or Beauty (Phaedo 74d). This deficiency, according to Socrates, entails inferiority relative to some other reality (74e), and that reality is the forms: “We must possess knowledge of the Equal before that time when we first saw the equal objects” (75a). In turn, our sense perceptions also make us realize that everything we perceive is striving to reach the forms (75b), but since we have lost “those things which we mark with the seal of ‘what it is’” when we are born, we spend our lives using the senses to identify similarities and differences to the forms and thereby recover knowledge of what is through learning qua recollection (75e-76a).[5]
1.4 Causation in the forms and the immortality of the soul
In the fourth dimension of the forms discussed in the Symposium and the Phaedo, the theory is again presented in and of itself, i.e., independently of an individual. Responding to Cebes’ concern that the soul is long-lasting, yet eventually gets worn out like a weaver of cloaks who is more durable than his cloaks, but eventually dies before finishing the last one (87d),[6] Socrates reasons that a beautiful particular has Beauty not because of a certain color or shape, but rather due to the “presence of, or the sharing in” the form of Beauty (100d). Analogously, something is bigger due to the form Bigness (101a) and, as discussed above, equal things will be such on account of sharing the form Equality. So the cause of big or beautiful or equal particulars is their respective form (Bigness, Beauty, Equality). All particulars that share in such forms also cannot accommodate their opposites (103a-105b). Accordingly, a big thing can never admit the small. And in cases where a particular does not possess clear binary relations, such as the number two, which is not the opposite of three, you must look to the higher-order form, i.e., the Evenness of the number two relative to the Oddness of the number three (103e-105a). Finally, when an opposite approaches something derived from an opposing form, one of two things happens: i) the thing possessing or sharing in the existent form “flees and retreats” from the opposite, or ii) the opposite is destroyed during its approach (102e).
This discussion of opposites in relation to the forms establishes the grounds for the immortality of the soul: the soul makes a body living (105c); the opposite of life is death (105d). Consistent with the particulars possessing forms that do not admit of opposites, life or the soul will either “flee and retreat” from its opposite, i.e., death, or that opposite will be destroyed. So when death takes the body, the soul retreats from it (106e): Cebes’ analogy of the soul to a weaver is refuted.
- Transposing the theory of forms to the mind
Whereas Socrates desiderates the derivation of the order of nature from the forms to make things good in the Phaedo (Plato 109a-115a; Kahn 357), the application of the theory today holds more promise in the context of identity and self-understanding. Aspects of Plato’s theory, such as multiple particulars sharing a common form or even the progression from particulars to (abstract) forms in the scala amoris, may be palatable to a contemporary audience, yet the concept of innatism and human life as a process of recollecting immaterial forms or the immortality of the soul are difficult-to-impossible to prove. To the extent that the following remarks concern innatism, I am primarily adopting what Shepardson refers to as latent content innatism or the mind’s ability to “become aware of [the] content within them.”[7]
In the prelude to this paper, I mentioned a person who spent the developmental phase of their life in New York City without any thought of materialism and in social circles defined by diversity (X/Y becoming blended). When this person left the city, only one of these three identity-shaping characteristics was retained: repudiation of materialism (modesty). It is argued here that this experience in the development phase called preconsciousness, i.e., from 0-18 years of age in this case, establishes a set of forms for this person that they must (i) pursue, (ii) preserve or recollect, and (iii) understand (to avoid mistakes) in order to (iv) live in immortality or harmony with their mind. Forms preserved fall within the scope of the scala amoris; forms lost must be recollected; all forms should be understood. Consideration of these three dimensions will facilitate the fourth, allowing person A’s mind to fend off material instantiations, not admit opposites, and establish harmony with their own self. In a sense, this process is reminiscent of Dominic Scott’s interpretation of recollection in “Anamnesis Revisited” where he draws on a story about Demaratus who wrote a message inside a wax tablet and a decoy message on the surface of it. Scott contends that our innate knowledge of the forms can only be recovered when we remove the surface layer (Scott 349).[8] That is what is necessary for person A to achieve harmony.
