I think this video doesn't really grasp Plato's concept. Plato thought that Forms were real things... actually residing somewhere beyond our world. And everything in this world of ours is just a faint emanation of those Forms. And there is even the Form of the Good, where all these Forms emanate from - the closest thing Plato has to a God. Plato's Forms were almost mystical entities. I understand that this video tries to be practical, but it really removes a lot of weight from the concept.
I totally agree with you La Serpiente! I am thinking of making a video on my channel Elevated & Meaningful where I discuss the spiritual dimension of Plato's Forms. I don't like that this has been left out. Maybe I will make a video out of our discussion together because I would still like to enhance my understanding of what Plato was trying to get at actually. What do you think?
Do you know what is the true practical application of the forms? What types of forms are there? I mean, is there a form of a rock? Or a Bed? Or forms of the compositions of each of these, and are there forms of non physical things? Like love or speed? How do we classify the forms and of what use is this for us?
Ricard De Virgo good question. There are schools of thought such as Plato's Forms that presupposes if there is a thing that exists in this world, let's call it beauty, then there is the "IDEAL" beauty that exists which is reality because it doesn't die. The beauty we know of in this world is but a reflection of the "IDEAL" beauty, that if it wasn't for the "IDEAL" true beauty, then we would never would have come to know of beauty in the first place. So this is what I understand. As for your question of practical application, to be quite frank, the practical application is but a reflection of the true reality. Things in this world allude to the existence of a world that doesn't pass away and die. We know of beauty as something that dies, decays, etc but the reality of beauty doesn't. So the practical application would always fall short in describing the reality of anything that is of the "Forms" according to my understanding. Does this make sense?
Elevated & Meaningful Yes!! It does!! The forms are the archetypes of all that exists. They are non physical, eternal and perfect. Not bound to time and space, and only comprehensible by the intellect. The thing is that I want t understand the practical application of platonism to my everyday life. For example, I'm a big fan of the stoics... I basically read all of them: Musonius Rufus, Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The aim of life for the stoics is the happy life, by understanding that only virtue is good, only vice is bad and everything else is indifferent. From here they developed a very big system in how to carry on with life with tranquility. But... My personality goes more with things I can grasp with my intellect, not just psychological techniques. That is why I was interested in platonism. For example, a platonist, in order to obtain a happy and tranquil life: Ataraxia and Apatheia, what would they do? I read that the union with the supreme Good, or the form of the good is the only way to be happy. But how to I obtain it? How do I have to see the world in order to find tranquility? Because many talk about the theory of forms, but not of how to use the forms to obtain absolute joy.
youre right. but minus the crazy mystical metaphysics his teachings become practical. if anyone wants to appreciate the metaphysics they can go read his teachings.
Plato referred to the world of ideas.A metaphysical world where perfection exists. (Perfect ideas,perfect shapes etc) This perception of the supernatural was argued by Aristotle. That's why in the famous painting where the two philosophers walk in to the academy,Plato points up to the sky and Aristotle place his hand horizontally to the ground.
Wow, so Plato is asserting that ideas are as real as we are and that we can abandon or rebuild beliefs that we no longer feel fit the ideal. This is a powerful tool to understanding our minds and guiding us towards truth and understanding in life.
I always have seen form as the goal. This thing that you strive to be, even if it is not possible in your life time. To work for anything that is not your goal is counter productive. To use every moment to push towards your goal, regardless of your personal advantage, is ideal. Having the courage to remove the part of your old goal that does not serve your ideal end, is progress. The end is now clearer in sight, and you have further perfected the goal. With the misconception behind you, the ideal is more real. With a clearer form you more competently complete. This philosophy is stated before Plato, but I love the way he put it.
+Ross Brannigan Skepticism is not pessimism and vice versa. Schopenhauer and the Buddha were pre-eminent pessimists but had clear views on human nature (as well as metaphysics for the latter).
It wasn't really mentioned in this video but I feel a very important part about Plato's forms is that he thought we were born with them. And in that sense you really come to regard them less as our own mental things we are striving towards, but rather things that exist in their own right that we have some idea of.
Exactly. This video reduced the forms to some kind of set of ideals we hold in our mind and then impress upon the world. Somehow the author (I'm pretty sure it Alain de Botton so no suprises there -the man really is clueless) has managed to reduce the Platonic forms to what sounds a bit like Kantianism🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂
+Hides inMud There's no fear at all. I posted this quote because I think it maybe comes from Plato's philosophy. Perfection or form is just (and can only be) in our minds, we can never reach it phisically. We have the idea or form of a perfect sphere for instance but we can never make it, but that should not make us stop trying and getting as close as possible :)
+Hides inMud There's no fear at all. I posted this quote because I think it maybe comes from Plato's philosophy. Perfection or form is just (and can only be) in our minds, we can never reach it phisically. We have the idea or form of a perfect sphere for instance but we can never make it, but that should not make us stop trying and getting as close as possible :)
Nobody has ever seen a perfect circle or a perfectly straight line in nature. And once Euclid et al. began to think about this non-physical ealm of perfect forms and their relationships, abstract thinking (& mathematics) began to take-off. Plato is applying the same, newly-discovered, strategy. In school, one of the sillier ways to talk about Plato is to say that he "believed in the existence of ideal forms." However if students write this in their notebooks and remember that "Plato believed . . ." they add these Greek philosophers to a long list of people in history what had "beliefs." Plato was reporting an exciting "if . . .then" discovery about thinking that (powerfully) always worked. Good job, School of Life: this improves the standard sound bite history lectures.
