Form of the Good

Plato describes "The Idea of the Good" in his dialogue, "The Republic", speaking through the character of Socrates. The Idea of the Good is the child or offspring "(ekgonos)" of the Good, the ideal or perfect nature of goodness, and so an absolute measure of justice. Plato also explains his theory of justice in "The Republic", in relation to his conception of a city in speech, both of which necessitate rule of the rational mind; in other words, philosopher-kings, who can grasp the Idea of the Good.

Plato said that the highest form of knowledge is the Idea of the Good, from which things that are just gain their usefulness and value. Humans have a duty to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully without philosophical reasoning. According to Plato true science was conversant, not about those material forms and imperfect intelligences which we meet within our daily interactions with all mankind, however it investigated the nature of those purer and more perfect patterns which were the models after which all created beings were formed. Plato supposes these perfect types to have existed from all eternity and calls them the "ideas" of the great original Intelligence. As these "ideas" can not be perceived by human senses, whatever knowledge we derive from that source is unsatisfactory and uncertain. He maintains that degree of skepticism which denies all permanent authority to the evidence of sense. Having discovered or created the realm of "ideas", he surveyed it throughout. Plato defined its most excellent forms from goodness as the "Hierarchy of Forms". This suggests that from goodness comes such things as justice, truth, equality and beauty, among many others. Plato then determines what was the supreme and dominant principle of the whole. It is the Idea of the Good.

References

American International Encyclopedia, "A Comprehensive Reference Work", J.J. Little & Ives Company, Great Britain 1925

ee also

*Theory of forms
*The Allegory of the Cave