2.1 A transposed scala amoris
Person A never lost touch with the form Non-materialism from their preconscious age. Like many children, they paid no attention to their modest material circumstances and perceived no differences between their own and others (although they were rather substantial in many cases). While person A surely only participates in a small number of the possible instantiations of the form Non-materialism, they are informed by it in a material sense, in human interactions, in the production of work, in mindset, etc.
2.2 Instantiation and the forms transposed
In Person A’s daily existence, they consider the chaos of the city now beautiful and now annoying (among other emotional responses), but their waffling sense-experience never changes their understanding that they must be in this urban environment and no other. Whether the city is viewed positively or negatively does not affect their overarching mindset with regard to it because of the form New Yorkness coupled with person A (from childhood/preconsciousness). The particular New York (on a given day, for example) assumes its different characteristics and generates the possibly opposing responses of person A, but the form New Yorkness coupled with person A does not permit them to conceive of themselves outside of or separate from New Yorkness. With such awareness of the form, person A never makes the impulsive mistake of considering a move to another (less problematic) place.
2.3 Recollecting the forms
Person A lost touch with New Yorkness and X/Y Blending, the latter of which they were not even aware, for about 17 years. On returning to the city, naturally, they again participated in the form of New Yorkness as a matter of course. The form X/Y Blending was more complicated because they were not aware that their identity in preconsciousness was enmeshed with this form. The instantiation consists of person A being from community Y, but socialized in community X, before losing contact to community X. By dumb luck, albeit not stumbled upon quickly, they eventually recollected this third form called X/Y Blending (in addition to New Yorkness and Non-materialism). While Socrates posits objective knowledge as a consequence of intuiting a form, the modernization of this concept would refer to this as self-awareness or self-understanding. Once recovered, an individual must proceed as person A does in section 2.2.[9]
2.4 Causation and immortality
Since the form established by preconsciousness for person A defines particulars assigned to the forms of New Yorkness, Non-materialism and X/Y Blending[10] for person A alone, there is no universal causation in the sense of Plato for all particulars arising from a given form. For example, the form X/Y Blending will not allow particulars such as X/Y becoming non-blended for person A, but it is conceivably possible that, for another person, X/Y Blending would not be an applicable form or the form and its opposite would be subordinate to a different form (e.g., Being or Interaction). For our person A, however, X/Y Blending rules out any opposite.
Transposing the immortality of the soul in Plato to a modern-day conception requires the enactment of something close to what Shepardson refers to as latent content innatism and a view of the mind as living (analogous to the soul in Plato). The mind’s capacity or disposition to build a bridge between its current state and a past state, i.e., between preconsciousness forms being preserved or recollected, is living in the sense that the abstract or intellectual connection between the two forms is not subject to bodily decomposition. The idea can live forever (e.g., in writing), even if the individual for whom it applies is dead. Person A can pass away, but their recollection of X/Y Blending in the particulars on December 5/8 caused by the form X/Y Blending established between 1988 and 1994 can never be erased (in part also because it never actually physically existed in space).
If we view immortality metaphorically, another interpretation is possible. The mind finds itself alive by achieving harmony with the central forms that shaped it in the preconsciousness years. And in this harmonization of the present mind with the past one, it taps into immortality by associating all opposites with death, thereby warding them off. However, if the mind fails to connect with past forms, then it will vanish, chased off by its opposite. The body will take over the individual. In such a state, that individual will keep changing akin to the body: they will vacillate in character, be uncertain about their identity, place, purpose and being. The absence of the living mind in them will manifest itself in their (dead) eyes, (bland) speech, (insipid) thoughts, etc., exactly as we see throughout America today. Yet if they preserve or recollect forms of that identity from their pre-adult life (preconsciousness) and live by the mind, a person will come as close as possible to living in what-is for themselves.
Conclusion
Scala amoris: In abstracting from the individual (body) and moving up the ladder, person A has achieved objective knowledge with regard to themselves and understands at least these three forms.
Instantiation and form: It can be discussed whether person A from community X and person B from community Y actually constitute something blended, but in no way can the form X/Y Blending be said to be the form X/Y Non-blending or X Uniformity.