It is a very wise advice from you to say that we all need to have as many forms in mind as we possibly can! I think for this, the character trait we need the most is " curiosity". Because if we want to know, the forms are everywhere. Take any subject from this lesson: Friendship. You can begin searching from 2300 years ago. Aristoteles has a whole chapter about how a friendship should be in his Nicomachean Ethics. You can start from there, and then you have the entire history of world literature and philosophy, arts and music ( so many wonderful songs about friendship) that you can apply to! So every beautiful story, every great song or movie, every painting or poem on the subject can make that form "clearer" to you. You can create your own template of the "ideal friendship" as a result of this beautiful searching adventure. We must also look around a lot, to find the admirable sides of people we come across with. There is nothing wrong with having "role models". They are like "living forms" I would say. Of course you must learn NOT to expect too much from them, since they are also only human beings. But it is a very noble thing to do, to look for the "virtues" in wiser people and to try to integrate those virtues into our lives. For example I have this friend from Ethiopia. She used to work in an internet-cafe 12 hours a day seven days a week, but she was such an incredibly patient and kind person. I have never seen her angry despite all the stress she was having with all sorts of people on that place. People get mad if something on their computer doesn't work, or if the connection is slow or if they can't print this or that...My friend would solve any problem, but she would always keep calm and take her time, while at the same time joking with those who were complaining, but always in a very friendly and warm hearted way. So she is definitely one of my role models when it comes to imagining" a form of kindness and resilience". So as I am saying, if we are curious enough and have our eyes open, it is not a big deal to fill our heads with forms and templates and ideals, which is a much more exciting and enthusiastic way of living. The difficulty is to keep them "always" in mind and have the perseverance in wanting to live by them. But this is the only way worth living. By the way, for all friends who want to apply philosophy for this and don't know where to begin with, I highly recommend Alain de Botton's excellent book " The Consolations of Philosophy". ( He is the founder of this channel). You can also watch the documentaries he made about the six philosophers we encounter in that book: Socrates, Nietzsche, Montaigne, Seneca, Epicurus, Schopenhauer. They are all on youtube! Thank you for this wonderful lesson as always!
+Lua Veli Thank you Lua Veli, I read your comments and i think it is really wonderful. Furthermore, I thank you for all the names that you recommended because i am a new learner in philosophy :). Thank you Lua Veli!
+Bimo Antonio Hello there Bimo! Thanks a lot for reading and for your lovely message. It is wonderful that you are such a curious person. You know, I once wrote a little list for another friend who was asking for websites, sources etc. to learn intersting staff, so I thought I will just copy-paste it for you . I hope you find it useful. I send you my best wishes too. So here is the list: 1. The founder of this channel Alain de Botton has another youtube channel, where you can find his documentaries. All of them have a life changing quality. 2. Wisecrack and " In a Nutshell"are good too. 3. I recommend you three great websites you could subscribe: -The Book of Life ( then brain of this channel) -Open Culture ( there you really have everything! From free E-Books , to online classes from Top Universities. On any subject you want.) -Brain Pickings ( Maria Popova's incredible blog. That place is a gold mine. ) For art check this one: -Art as Therapy ( wonderful website launched by Alain and John Armstrong) 4. And here are three podcasts where you can learn a lot: -Radiolab - The 7th Avenue Project - On Being with Krista Tippett
Thank you so much for the recommendation. I will make sure that i check it out. Thank you so much for sharing your sources with me, you have no idea how grateful i am to see this :) I hope i can repay you someday, If i may i would like to have a conversations with you in the journey of pursuing my knowledge. In the meantime i will consume some wisdom for my curious mind:)
+Paul Hill: That's right. There are different kinds of Forms: physical . . . emotional . . . intellectual . . . and so on. By over-emphasizing intellectual Forms, this video makes it too easy for people to think that all Forms are mental abstractions.
Since I started watching your videos a couple of mounths back now, you have been leading myself to have the belief that forms/teplates/other words are needed, but until now I couldn't really name it, and now a day or two since your upload and I can't stop thinking about the 'forms' Great work!
The reason or the very notion why people lean towards a realization of being content with the way things are (being content in a manner which is progressive yet not so dependent on the goal of the ideal state), is because the weight of letdowns or failure from that ideal state is crushing. I think your video on Wisdom will be supportive to my argument
Understanding Plato's idea of forms is actually useful if you're into computer programming, you need to be able to understand things on an abstract level and break them down into their most fundamental pieces. For instance, a car has fundamental properties like wheels, an engine, seats, and so on, but your specific car may have red paint and a V8 engine with a dent on the fender. Knowing this you can program a template class Car and use that to derive any form of a car you wish.
To ppl learning Plato: This is just one way of understanding Plato's Forms. In this vid they argue that Plato's Forms (which is his metaphysical system) show us pure, formal concepts of things. The Forms are a lot more than that, but this is one important feature !
" i despise perfection , it is the doom which marks the end of betterment, evolution, change, challenge, and everything that we hate and love . but , absolutely would love to define ourselves with . what is there to live for in a perfect world . perfection is what we should all work towards , hopping that we never attain it . " the perfect world is deeply grim & disturbingly dark . it is something that i would never want to attain. But , something that i would always love to work towards .☺
I am a teacher of mathematics and philosophy. when I teach, I use quotations from the great philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, Rambam, ETC.) Most of my students hate when I use Plato for my arguments, because “His ideas are not for the modern world”. I feel that us philosophers need to sugarcoat ideas; So that no one will be offended by it. Yet Plato has an answer for this. Every human is born within the cave, seeing illusions of things. Yet some will escape, and they would share their ideas to all. People will not understand, but it’s what it is. This is the job of philosophers.
i've been teaching philosophy for some years now and i've never seen such a simple and concrete way to present the concept of form... thank you. would you be nice also if you do a video on the reasons that explain why some philosophers criticize this concept and feel the need to define themselve against plato
+pierrot monami: Then you obviously know almost nothing about Plato. This video is a very mediocre attempt at conveying an understanding of the Forms . . .
+Liandra Bassiane i would like to be able to express them with the same simplicity as they do on art of life, but i am not able to do it for now. i was thinking about philosophers like Nietzsche and Deleuze, who think that the way Plato defined forms necessarily brings him to the condemnation of the "sensible world', the world 'of life'... Plato's philosophy would be a "discontented" philosophy
Plato's Essentialism (Philosophy of Forms) is contradictory to modern Existentialist philosophers because Plato claims the true forms are unchangeable, sacred and infinite.Thus the true human form would be something that is eternal and unchangeable.Existentialists like Sartre,Kirkegaard,Camus... hate the idea of something stable and unaltered that has no room for development
I heard from a Philosophy prof that Plato's idea of ‘forms’ was more than a thought-experiment, and that Plato really believed they existed out there somewhere.
