Abstract

The platonic ontology as known through the Phaedo and Republic is centered on the hypothesis of the intelligible Forms, that is, the platonic Socrates' belief that there are ontologically independent entities such as "the beautiful itself", "the good itself", "the equal itself" etc., of which all empirical things participate thereby receiving the properties they exhibit. Clearly, the main philosophical influences on this doctrine are pre-Socratic philosophy, the sophistic and Socrates' thought. The aim of this paper is to present which ideas or philosophical questions led Plato to postulate the Forms