On the Possibility of the Forms’ Existence and the Impossibility of Knowing Them

Abstract

This paper examines the structural dilemmas inherent in the theory of Forms, focusing on the “unrecognizability of Ideas” argument in Part 1 of Plato’s Parmenides. Parmenides argues that establishing the world of Forms as completely independent from the world of individual things inevitably creates mutual non-relatedness, severing the ontological and epistemological continuity between them. Consequently, Forms and individual things acquire their natures only through relationships within their respective worlds. In this context, human “cognition within us” cannot perceive transcendent Forms because it takes only the objects and truths within our world as its objects. Likewise, “cognition itself,” or God’s perfect knowledge, concerns only the truths of the world of Forms, creating a mutual disconnect in which even God cannot encompass the human world. This produces a serious aporia for the theory of Forms, which regards Ideas as the ontological and epistemological basis and measure of truth for individual things. Nevertheless, Parmenides insists on the necessity of Forms, arguing that abandoning them would deprive human thought and dialogue of their goals and direction. Critically examining interpretations by scholars such as Cornford and Fine, this paper argues that the impossibility of knowing Forms should not be understood as an abandonment of the theory of Forms, but as an eternal task through which human cognition continually seeks an immutable standard and sustains the movement of thought.