I find it very interesting that this channel does not go into Plato's actual philosophy on the forms but sticks to the Atheist abstraction of Plato's philosophy on it. They refuse to include the fact that Plato actually saw this world as an illusion and that the forms are the true reality. He believed that these forms do actually exist in a spiritual universe. But, you would never know that because The School of Life willfully denies facts to make Plato sound more useful to the Atheist agenda.
John you raise an interesting point! I have notice this similar language used in my classes. I am an undergraduate Philosopher at UC Davis here in California. I am also noticing that the language straight away avoids spiritual concepts as you say in your comment above. I too am most attracted to Plato's concept of the forms with regards to the spiritual reality. Plato was a genius for his time. Plato's explanation of the forms has opened my eyes to what is possible even though there may not be sufficient evidence or ways to describe whatever we seek. I think that most of reality is indescribable but for some reason, despite its undescribablity, humanity, nevertheless, is able to function and progress. This is a way to look at the world, that we don't need to have evidence for everything otherwise life would be quite miserable and boring, to say the least. I hope to use this idea of Plato's forms and add the spiritual dimension to it.
Most western religions sprang up because of Platonic thought, including Christianity. C.S. Lewis, a 20th century Christian writer considered himself a neo-Platonist. Yet, a thousand years before, Eastern Orthodoxy used Platonism to flesh out their theology and clear up "confusion".
Elevated & Meaningful he's not wrong though. Most Christian philosophers have a deep love for plato and attribute this form world as being an attribute of God by including an intellect to the world of ideals. Augustine, Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton all use much of plato
Elevated & Meaningful Fact is, you're thousands of years late to this game. Some have referred to Christianity as pop-Platonism. References? Here's a starting point: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism_and_Christianity In addition, the New Testament, CS Lewis (he called himself a platonist in his writings), John Davidson - The Gospel of Jesus (which is a thorough overview of Gnostic theology), Bertrand Russell - history of western philosophy (for the broad strokes), Alvar Ellegard - Jesus: 100 BC (which has great discussion on the syncretism of hellenistic, jewish worldviews to create gnosticism and christianity). Also, google for a bunch of articles echoing points like this based upon centuries of research and common academic knowledge. I mean, seriously, WTF are they teaching you at UC Davis? I don't even have a philosophy degree. I just read.
this is not what i understood from a philosophy book about Plato.. i thought he is saying that anything we see there is the better version of it in the world of forms. he says that we feel there is a better version of anything because we have been in the world of forms. our soul Plato says. he says its an innate. and here where Aristotle disagrees with him. im really confused i need help from a philosopher
Hey Mansour! I have some ideas about what Plato was thinking maybe we can have a conversation and see where it leads us both! I am still learning about such themes that I am interested in a lot! What do you say?
Catherine Murphy You can't perfect what's in your head because it's already perfect. I think plato is trying to tell us not to worry ourselves with worldly things because they will never be perfect; they are a mere imperfect reflection of the forms. So when you work your ass off trying to make a table but it instead ends up looking like a chair, don't stress yourself because it was never meant to be perfect.
Dear Alain de Bottonm ,i am fan of your work and voice .I Have request for you please have a look into Thiruvalluvar a famous Tamil poet and philosopher .He is best known for Thirukkuṛaḷ, a collection of couplets on ethics, political and economical matters, and love. The text is considered as one of the finest works of the Tamil literature
Did you know that Plato talked about a place called "the world of ideas" (ὁ κόσμος τῶν ἰδεῶν) where the perfect "forms" of everything existed and where reason and science originated from? The word idea is directly from Greek ἰδέα, and the word ideal means he/she/it that is in the world of ideas. Fascinating.
Viewing these philosophy videos, I came to realize, Philosophy and classical music have something in coming: Everything is awesome... They have the same natural frequency...
I think you have the form of making incredible youtube videos. Fantastic work thank you for this video. One of the best youtube videos I have ever seen.
Thank you for the video, it gives Plato's ideas very accurately in a nutshell (along with the allegory of cave). I'd also love to see you guys' interpretation of Plotinus and his works!
8 років тому
Do a video on Dr. Laurence J. Peter? I think his thoughts would be good for this channel.
may I request a video about a topic? I often think to myself that if I thought less, perhaps life would be easier. Though, "thinking too much." or "overthinking" is every philosophers' worst insult, every philosopher should know that in a way, it is kinda true. what do you think?
The problem with Forms is that one may lose the ability to accept things the way they are, because ultimately there will always be room to improve what you've got. Therefore, we must all learn to, while keeping in mind what ideals we should head to, learn to enjoy things as they are at present, independently from how far they may be from our ideals.
As a software developer, I would like to say that Plato is right , the day when we use Forms in programming (aka Classes & Objects) everything becomes easier & more far better than before .
+The School of Life ; please bring out a video about Socrates; there's not much written about him, but in Plato's The Apology we see a quite distinct philosophy and approach. I know you did mention the Socratic method in The Allegory of the Cave, but come on, there's much more to say about the method.
Well, this ignores some of the more important problems with Plato's Forms, for instance that they are not really supposed to have their basis in human purposes or to be found with the help of experience: "Instead of the purpose of the tool, [Plato] talks of the Form or εἶδος of the tool; and this Form is something which we are supposed to apprehend telepathically, without any means of doing so. We are explicitly forbidden to learn from experience what form a shuttle should take: 'If his shuttle breaks as he is making it, will he in making another look to the broken one, or to that Form to which he also looked in making the broken one? To the Form, I think' (389A)." - Robinson, R. 1956. A criticism of Plato's Cratylus
Thanks School of Life, this is a great video. I felt inspired because I have always been in conflict with having a "form" . As you mentioned we should look at the philosophy and plato know what the form for friendships, marriages etc.. I am interested in where can we find these forms ?
+Liandra Bassiane: We "get" the Forms by exploring, reflecting on, and explicitly recognizing different levels of our experience . . . since all of Reality and our experience of it is implicitly en-Formed by them. There are physical Forms . . . intellectual Forms (overly emphasized in this video) . . . emotional Forms . . . and so on. Each of these can be "touched" or "tasted" both implicitly (like "something" that you recognize as a taste in a cake) . . . and explicitly (like recognizing that the "something" is "chocolate").
