a) Explain Plato’s Form of the Good

Plato believed that the world we around us is an illusion, and that everyday things that we take for granted are merely weak imitations of the true object behind it. He believed that behind every earthly object, and every earthly concept (e.g. beauty), there is an unearthly truth; a perfect version. He believed that there was a place where everything that is, has been, or ever will be in existence in kept, and that is how we know that a pen is a pen, a chair is a chair. This he believed, was the only possible explanation to the philosophical question: ‘What makes a thing, the thing that it is?’

Plato believed in the soul- the only part of a human that yields any importance or relevance. He believed that it was once, (before we were born), free to roam the World of the Forms, and now that it is in our world, held prisoner in our bodies, it longs to go back. Whilst I in the World of Forms, the soul had access to true knowledge, and everything that we ‘know’ today, is just remembering what we have already learnt.

Forms are placed in a Hierarchy, the Form of the Good, being the most important. It is central to the existence of our entire Universe and without it there would be no perfect beauty, no perfect justice, no perfect anything. It structures each form, giving it its own characteristics.

Plato used an analogy to explain his theories. He told people of a cave, where there is a row of men, chained up, facing the back wall. Behind them is a stage with actors and behind them a fire, casting shadows of the actors on to the wall of the cave. Because these men have been there their whole lives, these shadows are the only reality they know. They have grown to accept these shadows as what is real. A man breaks free of his chains, and gets outside. At first he is blinded by the overwhelming light of the