Recollecting the (permanent, unchanging) form: Person A lost touch with form X/Y Blending due to a variety of factors (moving, illness, international mismatching). Analogous to a deficiency in particulars, person A grasped a deficiency of their mind in interaction due to the absence of X/Y Blending, but did not know what it was until an accident triggered the recollection, not entirely unlike the madeleine moment in Proust.
Causation: The form X/Y Blending causes or entails the presence of both community X and community Y in the instantiation or particular things. When person A loses contact with community X after childhood, the form X/Y Blending recedes. After the rediscovery of form X/Y Blending, the particulars subordinate to it do not admit of non-blended things or Non-Blending.
Works cited
Kahn, Charles H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogue – The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Plato. A Plato Reader: Eight Essential Dialogues. Ed. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis, USA: Hackett Publishing Company, 2012.
Scott, Dominic. “Anamnesis Revisited.” The Classical Quarterly. Vol. 37, No. 2 (1987): pp. 346-366.
Shepardson, Douglas. “Varieties of Platonic Innatism: An Introduction through Early Modern Parallels.” Thaumàzein. Vol. 11 No. 1 (2023): 84-111.
[1] In Plato and the Socratic Dialogue – The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form, Charles Kahn argues that nearly all the major themes of the doctrine of forms are found in Diotima’s account (345). He lists off (i) being vs. becoming, (ii) being vs. appearance, (iii) one vs. many, (iv) the ontological separation of a form from its particular instantiation, (v) the participation of the instantiation of forms in the forms, (vi) image and imitation or “images of virtue” in comparison to true virtue thanks to contact with the forms, (vii) non-sensory apprehension of the forms, and (viii) eponymy (345-355). While Kahn persuasively demonstrates the relationship between the remarks and allusions to these themes in Diotima’s speech and their realization in Plato’s theory, xe (i.e., Diotima) does not provide a detailed account. This paper is solely focused on the aspects of Plato’s theory that are explicitly discussed in the Symposium and the Phaedo.
[2] Although causation and immortality could be treated separately, these themes are interlinked in the Phaedo so I have opted to address them together.
[3] For the sake of brevity and relevance to the argument, I shall leave out Socrates’ discussion of the relationship between the forms and the cosmos at the end of the Phaedo.
[4] Kahn addresses permanence first in his analysis of being vs. becoming in the Symposium. It is logical that the forms are permanent, but his citation of Phaedo 79d to support this argument alongside Diotima’s remarks is misleading, as the passage in question (Phaedo 79d) relates to the soul, not the forms. See Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue – The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form, 345-6. However, a form’s permanence may be inferred from analogies between the soul and the form (e.g., invisibility (79a)).
[5] For a good overview of the historical interpretations of Plato’s Innatism, see Douglas Shepardson, “Varieties of Platonic Innatism: An Introduction through Early Modern Parallels.” He differentiates between five different types of innatism: “explicit content innatism” (which is not attributable to Plato by any account), “dispositional innatism” (the denial of any content in the soul at birth, but the disposition to acquire such later), “latent content innatism” (the soul has innate content at birth, but it is not explicitly available for consciousness), “constructivist innatism” (innate concepts are necessary for constructing experience), and “transcendent innatism” (what is innate is the mind’s ability to access the realm of forms or transcendent objects). See especially pp. 85 (on all five), 94 (on constructivist innatism) and 97 (on transcendent innatism).
[6] See 95c-d for recapitulation of Cebes’ argument by Socrates.
[7] Shepardson 91-93. The argument here in no way impacts innatism at the time of birth. In this transposition or shifting of Plato’s conception, the “innatism” revolves around the question of knowledge or its recovery at the time of rational, conscious adulthood.
[8] Scott also persuasively demonstrates that a person can live without considering the forms, which is exactly what most people do, he points out (349). His contention is that Plato has a philosopher in mind when he is discussing the forms (346; 350); in our thought experiment, we have a person seeking a harmonized identity.
[9] It is also important to consider that an individual often does not lose touch with their preconsciousness to the extent that person A does. Then one would speak of preserving or retaining the forms of the past, as person A does with the form Non-materialism.
[10] By no means an exhaustive list.