+Liandra Bassiane Hi there Liandra! I would highly recommend you the book " The Consolations of Philosophy", it is written by Alain de Botton, the founder of this channel. If you search on youtube for " Status Anxiety", you will find his other youtube channel, where you can find documentaries about all six philosophers he wrote about in that book. You can also subscribe to the website " The Book of Life" which is the brain of this channel. The articles there give you guidance on anything you can imagine! Best wishes!
You should also have mentioned that Plato argues that every element in our life is and can only be a copy of those forms, those perfect ideas that we look to. The forms belong to the hyperuranion, while their copies belong to our physical world. He thus accepted the intrinsic imperfection of human nature, which invariably reflects in our societies.
+Mrcharrio There is no right or wrong. One may think the ideal mother would be tough and hard working while another may think the ideal mother to be kind and forgiving. Either way they should strive to be the best mother in there mind.
Knowledge - opinion Ideal - actual Form - appearance There's is always a "best" that's need to be achieve, Plato described Socrates as a knowledge person and others have opinions.
So, this video actually does not explain Plato's idea of the forms. Like many of the videos on this site, it explains one persons very watered down version of what they think this is about.
You forgot to mention how the forms were "universal" and (plato believed) that everyone had the same understanding of a form (he was against relativism).
3:29 Actually, in Plato's Republic, Socrates says that to govern a society, one must not be ambitious, but wise and true to oneself to achieve happiness. When an idea is not idealistic enough, the philosopher must be wise and true in depicting the forms in a more idealistic way. It is not about ambition.
Great video but I am confused. What makes something ideal is very subjective so if you don't really know what really is the ideal, how do you aim for the form?
+Shuheng Zhang: The answer to such a general question is itself general: you discover the Forms by exploring your experience of Reality . . . since all of Reality is en-Formed by the Forms.
The forms for Plato were actually metaphisical objects in a metaphisical world called Hyperuranion. The matter in our world exists because the forms take parte in his existence. The forms were actually a metaphisical theory. Sorry if I made some grammatical errors but I'm not anglophone.
I just searched for information on the wooden forms/templates used by stone masons or cutters for consistently carving the column capitals, and I found nothing to substantiate what the video suggested Plato had in mind. Can anyone cite a source?
This vid highlights my basic issues with Platonism by its absence; How does one test the concept and potentially falsify an ideal anything? How do we know a potential ideal is indeed congruent with reality? Who determines what is or is not "ideal"? For me, "ideal" is completely subjective; what one considers to be ideal another might consider the worse construct imaginable. Congruence with reality is NOT subjective, but objective and falsifiable, to which Plato seemed to be curiously blind. No where does he ever mention that any ideal has to be measured against reality, nor does he ever test any of his own ideals. For all his genius, and I do consider him to be a genius, Plato's basic flaw was assuming that reaching a conclusion via reasoned debate was superior to demonstrating a conclusion via objective evidence.
I think this video doesn't really grasp Plato's concept. Plato thought that Forms were real things... actually residing somewhere beyond our world. And everything in this world of ours is just a faint emanation of those Forms. And there is even the Form of the Good, where all these Forms emanate from - the closest thing Plato has to a God.
Plato's Forms were almost mystical entities. I understand that this video tries to be practical, but it really removes a lot of weight from the concept.
I totally agree with you La Serpiente! I am thinking of making a video on my channel Elevated & Meaningful where I discuss the spiritual dimension of Plato's Forms. I don't like that this has been left out. Maybe I will make a video out of our discussion together because I would still like to enhance my understanding of what Plato was trying to get at actually. What do you think?
Do you know what is the true practical application of the forms? What types of forms are there? I mean, is there a form of a rock? Or a Bed? Or forms of the compositions of each of these, and are there forms of non physical things? Like love or speed? How do we classify the forms and of what use is this for us?
Ricard De Virgo good question. There are schools of thought such as Plato's Forms that presupposes if there is a thing that exists in this world, let's call it beauty, then there is the "IDEAL" beauty that exists which is reality because it doesn't die. The beauty we know of in this world is but a reflection of the "IDEAL" beauty, that if it wasn't for the "IDEAL" true beauty, then we would never would have come to know of beauty in the first place. So this is what I understand. As for your question of practical application, to be quite frank, the practical application is but a reflection of the true reality. Things in this world allude to the existence of a world that doesn't pass away and die. We know of beauty as something that dies, decays, etc but the reality of beauty doesn't. So the practical application would always fall short in describing the reality of anything that is of the "Forms" according to my understanding. Does this make sense?
Elevated & Meaningful Yes!! It does!! The forms are the archetypes of all that exists. They are non physical, eternal and perfect. Not bound to time and space, and only comprehensible by the intellect. The thing is that I want t understand the practical application of platonism to my everyday life. For example, I'm a big fan of the stoics... I basically read all of them: Musonius Rufus, Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The aim of life for the stoics is the happy life, by understanding that only virtue is good, only vice is bad and everything else is indifferent. From here they developed a very big system in how to carry on with life with tranquility. But... My personality goes more with things I can grasp with my intellect, not just psychological techniques. That is why I was interested in platonism. For example, a platonist, in order to obtain a happy and tranquil life: Ataraxia and Apatheia, what would they do? I read that the union with the supreme Good, or the form of the good is the only way to be happy. But how to I obtain it? How do I have to see the world in order to find tranquility? Because many talk about the theory of forms, but not of how to use the forms to obtain absolute joy.
youre right. but minus the crazy mystical metaphysics his teachings become practical. if anyone wants to appreciate the metaphysics they can go read his teachings.
Plato referred to the world of ideas.A metaphysical world where perfection exists. (Perfect ideas,perfect shapes etc)
This perception of the supernatural was argued by Aristotle.
That's why in the famous painting where the two philosophers walk in to the academy,Plato points up to the sky and Aristotle place his hand horizontally to the ground.
σωστοςςςςς
Screwyouguysimgoinghome I agree
What about the combination of both ideas?
I wonder what Form a sex toy 'participates' in?
Oh, my son, that is not what it means at all, but it's a reasonable interpretation nonetheless.
As above, so below.
I love Plato. In a platonic way...
lol
Cheeky
I love Plato. Intimately...
