On the form

Primarily, I want to list some details in this note: Firstly, I do not mean by the term “form” what Aristotle or any philosopher has meant by it. That is to say that I do not have any motivation for intention to some philosophers’ thoughts about it. However, naturally, something I write can intersect with anything other philosophers mentioned. And secondly, you can quickly notice it, this is not a detailed article about philosophy. Rather than it, this is a note on a topic I have handled independently. Then, I can present the plan I have here: I want to show what the form is, or is meant by it, in the original context here. Therefore, here is not place for arguing a comprehensive and explanatory conception of a philosophical view on the term of the form. Of course, I also do not search out the sources of it: It is not vital for my thoughts here that the form has both conceptual and historical sources as well as metaphysical origin.

What I mean by the form is that the remark of any consciousness on anything. Surely the notion remark has many meanings: opinion, thinking, recommend, word, or sight, etc. These are not wrong for the meaning of the remark. However, I use it for the meaning that includes some connotations about seeing. That is what I mean by the term the form is related to the verb “see”. But if you understand that seeing is a property of biological entities, I think it is not proper for that I mean by it. For this reason, I referred to the term remark. Because of that, we have some aspects of things or can see things in different ways, maybe we can say that we have looked in common, but of course, we can see different things when we look at the same thing. If then, we should not mean a biological process by seeing when we look at anything, in a context that just like when we use the verb handle about things. -I will not dwell on it here, but you know that we could not embrace wholly the relation between our senses and reality. Consequently, for only entities who lives can see, or only they can remark, of things, it is a proper result that the form can exist in the universe that there are entities who have consciousness. So, if there is no consciousness, there is no form.

Again, we can say that the form is only a mental thing, that is to say that we cannot see the form of anything. Then it is unobservable or thing, we can say, we see is not the form of a thing. But, nevertheless, where is the source of this thought? How do we know that? It is only a consequence or conclusion of that: If you are not an idealist, which you do not think things are not real and they are only in mind, this conclusion can be true for you. It would help if you thought about whether is the material world real.

(A) "People, animals, clouds, water… or anything you see around you exist independently from you and your mind."

If you think (A) is true, you are a realist. You have a realistic position in the ontology. Because the essential question of ontology is what does exist, and you can say that people, animals, clouds, water, etc. exist. It means that they are real things. If you did not exist in this universe, of course, they still would be existed here, according to realists. In other words, their existence is independent of your mind or existence. 

But some people think that so: 

(B) "Everything in this world exists in the mind or is a reflection or shadow of the mind's contents."

The meaning of that is reality is not distinguishable from understandings that exist in the mind. Namely, everything exists if there is at least a mind. Then anything in this world only exists through the mind. 

I think there is no sharp contrast between idealism (A) and any realism. There can be an idealistic realist position in philosophy. For example, conceptual realism is so. However, it is clear that (A) and (B) are incompatible, although (B) is a realist opinion. 

Plato argued that the forms (or ideas in his philosophical terminology) are real and that the material world is an illusion. Why do this world an illusion, according to him? Because it has not existed independently. Things in this material world can only exist in any mind; for this reason, they are shadows of real things in the mind. We can look at this from a different standpoint: we cannot know anything about these, but maybe we can suppose some conclusions about them. He called that supposing “doxa.” He thought doxa was not knowledge, and then we could know only real things, that is, mental forms of everything, ideas.

Certainly, he has an assumption about knowing and thought there is such thing called knowledge as a discovery process. I mean, Plato believed that we human beings have some property, and through them, we can find the essence of everything. I think it is a realistic attitude. My purpose was that: Everybody knows that Plato was an idealist philosopher but also a realist philosopher. He believed that only ideas exist in reality. In other words, there is a thing called reality, and it can be discovered by the mind. Discovered… It is an important point that we can discover something, if only there is. Some philosophers think things that can be discovered are material things and some think they are conceptual things. In my opinion, they are combined in the last point: there is a reality independent from us or consciousness. It is impossible in my understanding of the form… We build it, not discover. But the material we use for constructing “reality” is independent of us, not the form.