🌳 Plato’s Forms and the Soul

Plato believed that every static and living thing was an imperfect replica of their respective Form. Every horse, being different and unique with its different colours, sizes, patterns of spots still come to be recognisable as ‘horses’ because they each participate in the Form of ‘horseness’. The cookie-cutter mold is another perfect example: although every cookie does not perfectly fit the mold, where some have bumps in one and others smoother and more consistent, each one which comes out of the mold we never fail to recognise as a ‘cookie’. How marvellous! Consider everything we come to recognise and categorise - on the outset, things even within a particular subset have huge variety in appearance. Bananas come in a variety of patterned spots, colours, textures, and even tastes, yet it is unthinkable for us to fail to recognise a ‘banana’ at a single glance!

So what is happening here? We humans are able to see, despite clear differences in objects, that each one within a particular genus seem to imitate a perfect version of it, and this is its Form. And everything has its own Form according to Plato. And from experience we can expect that the closer an object reaches its ultimate Form, the less peculiarities it will possess, and the less individual it will become. In fact, the Form is ultimately a mathematical idea - the fundamental characteristic of an object that defines it within a particular genus is not based on its taste, colour, texture or anything which the senses might pick up. It rather relates purely to its shape and geometry. This is the only thing which is objectifiable, where every other characteristic of an object is subject to opinion. In other words, the Form is the simplest, and most pure version of a particular genus.

The Soul as a Form

If we find horses to differ from each other by their spots, their colour, size, their voice, or their head, then human souls differ from each other based on the experience they have had. We can say that each one’s unique experience of life has formed their individuality, which has hidden or tainted the purity of its original Form since birth. But what could the underlying Form of the soul be?

Well, Plato took very seriously upon the notion of self-governance, that the governance which each individual had over himself triumphed all other types of government or rule. All problems concerning war, selfishness, strife, and all questions concerning how government should rule, or what government structure, and who should rule, would only be answered meaningfully once every one had mastered himself.

So, to master one’s self would mean to remove all the imperfections which experience imprints on the soul, such as carnal desire, lust, envy, greed and malice. The more one takes control over his individual desires and needs would mean that he has attained a simpler soul. But taking this to its extreme, to completely deny one’s own desires and needs is to reject one’s own individuality and to thereby reach every closer to the purity of the Form of the soul. How strange is this! True perfection comes from removing individuality!

Purity of the Soul as the Path to Freedom

How obnoxious to say that to sacrifice one’s own peculiarity in existence, to leave behind everything that is one’s own by identification: their voice, their looks, their hands, their feet, their mind, their heart, their energy, their intention, their will- that all of this must be sacrificed for one to reach absolute purity of the Soul. But we can see this emulated in the example of Christ. Christ, being God, actually took it upon Himself the form of a common man of no peculiarity of appearance, of no wealth or status, or any obvious emanation of divine essence. Absolutely everything was sacrificed, and it is the greatest sacrifice that one can learn from. Christ rejected himself to demonstrate that true liberation comes from denying the Self. Because it is only through denying the Self that genuine unity could occur. By becoming man completely and utterly, Christ became unified with Man in the most intimate way possible.

This means that for us, to reject our desires, our wants, our needs, would be the most noble path to achieving true Love for others and attaining true union with others.

Practical Applications to Daily Life

Let us not forget that God did not create man completely selfless, and completely self-sacrificing. This is not the nature of Man. That is why it is seen as so admirable when one rejects one’s own desire for another, or to serve without expectation.

So Man is naturally self-obsessed, and acutely self-aware of his own personal desires, intentions, and will, and thereby posits them naturally above all else’s.

But how then shall we act? And how are we to behave knowing this and accepting this? God writes in second of the 10 Commandments that “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18). Thus, we should realise first that the manner in which we love others will inevitably be a reflection of how we love ourselves, since we naturally love ourselves first before loving others. Respecting our own bodies as a “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19-20), we will then see fit to help others and love them, treating them also as ‘temples of God’.

Notice the beautiful hidden imperative that we are commanded to self-love. But read wisely, God commands us to love ourselves for the purpose, or to the end of, loving others. There is a need first for us to love ourselves in the right way. Consider Kierkegaard’s explanation:

“Therefore, if anyone is unwilling to learn from Christianity to love himself in the right way, he cannot love the neighbor either. He can perhaps hold together with another or a few other persons, “through thick and thin,” as it is called, but this is by no means loving the neighbor. To love yourself in the right way and to love the neighbor correspond perfectly to one another; fundamentally they are one and the same thing…When the bustler wastes his time and powers in the service of futile, inconsequential pursuits, is this not because he has not learned rightly to love himself? When the light-minded person throws himself almost like a nonentity into the folly of the moment and makes nothing of it, is this not because he does not know how to love himself rightly? When the depressed person desires to be rid of life, indeed, of himself, is this not because he is unwilling to learn earnestly and rigorously to love himself? When someone surrenders to despair because the world or another person has faithlessly left him betrayed, what then is his fault (his innocent suffering is not referred to here) except not loving himself in the right way? When someone self-tormentingly thinks to do God a service by torturing himself, what is his sin except not willing to love himself in the right way? And if, alas, a person presumptuously lays violent hands upon himself, is not his sin precisely this, that he does not rightly love himself in the sense in which a person ought to love himself?”

— Works of Love, Kierkegaard

We must begin first, before even thinking of trying to love others, that we enter self-reflection and admit to ourselves those self-destructive thoughts which linger in us, and damage the image we have of ourselves. We must be compassionate with ourselves and bear through failure with patience, never judging our self-worth on the outcome (see On Failure and Procrastination), but only on the effort. That we must take seriously to appreciating the temple God has given each and every one of us personally to preserve and to care for, and this includes most importantly the state of our mind.

Constantly monitor the state of one’s thoughts, whether it broods on negativity, or on worry, or hatred, or jealousy. Watch the mind, and gently, very gently, transition to a state of gratitude or absolute silence. Watch the mind, for it will affect the overall body, and ultimately our capacity to love others.

Take to loving yourself earnestly, which means to never give up hope, to always see the good in life and to bear misfortune with patience and gratitude. To see the love from others as a great gift, and a great joy, and never take for granted a smile from another, or affection from another. To have patience with one’s own sins and to desire to perfect one’s self constantly; not out of dissatisfaction, but rather from a state of reverence.

Loving others will naturally come as an extension to loving others, once we love ourselves in the right way. And to love others in the right way is nothing but to reach towards perfection of the soul, just as Plato envisioned!