Fruity
i love u
I get so excited whenever you do anything Plato
ikr !!
+ernietessein Aristotle is more better :P
same!
+ernietessein Same here!
+Connor Verlekar "more better"
Wow, so Plato is asserting that ideas are as real as we are and that we can abandon or rebuild beliefs that we no longer feel fit the ideal. This is a powerful tool to understanding our minds and guiding us towards truth and understanding in life.
I always have seen form as the goal. This thing that you strive to be, even if it is not possible in your life time. To work for anything that is not your goal is counter productive. To use every moment to push towards your goal, regardless of your personal advantage, is ideal. Having the courage to remove the part of your old goal that does not serve your ideal end, is progress. The end is now clearer in sight, and you have further perfected the goal. With the misconception behind you, the ideal is more real. With a clearer form you more competently complete. This philosophy is stated before Plato, but I love the way he put it.
A very optimistic philosopher. We need more of these in our world today!
Karl Popper kicked your ass!
Sup plato??
+Plato was pessimist.
+Vivek Yadav That was what I was thinking! Scepticism and all
+Ross Brannigan Skepticism is not pessimism and vice versa. Schopenhauer and the Buddha were pre-eminent pessimists but had clear views on human nature (as well as metaphysics for the latter).
*THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM*
+Jack St john lmao
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Haha, Good one.
Frieeeeeeeezaaaaaaa
It wasn't really mentioned in this video but I feel a very important part about Plato's forms is that he thought we were born with them. And in that sense you really come to regard them less as our own mental things we are striving towards, but rather things that exist in their own right that we have some idea of.
I think Thomas Aquinas would say we are born with the faculty for understanding forms.
Exactly. This video reduced the forms to some kind of set of ideals we hold in our mind and then impress upon the world. Somehow the author (I'm pretty sure it Alain de Botton so no suprises there -the man really is clueless) has managed to reduce the Platonic forms to what sounds a bit like Kantianism🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂
Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it. ~Dalí
+Tjaša Zaletelj Even Augustus said that?
+Tjaša Zaletelj If you have no fear of perfection than what's the harm in discussing it?
+Hides inMud There's no fear at all. I posted this quote because I think it maybe comes from Plato's philosophy. Perfection or form is just (and can only be) in our minds, we can never reach it phisically. We have the idea or form of a perfect sphere for instance but we can never make it, but that should not make us stop trying and getting as close as possible :)
+Hides inMud There's no fear at all. I posted this quote because I think it maybe comes from Plato's philosophy. Perfection or form is just (and can only be) in our minds, we can never reach it phisically. We have the idea or form of a perfect sphere for instance but we can never make it, but that should not make us stop trying and getting as close as possible :)
+Connor Verlekar When I came across this quote Dalí was stated as an author, but do correct me if I'm wrong.
Nobody has ever seen a perfect circle or a perfectly straight line in nature. And once Euclid et al. began to think about this non-physical ealm of perfect forms and their relationships, abstract thinking (& mathematics) began to take-off. Plato is applying the same, newly-discovered, strategy.
In school, one of the sillier ways to talk about Plato is to say that he "believed in the existence of ideal forms." However if students write this in their notebooks and remember that "Plato believed . . ." they add these Greek philosophers to a long list of people in history what had "beliefs." Plato was reporting an exciting "if . . .then" discovery about thinking that (powerfully) always worked. Good job, School of Life: this improves the standard sound bite history lectures.
It is a very wise advice from you to say that we all need to have as many forms in mind as we possibly can!
I think for this, the character trait we need the most is " curiosity". Because if we want to know, the forms are everywhere. Take any subject from this lesson: Friendship. You can begin searching from 2300 years ago. Aristoteles has a whole chapter about how a friendship should be in his Nicomachean Ethics. You can start from there, and then you have the entire history of world literature and philosophy, arts and music ( so many wonderful songs about friendship) that you can apply to! So every beautiful story, every great song or movie, every painting or poem on the subject can make that form "clearer" to you. You can create your own template of the "ideal friendship" as a result of this beautiful searching adventure.
We must also look around a lot, to find the admirable sides of people we come across with. There is nothing wrong with having "role models". They are like "living forms" I would say. Of course you must learn NOT to expect too much from them, since they are also only human beings. But it is a very noble thing to do, to look for the "virtues" in wiser people and to try to integrate those virtues into our lives.
For example I have this friend from Ethiopia. She used to work in an internet-cafe 12 hours a day seven days a week, but she was such an incredibly patient and kind person. I have never seen her angry despite all the stress she was having with all sorts of people on that place. People get mad if something on their computer doesn't work, or if the connection is slow or if they can't print this or that...My friend would solve any problem, but she would always keep calm and take her time, while at the same time joking with those who were complaining, but always in a very friendly and warm hearted way. So she is definitely one of my role models when it comes to imagining" a form of kindness and resilience".
So as I am saying, if we are curious enough and have our eyes open, it is not a big deal to fill our heads with forms and templates and ideals, which is a much more exciting and enthusiastic way of living. The difficulty is to keep them "always" in mind and have the perseverance in wanting to live by them. But this is the only way worth living.
By the way, for all friends who want to apply philosophy for this and don't know where to begin with, I highly recommend Alain de Botton's excellent book " The Consolations of Philosophy". ( He is the founder of this channel). You can also watch the documentaries he made about the six philosophers we encounter in that book: Socrates, Nietzsche, Montaigne, Seneca, Epicurus, Schopenhauer. They are all on youtube!
Thank you for this wonderful lesson as always!
+Lua Veli Great advice!
+Соɾу ℛ.
Hello again Cory! I hope you are doing very well. Thanks a lot for reading. I wish you a wonderful week:-)
+Lua Veli Thank you Lua Veli, I read your comments and i think it is really wonderful. Furthermore, I thank you for all the names that you recommended because i am a new learner in philosophy :). Thank you Lua Veli!
+Bimo Antonio
Hello there Bimo! Thanks a lot for reading and for your lovely message. It is wonderful that you are such a curious person. You know, I once wrote a little list for another friend who was asking for websites, sources etc. to learn intersting staff, so I thought I will just copy-paste it for you . I hope you find it useful.
I send you my best wishes too.
