Epistemological Theory of Forms
Plato presents a serious critique of his theory of forms in the first part of the Parmenides. He invites us to improve his theory by illustrating its weaknesses. Many of the absurd consequences that Parmenides finds stem from claims of existence. If one interprets Plato's theory of forms as fundamentally an epistemological theory, many of the problematic claims would either be false descriptions of the theory or their consequences would be more plausible.
The first problems that Parmenides finds with forms is due to their existence as objects of quantity. At 131b-c, Parmenides illustrates the problems that arise if when things participate in a form, they take a “share,” or quantity, of the form. If this is the case, it seems obvious that objects will not be able to participate in the whole form, because one form would exist in many separate objects. Alternatively, things would participate in part of the forms and the forms would be divisible and finite. In this sense, objects would get a share of the forms themselves. The features and characteristics of the objects would be one and the same as the features and characteristics of the forms themselves. This is why Parmenides is able to make the problematic claims that an object that participates in the small will get a share that is smaller than small itself, and that equal objects are only partly equal because they get only part of the form of equal.
If the forms have no finite quantity in the same way as knowledge, then objects would not participate in either part of or the entirety of the form. Instead, it is possible that either part of or the whole object would participate in a form. It is possible to measure the quantity of blue light waves that an object reflects, and say that the object is blue insofar as the amount of blue light waves it reflects. The form of blue could be a distinct concept, the features of which we could compare to the object's own features.
Parmenides finds an infinite regress of forms as a result of the idea that we compare the form as a thought (or concept) with objects. He argues that if the mind's eye sees an object as participating in the form of large, we must know another form of large so that we can compare the lesser form to the object (132a). If this were an accurate description of knowledge, then we would never be able to learn new concepts.
If an individual has knowledge of a form (as a concept), objects could participate in the form when the individual sees similarities between the two. Just like comparing two portraits to see if they portray the same individual, a person can compare his/her knowledge to an object and see if it is the same concept. There need not be a third photograph of the actual person to see that it is the same individual, and a new form need not arise to understand that a concept is the same as its object.
There are two possible ways that we come to learn new concepts. It is possible that knowledge of forms could be, as Plato suggests in the Republic, inherent in us since birth. This easily allows for a type of realism, because forms are universal truths about the world. Objects would come to be as we come to know them as images of those forms, insofar as we can understand the similarities, or insofar as the objects match up with a form.
It is also possible that we come to know the forms by extracting concepts from the outside world. We would necessarily learn the forms through our subjective lenses and refine them with pure reason. An individual would not need prior knowledge to discover the truth of an object. He/she would be able to observe features of an object and then form a concept. An individual who has extracted a form (either a rough image or the whole form) from a specific object could then use that knowledge to recognize other instances of the same form. An invention would be discovered through pure reasoning. For example, an individual would first discover the form (as a concept) of a boat, then see a log as an instantiation of a boat, or a pile of wood and nails as a possible instantiation of a future boat. In this case, the individual did not discover the form by extracting it from the outside world, but by reasoning to it from knowledge that was originally extracted from the outside world.
It might seem that this notion of Plato's forms is not very different than some contemporary realists' notion of true knowledge. This theory and the realist both suggest that we gain knowledge about the outside world through observation and reasoning, and that true knowledge is universal (but in different senses). This theory has a unique notion of truth. A belief would not be true simply to the degree that a person's knowledge mimics the outside world. Instead, there are two conditions that decide truth. A belief is true to the degree that the knower's concept is complete (or, how much of the form the knower is aware of), and to the degree that the object mimics the person's knowledge. This is an important reversal of the former conception of truth. It entails that a person actually makes an object what it is by believing it is something.
If objects come to be as an individual comes to understand them as instantiations of a form, someone might argue that it seems ridiculous that we make objects what they are by our beliefs about the object. This theory would admit that if a child has accurate knowledge about rocket-ships and whole-heartedly believes that a TV box is a rocket-ship, it is in fact some sort of rocket-ship. It would be, however, a very poor instantiation of a rocket-ship. If the child's mother walks in and tells her child that it is just a box, the same object would then be both a rocket-ship and a box. This theory would argue that the box has come to be both a box and a pitiful rocket-ship, and that both instantiations are not mutually exclusive. The object is of course just a pile of meaningless stuff when left unconvinced.
The theory that Plato's forms exist as knowledge instead of metaphysical objects may be a rather different interpretation than Plato intended. Nevertheless, it seems to solve many of the problems that Parmenides finds with other interpretations. None of the consequences I have found are fatal, although they are a little strange. Since absolute truth lies within us and not in the outside world, we need not search every corner of the universe to gain complete knowledge of the world. Instead, we must discover every possible reasonable concept.
