The Three Basic Levels Of Life According To Plato
What are the three basic levels of life? Well Plato identifies them as the 1st level being the form, the 2nd level being our perceived world, and the 3rd level being nothingness. I believe each level plays a role with the others and without one of the three then we would not have balance. Plato believes that the first level of life is forms. Plato states that the “real world” is not what we see but rather what we feel because this world is made up of “eternal forms.” The Forms are really just a substitute for life and its existence. Plato describes forms as unchanging, timeless, and intangible reality or patterns of which the objects that we may see are actually fake. Forms come in a variety of ways yet not everything is a form, parallel worlds would be possible if this were true. Forms are not tangible objects rather a thought in our minds such as the idea of a perfect circle or perfect shape.
Plato described them as “real existence, dull, formless, and imperceptible, “visible only to the intelligence” – which I believe he is talking about the mind here. Plato uses a person discovering the quality of beauty to explain this, “he will abate his violent love of the one, a small thing and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that their beauty of the mind is more honorable than their beauty of outward form. Drawing towards and contemplating the vast see of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere”. (Plato republic book XI)
The second level is our perceived world. I believe that this goes hand in hand with “the Forms” previously discussed in level one. What we see in our world is only one form of knowledge, but our eyes are known to lie and not give the full picture. We can only make assumptions on things based on how we see them, for example first impressions would be a good illustration of this. A first impression is a judgement or even accusation made by someone when first meeting a new person. Fist impressions are made within seconds of meeting someone and they are usually based off your appearance, smile, clothes, hair, and their presence amoung others.
Based on those few things people tend you assume that they have a clear picture of you and judge you on your educational level, financial status, race or heritage, and trustworthiness. An example of this could be a young man fresh out of college working his first full time job at a high-end company but he is struggling to keep up with it. He walks around the office everyday with messy hair, he looks like he wears the same 4 suits to work every week since he started, his shirt has a couple buttons undone with his tie hung open and low. To his coworkers he looks like he is unprofessional, lazy, and doesn’t care much for his job but what they don’t know is that he stays late at the office every night to stay on top of his work. When he goes home he barely sleeps because he has a child to take care of and feed while also using the money he gets from work to pay off whatever school debt he may have. That just one example of how wrong first impressions can be. As I mentioned before, one does not get the full story just from what they may be seeing right in front of them and that is what I believe Plato meant by “our perceived world.”
Lastly, the third level is nothingness. This level I believe is fairly self-explanatory. In this stage I believe there is nothing, everything is dark and lonely. There is nothing that exists or dies, everything is still and there is complete silence. Although this level is quite lonely and dark, I do not believe it is irrelevant or insignificant. I believe this level is important to maintaining balance between all three levels and our reality.