So here is the list:
1. The founder of this channel Alain de Botton has another youtube
channel, where you can find his documentaries. All of them have a life changing quality.
2. Wisecrack and " In a Nutshell"are good too.
3. I recommend you three great websites you could subscribe:
-The Book of Life ( then brain of this channel)
-Open Culture ( there you really have everything! From free E-Books , to
online classes from Top Universities. On any subject you want.)
-Brain Pickings ( Maria Popova's incredible blog. That place is a gold
mine. )
For art check this one:
-Art as Therapy ( wonderful website launched by Alain and John
Armstrong)
4. And here are three podcasts where you can learn a lot:
-Radiolab
- The 7th Avenue Project
- On Being with Krista Tippett
Thank you so much for the recommendation. I will make sure that i check it out. Thank you so much for sharing your sources with me, you have no idea how grateful i am to see this :) I hope i can repay you someday, If i may i would like to have a conversations with you in the journey of pursuing my knowledge. In the meantime i will consume some wisdom for my curious mind:)
Wonderful! As a philosophical platonist, this was a very nice explanation of the Forms by the inventor of Western philosophy.
Plato's philosophy always resonates profoundly with me.
+Paul Hill: That's right. There are different kinds of Forms: physical . . . emotional . . . intellectual . . . and so on. By over-emphasizing intellectual Forms, this video makes it too easy for people to think that all Forms are mental abstractions.
Since I started watching your videos a couple of mounths back now, you have been leading myself to have the belief that forms/teplates/other words are needed, but until now I couldn't really name it, and now a day or two since your upload and I can't stop thinking about the 'forms'
Great work!
The reason or the very notion why people lean towards a realization of being content with the way things are (being content in a manner which is progressive yet not so dependent on the goal of the ideal state), is because the weight of letdowns or failure from that ideal state is crushing. I think your video on Wisdom will be supportive to my argument
Can you do "philosophy : David Hume"?
Understanding Plato's idea of forms is actually useful if you're into computer programming, you need to be able to understand things on an abstract level and break them down into their most fundamental pieces. For instance, a car has fundamental properties like wheels, an engine, seats, and so on, but your specific car may have red paint and a V8 engine with a dent on the fender. Knowing this you can program a template class Car and use that to derive any form of a car you wish.
Every time you reach "perfection", "perfection" moves a little further. Asymptotal reality huh?
damn maybe zeno was right
The Goodness makes you always on the road
Yes! Burke really explores this in his discussions on purity
The School of Life is on form
+Béat Tune On to the point.
Béat Tune underrated comment
yaaaaasssssss
Thanks for doing this video! A great addition to the School of Life collection, and an important aspect of idealism that we forget all too often.
Superb animation: you made Plato dance.
I asked you like 6 months ago, and you replied yes, but I must ask again, can you please do a video on Erich Fromm!? Thanks!
share more philosophies of plate.. its great
the way you explain
To ppl learning Plato: This is just one way of understanding Plato's Forms. In this vid they argue that Plato's Forms (which is his metaphysical system) show us pure, formal concepts of things. The Forms are a lot more than that, but this is one important feature !
I would honestly do anything to have a week-long conversation with Plato.
Imagine u get that opportunity but realize he speaks an entirely different language
@@coltongannon4818 HAHAH shit! the utter dissapointment
@@coltongannon4818 I mean, he kinda did
@@coltongannon4818 easy spent years learning old greek
I'll join you. In my view, he connects the transcendental to the earthly.
" i despise perfection , it is the doom which marks the end of betterment, evolution, change, challenge, and everything that we hate and love . but , absolutely would love to define ourselves with . what is there to live for in a perfect world . perfection is what we should all work towards , hopping that we never attain it . "
the perfect world is deeply grim & disturbingly dark .
it is something that i would never want to attain. But , something that i would always love to work towards .☺
Are you still alive.
Love your comment.
A video on Max Stirner? That would be very, very awesome.
oh wow! You guys made me realize something big. thank you thank you bless your beautiful hearts!
oh yea. Vote for bernie sanders!
Amo este canal, hace falta un canal así para hispanohablantes
si.... son muy necesarios... donde estan?
I am a teacher of mathematics and philosophy. when I teach, I use quotations from the great philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, Rambam, ETC.)
Most of my students hate when I use Plato for my arguments, because “His ideas are not for the modern world”. I feel that us philosophers need to sugarcoat ideas; So that no one will be offended by it. Yet Plato has an answer for this. Every human is born within the cave, seeing illusions of things. Yet some will escape, and they would share their ideas to all. People will not understand, but it’s what it is.
This is the job of philosophers.
I love how you bring still images to life.
:)
I love this channel. It helps people get interested in
philosophy.
i've been teaching philosophy for some years now and i've never seen such a simple and concrete way to present the concept of form... thank you. would you be nice also if you do a video on the reasons that explain why some philosophers criticize this concept and feel the need to define themselve against plato
+pierrot monami: Then you obviously know almost nothing about Plato. This video is a very mediocre attempt at conveying an understanding of the Forms . . .
+pierrot monami Hey, do you have some ideas on why some philosophers criticize this concept
+Liandra Bassiane i would like to be able to express them with the same simplicity as they do on art of life, but i am not able to do it for now. i was thinking about philosophers like Nietzsche and Deleuze, who think that the way Plato defined forms necessarily brings him to the condemnation of the "sensible world', the world 'of life'... Plato's philosophy would be a "discontented" philosophy
+greenrate you're welcome to put a link to a vid that would be a better attempt, in your opinion
Plato's Essentialism (Philosophy of Forms) is contradictory to modern Existentialist philosophers because Plato claims the true forms are unchangeable, sacred and infinite.Thus the true human form would be something that is eternal and unchangeable.Existentialists like Sartre,Kirkegaard,Camus... hate the idea of something stable and unaltered that has no room for development
I heard from a Philosophy prof that Plato's idea of ‘forms’ was more than a thought-experiment, and that Plato really believed they existed out there somewhere.
That's interesting and so fascinating!
Replacing the word ideal to the forms seems to give more meaning and a boarder sense of thinking.
