Noesis asked:

My Ancient Political Theory class has been reading The Republic.The one question that has
perplexed us all is, "What is the Form of the Good, and what is Good?" We need this answered
before we can continue our discussion or answer any of our other questions. If anyone has any
suggestions about how to find the answer, please let me know.

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Aha! You have read Plato and found his epicentre, and in that of our entire Western tradition. I will
offer a suggestion of an answer to you.

Plato, as you have doubtless noticed, doesn't answer the question; when asked to come out with the
goods and give a full and clear explanation of what the 'Forms' are, he says himself "Do you really
want a blind, halting display from me when you can have nice clear accounts from other people?" He
prattles on with analogies involving the sun, caves, mariners and lines and generally gets nowhere.

So what are these mysteriously absolute 'Forms'? Words, or language in general, have sometimes
been suggested as being the actuality of the Forms. In this way the very word, say "bed" (it always
seems to be "bed", "tree", or "desk" with philosophers, presumably because they look around for a
suitable word, and those three tend to be the fist things they see)... so that the 'Form' of the bed is the
word "bed" itself. But Plato's version is much more interesting...

His account, such as it is, could be summed up as "the Forms are the true essence of things, the
reality behind what we see". It is not entirely clear whether Plato is suggesting that The Forms have
genuine existence in some other reality to our own, or whether they are a sort of mental construct that
allows us to understand the reality behind mere appearance. Either way, you could equally sum up
Plato's ideas in the Republicby saying that his view is "Who should rule? Surely the people who
know what is for the Good should rule! Only True Philosophers understand what the true Form of
Good is, which is to say, understand what the "Forms" are, so they are the only ones who should rule.
I can't tell you what the "Forms" are, because you are not a True Philosopher, and only True
Philosophers would understand my answer". From this it follows that "I am a True Philosopher,
therefore I know what 'Forms' are, therefore I should be permitted to tell everyone else what to do."

You could get exasperated at this and reason that Plato is merely saying, in a rather clever way, what
many of us would like to say, namely "I should be in charge". While this might be true, the very fact
that you ask the question demonstrates that you already belong to the tradition of Plato.

Many of the conclusions presented in the Republicmay seem, with two-and-a-half thousand years of
hindsight, just silly. But its method of reaching those conclusions, by a precise process of honest and
careful step-by-step searching after absolute answers, has been, and remains, the one great
distinguishing feature of the European way of thinking. The great search for 'Forms' underlies the
impossible search for perfection which has given rise to Europe's science, politics, psychology,
education and much of its angst. It stands in valorous contrast to the world's only other great
founder-philosopher, Confucius, whose attachment to harmony and the certainties of tradition built a
very different society.

There are no Forms. And what's more, while many have tried, I can't actually prove that there aren't!
That is the glory of them. You could try looking for them in the two "plain language" versions of the
Republicat http://members.nbci.com/the_republic/sj-txt.htmand
http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed.htm. But I wouldn't expect any great success if I
were you.

It is the very searching after "The Forms" which has made us great. The search is everything, the
results, inevitably, are found to be nothing. Keep on searching!

Glyn Hughes