Plato

His approach is related to his theory of Forms. A beautiful flower, for example, is a copy or imitation of the universal Forms "flowerness" and "beauty."

The physical flower is one step removed from reality, that is, the Forms.

A picture of the flower is, therefore, two steps removed from reality.

This also meant that the artist is two steps removed from knowledge, and, indeed, Plato's frequent criticism of the artists is that they lack genuine knowledge of what they are doing.

Artistic creation, Plato observed, seems to be rooted in a kind of inspired madness.

Plato's influence throughout the history of philosophy has been monumental.

When he died, Speusippus became head of the Academy. The school continued in existence until AD 529, when it was closed by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, who objected to its pagan teachings.

Plato's impact on Jewish thought is apparent in the work of the 1st-century Alexandrian philosopher Philo Judaeus.

Neoplatonism, founded by the 3rd-century philosopher important later development of Platonism.

The theologians Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and St. Augustine were early Christian exponents of a Platonic perspective. Platonic ideas have had a crucial role in the development of Christian theology and also in medieval Islamic thought.

Nature of Forms:

The theory of Forms may best be understood in terms of mathematical entities.

A circle, for instance, is defined as a plane figure composed of a series of points, all of which are equidistant from a given point.

No one has ever actually seen such a figure, however.

What people have actually seen are drawn figures that are more or less close approximations of the ideal circle. In fact, when mathematicians define a circle, the points referred to are not spatial points at all; they are logical points.

They do not occupy space. Nevertheless, although the Form of a circle has never been seen-indeed, could never be seen-mathematicians and others do in fact know what a circle is.

That they can define a circle is evidence that they know what it is. For Plato, therefore, the Form "circularity" exists, but not in the physical world of space and time. It exists as a changeless object in the world of Forms or Ideas, which can be known only by reason. Forms have greater reality than objects in the physical world both because of their perfection and stability and because they are models, resemblance to which gives ordinary physical objects whatever reality they have. Circularity, squareness, and triangularity are excellent examples, then, of what Plato meant by Forms.

An object existing in the physical world may be called a circle or a square or a triangle only to the extent that it resembles ("participates in" is Plato's phrase) the Form "circularity" or "squareness" or "triangularity."

Plato extended his theory beyond the realm of mathematics. Indeed, he was most interested in its application in the field of social ethics.

The theory was his way of explaining how the same universal term can refer to so many particular things or events. The word justice, for example, can be applied to hundreds of particular acts because these acts have something in common, namely, their resemblance to, or participation in, the Form "justice."