I find it very interesting that this channel does not go into Plato's actual philosophy on the forms but sticks to the Atheist abstraction of Plato's philosophy on it. They refuse to include the fact that Plato actually saw this world as an illusion and that the forms are the true reality. He believed that these forms do actually exist in a spiritual universe. But, you would never know that because The School of Life willfully denies facts to make Plato sound more useful to the Atheist agenda.
John you raise an interesting point! I have notice this similar language used in my classes. I am an undergraduate Philosopher at UC Davis here in California. I am also noticing that the language straight away avoids spiritual concepts as you say in your comment above. I too am most attracted to Plato's concept of the forms with regards to the spiritual reality. Plato was a genius for his time. Plato's explanation of the forms has opened my eyes to what is possible even though there may not be sufficient evidence or ways to describe whatever we seek. I think that most of reality is indescribable but for some reason, despite its undescribablity, humanity, nevertheless, is able to function and progress. This is a way to look at the world, that we don't need to have evidence for everything otherwise life would be quite miserable and boring, to say the least. I hope to use this idea of Plato's forms and add the spiritual dimension to it.
Most western religions sprang up because of Platonic thought, including Christianity. C.S. Lewis, a 20th century Christian writer considered himself a neo-Platonist. Yet, a thousand years before, Eastern Orthodoxy used Platonism to flesh out their theology and clear up "confusion".
I would like to know where you get your facts from Ooger
Elevated & Meaningful he's not wrong though. Most Christian philosophers have a deep love for plato and attribute this form world as being an attribute of God by including an intellect to the world of ideals. Augustine, Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton all use much of plato
Elevated & Meaningful Fact is, you're thousands of years late to this game. Some have referred to Christianity as pop-Platonism.
References?
Here's a starting point: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism_and_Christianity
In addition, the New Testament, CS Lewis (he called himself a platonist in his writings), John Davidson - The Gospel of Jesus (which is a thorough overview of Gnostic theology), Bertrand Russell - history of western philosophy (for the broad strokes), Alvar Ellegard - Jesus: 100 BC (which has great discussion on the syncretism of hellenistic, jewish worldviews to create gnosticism and christianity).
Also, google for a bunch of articles echoing points like this based upon centuries of research and common academic knowledge.
I mean, seriously, WTF are they teaching you at UC Davis? I don't even have a philosophy degree. I just read.
this is not what i understood from a philosophy book about Plato.. i thought he is saying that anything we see there is the better version of it in the world of forms. he says that we feel there is a better version of anything because we have been in the world of forms. our soul Plato says. he says its an innate. and here where Aristotle disagrees with him. im really confused i need help from a philosopher
Hey Mansour! I have some ideas about what Plato was thinking maybe we can have a conversation and see where it leads us both! I am still learning about such themes that I am interested in a lot! What do you say?
You are right. This channel is basically humanist propaganda that tries to hide anything too metaphysical or abstract.
maybe the better or the perfect version of things are already in our mind.
Catherine Murphy
You can't perfect what's in your head because it's already perfect. I think plato is trying to tell us not to worry ourselves with worldly things because they will never be perfect; they are a mere imperfect reflection of the forms. So when you work your ass off trying to make a table but it instead ends up looking like a chair, don't stress yourself because it was never meant to be perfect.
i think humanist propaganda is actually one kind of propaganda i actually feel great about lol
Dear Alain de Bottonm ,i am fan of your work and voice .I Have request for you please have a look into Thiruvalluvar a famous Tamil poet and philosopher .He is best known for Thirukkuṛaḷ, a collection of couplets on ethics, political and economical matters, and love. The text is considered as one of the finest works of the Tamil literature
In such a distorted world this theory is genius… everyone should be grateful for his contribution
there's no ideal form for things, but there's the best form possible for things, so we can count it as an ideal and work by that.
Thank you for explaining why referring to classical ideals is still useful today.
Did you know that Plato talked about a place called "the world of ideas" (ὁ κόσμος τῶν ἰδεῶν) where the perfect "forms" of everything existed and where reason and science originated from? The word idea is directly from Greek ἰδέα, and the word ideal means he/she/it that is in the world of ideas. Fascinating.
Please present more of what plato believed on this too. Don't just pick through his beliefs and take what you want
Viewing these philosophy videos, I came to realize, Philosophy and classical music have something in coming: Everything is awesome... They have the same natural frequency...
I think you have the form of making incredible youtube videos. Fantastic work thank you for this video. One of the best youtube videos I have ever seen.
Thank you for the video, it gives Plato's ideas very accurately in a nutshell (along with the allegory of cave). I'd also love to see you guys' interpretation of Plotinus and his works!
Do a video on Dr. Laurence J. Peter? I think his thoughts would be good for this channel.
Thank-you School of Life.
may I request a video about a topic? I often think to myself that if I thought less, perhaps life would be easier. Though, "thinking too much." or "overthinking" is every philosophers' worst insult, every philosopher should know that in a way, it is kinda true. what do you think?
Love your channel. Beautiful, intriguing, and charming videos.
thinking of the opposite of the ideal form also has its uses; in fact, its the entire basis for lateral thinking
+Greg Moberg It can help you in determining what IS ideal
the great minds of the past. may God rest their souls!
The problem with Forms is that one may lose the ability to accept things the way they are, because ultimately there will always be room to improve what you've got. Therefore, we must all learn to, while keeping in mind what ideals we should head to, learn to enjoy things as they are at present, independently from how far they may be from our ideals.
@Mihlali Mahala this is a great counter argument
whoa very cool. Thanks for this explanation School of Life. I heard about "the forms" but never really understood it until now.
Yaaaay more philosophy!! Thank u School of Life!!!
Heck yeah!
As a software developer, I would like to say that Plato is right , the day when we use Forms in programming (aka Classes & Objects) everything becomes easier & more far better than before .
In a Plato sense a business or company should be encouraged to apply this idea as well
Why I'm proud to be an idealist, and why I will never apologize for it.
+deathschool91 Aristotle doesn't think so.
+The School of Life ; please bring out a video about Socrates; there's not much written about him, but in Plato's The Apology we see a quite distinct philosophy and approach. I know you did mention the Socratic method in The Allegory of the Cave, but come on, there's much more to say about the method.
I agree with Plato fully. Many people in our decedent sociaty have no idea what they want, and they have a lot of troubles with this.
