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Galiet & Galiet
is, a thing in its true sense, be equivalent to the vision of the thing’s form under the abstract aspect of the Idea. The Form is something like an ideal spectacle of an object or thing. This, however, does not limit the Platonic conception of the Forms. This conception is not only complex, but it varies.58 In Plato there is a vast history of the Forms in many of his texts.59 In them, Plato explains the Forms and their relationship with sensible things and with mathematics, and the Forms as causes and as source of truth, to name a few. Plato conceives of the Forms as models of objects and as things in themselves in their perfect and true state. Yet things in their true state never belong to sensible realities, but to intelligible, unchanging ones. A Form or Idea is always a unity of something which appears as a multiple.60 This is why the Forms, things-in- themselves, cannot be apprehended by the senses, but are only ‘visible’ intelligibly: seen and grasped only by reason and the soul.61
Heidegger expands on this notion of Idea, from the Greek Idein, ‘to see.’ Referring to the visual ‘aspect’ of entities, this ‘vision,’ in the Grecian sense, refers to the aspect or figure that a thing offers when it is seen. Idea, thus, originally means the aspect of the thing as it is factually, naturally seen or contemplated. Heidegger seems to suggest the living things (ζωα) in relation to Plato’s second segment of the Line, and the things seen outside the cave 3⁄4 natural shadows and reflections of humans and things in water, the things themselves, the moon and starry heavens and the sun. Because they are undisclosed in Heidegger, they possess a sense of truth, reality and immanence in themselves. This sense of vision contrasts Plato’s view. This ‘seen’ or ‘vision’ as Idea, in the Phaedo, does not mean physical, sensory seeing, but rather ‘inner, intellective vision’: noesis.62 Plato insists that true Reality is clear to the soul only by noesis, not poiesis nor gnosis. The Forms of the Just, the Beautiful and the Good exist; however, they cannot be seen with sense perceptions, but only with the soul and only grasped by the
57 Ιδεα corresponds to the verb ιδειν (to see), thus etymologically Ιδεα means vision, latin videre (to see); -vid is the root of ιδειν and videre.
58 The notion of the Forms must also be understood in relation to Plato’s Cavern and Plato’s Line of degrees of being.
59 Plato. Phaedo, 65, 100; The Republic VI, 508, 510; VII, 517, 523, 534; X, 597; Meno, 81,85; Phaedrus, 249; Parmenides 131-5; Symposium 211; Timaeus 46-51. Plato. Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997. 60 For Plato, the One (or unity of the multiple) is παρα τα πολλα something separated from the multiple. While for Aristotle is something united to the multiple κατα τον πολλον. In other words, Aristotle negates that the ideas exist in an intelligible realm separated from sensible things. For him, the ideas are immanent to sensible things. It is not necessary to admit the existence of ideas, or the One juxtaposed to the Multiple Aristotle. Posterior Analytics A, 11, 77. The One, instead, is immanent to the Multiple. Aristotle. Met., A9, 990 b13 and also Met. A, 6, 987 b8.
61 Plato. Phaedo. 65b-d This ‘seen’ does not mean physical, that is with the eyes. It means an inner vision given the above etymology of Idea. Plato insists that true Reality is clear to the soul only by Reason. The Forms of the Just, the Beautiful and the Good exist; however, they cannot be seen with our perceptions, only with the soul and grasped only by thought. Plato. Complete Works. Phaedo. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
62 Noesis as a seeing that discerns, intelligible seeing, an intuition that is infallible, apprehending the thing just as it is: the thing in itself. This notion is similar to Parmenides’ in that his apprehension of what is as is, is also identified with being. “For it is the same to apprehend and to be.” Fr. 4. Mainly, one cannot inquire about what is not. Waterfield, Robin. The First Philosophers. Parmenides. Fragment 4. (Clement Miscellanies 6.23.3) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 58
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