Plato believed that there are 2 worlds: Our World (Material World) and the Real World. Our world is constantly changing and we rely on our senses to understand what is going on. Whereas the real world is eternal and unchanging and based on ideas and not senses. It includes perfect forms of objects we know on Earth i.e. chairs, tables and apples.

Apples  

There are many types of apples and they exist in different forms and are all in different forms of growth and decay. However, Plato would consider the defining factors of an apple, and what makes it different from a pear, for example. These factors Plato called the “apple-ness” of an apple, or the true form. The form is unchanging, even though the apples themselves have changing appearances. This is because the apples we know are imitations of the true form, therefore are imperfect and subject to change – hence there is no such thing as a perfect apple in the Material World.

The Soul

Plato believed that the soul was eternal and does not change. This is because he thought that it belonged in the Real World before being assigned to a body, and this is how we can recognize forms and know what objects are in our world.

Plato stated that only philosophers could see into the World of the Forms as they would think independent of their senses. This lead on to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, as he concluded that people needed to “break out” of the constraints set by the material world to find the real world of the forms