This is the only thing that is getting me through A2 Philosophy and Ethics, I owe you my life x
Was reading about this idea of Plato's while reading a book by Richard Dawkins. Interesting ideas.
I would have liked to meet Plato in person
Thanks for Portuguese subtitles, cc.
Well, this ignores some of the more important problems with Plato's Forms, for instance that they are not really supposed to have their basis in human purposes or to be found with the help of experience:
"Instead of the purpose of the tool, [Plato] talks of the Form or εἶδος of the tool; and this Form is something which we are supposed to apprehend telepathically, without any means of doing so. We are explicitly forbidden to learn from experience what form a shuttle should take: 'If his shuttle breaks as he is making it, will he in making another look to the broken one, or to that Form to which he also looked in making the broken one? To the Form, I think' (389A)." - Robinson, R. 1956. A criticism of Plato's Cratylus
Thanks School of Life, this is a great video. I felt inspired because I have always been in conflict with having a "form" . As you mentioned we should look at the philosophy and plato know what the form for friendships, marriages etc.. I am interested in where can we find these forms ?
+Liandra Bassiane: We "get" the Forms by exploring, reflecting on, and explicitly recognizing different levels of our experience . . . since all of Reality and our experience of it is implicitly en-Formed by them. There are physical Forms . . . intellectual Forms (overly emphasized in this video) . . . emotional Forms . . . and so on. Each of these can be "touched" or "tasted" both implicitly (like "something" that you recognize as a taste in a cake) . . . and explicitly (like recognizing that the "something" is "chocolate").
+Liandra Bassiane
Hi there Liandra! I would highly recommend you the book " The Consolations of Philosophy", it is written by Alain de Botton, the founder of this channel. If you search on youtube for " Status Anxiety", you will find his other youtube channel, where you can find documentaries about all six philosophers he wrote about in that book. You can also subscribe to the website " The Book of Life" which is the brain of this channel. The articles there give you guidance on anything you can imagine! Best wishes!
Really makes me feel better about myself
You should also have mentioned that Plato argues that every element in our life is and can only be a copy of those forms, those perfect ideas that we look to. The forms belong to the hyperuranion, while their copies belong to our physical world. He thus accepted the intrinsic imperfection of human nature, which invariably reflects in our societies.
This was a very nice explanation, thank you!
I just love the Yellow backround something about it. Dont ever change it! Great Informational Video!
Lovely. I often have a hard time explaining this. Now I can just show them this video. Thank you!❤
+Haseebullah Khan That applies to most of their videos.
Oh my god i really needed to listen to this *right now*. Thank you very much school of life!
Who's Ideal?
Yours or mine, since we have vastly different opinions of such
Who is right and who is wrong?
+Mrcharrio There is no right or wrong. One may think the ideal mother would be tough and hard working while another may think the ideal mother to be kind and forgiving. Either way they should strive to be the best mother in there mind.
Knowledge - opinion
Ideal - actual
Form - appearance
There's is always a "best" that's need to be achieve, Plato described Socrates as a knowledge person and others have opinions.
So, this video actually does not explain Plato's idea of the forms. Like many of the videos on this site, it explains one persons very watered down version of what they think this is about.
Yay! Thank you for doing more of these types of videos!
Mr.Allain de bottom and the school of life.
I want you to do an episode on jiddu krishnamurthi.
Is the drawing of the large building with inner courtyard at the end of the video of a real building? Does it have a name? It's beautiful.
You forgot to mention how the forms were "universal" and (plato believed) that everyone had the same understanding of a form (he was against relativism).
Sam E TU
3:29 Actually, in Plato's Republic, Socrates says that to govern a society, one must not be ambitious, but wise and true to oneself to achieve happiness. When an idea is not idealistic enough, the philosopher must be wise and true in depicting the forms in a more idealistic way. It is not about ambition.
it is very close to my concept of the human and the being
Was that Thomas Moore's Utopy at the end? Maybe you should make a video on Utopies, but do what you like, you always amaze me!
Great video but I am confused. What makes something ideal is very subjective so if you don't really know what really is the ideal, how do you aim for the form?
+Shuheng Zhang ahh i feel the same
+Shuheng Zhang: The answer to such a general question is itself general: you discover the Forms by exploring your experience of Reality . . . since all of Reality is en-Formed by the Forms.
Excellent video to kick the Friday on.
Keep on doing the great work!
THANK GOD? FOR THIS CHANNEL!
ma'am i am here to figure out a summary of plato's forms and the more i learn the more confused i get but maybe it's the point?
very useful and concise video. awesome.
Why are you divorcing Plato from metaphysics?
wah! refreshing, often when distance to the form is quite large, it feels like the dark ages
The forms for Plato were actually metaphisical objects in a metaphisical world called Hyperuranion. The matter in our world exists because the forms take parte in his existence. The forms were actually a metaphisical theory.
Sorry if I made some grammatical errors but I'm not anglophone.
I just searched for information on the wooden forms/templates used by stone masons or cutters for consistently carving the column capitals, and I found nothing to substantiate what the video suggested Plato had in mind. Can anyone cite a source?
This vid highlights my basic issues with Platonism by its absence; How does one test the concept and potentially falsify an ideal anything? How do we know a potential ideal is indeed congruent with reality? Who determines what is or is not "ideal"?
For me, "ideal" is completely subjective; what one considers to be ideal another might consider the worse construct imaginable.
Congruence with reality is NOT subjective, but objective and falsifiable, to which Plato seemed to be curiously blind. No where does he ever mention that any ideal has to be measured against reality, nor does he ever test any of his own ideals.
For all his genius, and I do consider him to be a genius, Plato's basic flaw was assuming that reaching a conclusion via reasoned debate was superior to demonstrating a conclusion via objective evidence.
The greatest metaphysical enquiry of all time....
Woot! Back to philosophy vids! It is Plato too. You can't go wrong with vids about Plato.
Could you guys do a video on Henri Poincare? I think it would it definitely be interesting to see!
School of Life should do a video about the ideal government .
This is, absolutely wonderful.
What does Plato think is required for an adequate definition of a concept?
Is the picture at 2.24 coming from a Vietnamese classroom?