Evaluation:

the nature of the Good seems to be visionary and mystical, rather than rational. Plato fails to adequately explain the form - resorting to allegories such as the Sun which commits the fact-value fallacy (the move from the Sun being the source of life - fact - to it being Good - value.
Plato's argument rests on synonyms: 'excellence', 'perfection' and 'ideal' that provide no substance to what 'the Good' consists of.
Plato ties in goodness and morality with performing a function in society. This is problematic as how well we do something can be distinguished from being virtuous, e.g. Roman Polanski is a good film director, but also molested a 13 year old girl. There is a critical confusion between the words 'function' and 'purpose', the former merely suggesting a cog in a machine whilst the later having overtones of value.
Critical confusion between 'the typical' and 'the ideal'. The Form of the Horse defines the typical horse but there are multiple variations of what the ideal horse is. Crucial distinction between the typical man and the ideal man. The criteria for the ideal horse varies in a way that the criteria for the perfect circle does not.

	Created by lucy-hook almost 13 years ago

Plato and the Form of the Good, Naturalism and the open-question argument