Talk:Platonic realism

message: * In the article, the text is:  "...what does it mean to say that this particular apple is a copy of the form of applehood? Does it mean the apple is the same shape as the form? Probably not; the form, after all, is not supposed to have a shape because it is not spatial. What would it mean to say that apple participates in applehood? Is that like membership in a club, somehow? It is not clear."
**I'm trying to relate Forms to sets.  Would it be correct to say that an apple is one of the set of apples, and that the Form of apples is the same as the set of apples?  Or would it be more correct to say that the Form of apples is the set of criteria that determine whether an object properly belongs to the set? Alan Nicoll 19:07, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
It's difficult to answer your question, because it depends on the meaning of the word "set". If with the "set of X" we mean some factual aggregate of material objects, this is certainly not the interpretation of "Form" by the Platonic Realist himself. But some would say it's the only rational content that could be given to an otherwise inane concept. The Platonist, and certainly the modern one, would surely agree more with your second description, that it's a set of criteria. But he would warn against the mistake to again see such a set of criteria as some factual aggregate of actual ideas in the minds of actual people (which despicable heresy goes under the name of mentalism) or of actual social rules in an actual society (sociologism,conventionalism). The set of criteria should in his view be seen as an abstraction; indeed an abstraction that is more fundamental to the concept of set than the respective aggregates of material objects - and so he would say that the Form of an apple is indeed the set of apples: in abstracto.
--MWAK 11:06, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

message: It would be nice if the same author wrote an article on Aristotelian realism to contrast with the Platonic variety, esp. as there are already articles on conceptualism and nominalism. The possibility of realism about the abstract without a commitment to Platonism is an intringuing one.
:That would be very nice indeed as that writer is Larry Sanger, a professional philosopher and cofounder of Wikipedia! :o) But the subject is extraordinarily controversial and complicated. Part of the problem is that Aristotle's public works have been all but lost — we today "only" have the Corpus and there are many uncertainties about authorship and date of creation. But even more problematic is that Aristotle developed his thoughts in opposition to Platonic Realism: so to judge his thought we have to understand the nature of Plato's as well.
--MWAK 20:48, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aristotelian realism 

message: Note that this article more or less competes with Platonic idealism, and that there is a whole raft of articles on Platonism, which perhaps ought to be consolidated into fewer. A Platonism template might also be useful. --HK 14:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles on Platonism 

message: I dont expect to be able to put this in the main article, so it is here for your consideration. He is one of the first thinkers and does not deserve more than anecdotal consideration, his ideas are hilarious to a modern man. Granted we must treat him with respect, but dont let that trick you into thinking that he has any meaningfull thing to say in the 21st century. 88.15.59.243 23:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And you would be the epitomal "21 century-Man", I suppose? ;o) Any evaluation of Plato of course depends on your philosophical opinion. These opinions today vary wildly. I've often noticed that people changed their views on him after actually reading his work, instead of relying on largely anecdotal renderings of it... And there is always the troubling possibility that you only consider some ideas to be hilarious as a defensive reaction, because you despair of being able to understand them. --MWAK 08:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, Plato was a smart guy in his time and for all times, and the article have evolved enough to vaguely reflect this, even though some improvements in formulations can still be made. For C++ programmers Plato was obviously perfectly right: no object orientation without abstract classes, instantiations and inheritance. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 20:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plato is bullshit 

message: The language for much of the article talks about 'instantiations', inherence, forms, etc... Sounds very much like inheritance/etc... from computer science.  Perhaps this is deliberate, perhaps written by a comp. sci. person, perhaps it's totally my perception. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.100.71.61 (talk) 13:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The jargon used is very much standard and rather a bit older than computer science. So if there is indeed a causal connection, philosophy is the origin :o). --MWAK 14:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Analogies to Computer Science/Object oriented Programming 

message: The whole confusion about Plato's doctrine can be traced to the refusal of contemporary (agnostic/materialistic) philosophers to consider something that was truth for the ancients sages: the reality of the spirit; the immortality of the human's soul, who is reincarnated in successive lives; and that this soul has an evolutionary path to go which is what gives purpose to existence. This is evident and clear in the dialogues of Plato. 190.140.1.141 (talk) 00:15, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's true that Plato believed in the immortality of the human soul and reincarnation (BTW only a minority of the "ancient sages" agreed with him, unless such an agreement is a condition for being sage ;o) but there is no direct connection with Platonic Realism. I'm afraid that if you try to grasp the concept of Form by vaguely considering it a "piece of spirit" you have missed the point entirely. You would then still treat it as if it were some concrete object — be it of a spiritual nature — and the point is that it is an abstract object. Neither dualism nor monistic idealism are directly implied by Platonic Realism and historically both dualist and idealist philosophers have indeed tended to reject Platonic Realism.--MWAK (talk) 06:03, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plato and Spirituality 

message: The page Platonic Forms redirects to Platonic Realism. I think it should redirect to the page Theory of Forms. If there are no objections I will proceed to make the correction.--Auró (talk) 21:40, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.--Auró (talk) 21:21, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirection from Platonic Forms