Meg Strauss
Professor Paul Trembath
9 December 2016
Final Paper
The Theory of Forms and Semiology:
The Relationship from Plato to Saussure
Platos ideas have been foundational in societys thinking for over 2000 years. In regards
to literature, Plato has dominated the ways in which writing is interpreted. In fact, Plato was the
first to ever examine literary texts. It was not until 1915 that a new philosopher, Ferdinand de
Saussure, revolutionized traditional Platonism thinking. In his book Course in General
Linguistics, Saussure truly lays the groundwork for overturning Platos linguistically-themed
ideas.
Platos Theory of Forms has laid the foundation for all of Western thought. In this theory,
Plato states that all things have substance and that it is the core quality of all things that provides
identity. The Theory of Forms consists of three separate parts: forms, imitations, and imitations
of imitations. Plato describes forms as being ideas, imitations as being words or objects, and
imitations of imitations as being writing. Plato feels as though forms, or ideas, depict the truest
and most pure sense of reality. Thus, writing and art, or what Plato calls the imitations of
imitations is used as a block from identifying true reality.
Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave to represent his ideas on forms. The story is about
people that have been imprisoned inside of a cave since the time of birth. They are forced to look
only at the wall of the cave in front of them. On this wall, the prisoners see shadows of people
walking behind them. Plato states that if a prisoner were to escape, he would immediately run
back to the cave, as the cave is the only thing that the prisoner knows to be true. Plato writes, It
would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning away to the things which he was able to
look at, and these he would believe to be clearer than what was being shown to him. In this
allegory, the cave represents the form, since it possesses the highest form of reality. The
shadows, on the other hand, represent the imitations since they are merely imitations of the
prisoners reality.
Saussure and Plato both agree in the sense that they feel that words or object have
meaning due to other underlying structures. Saussure, however, defines his theory of mean-
making as semiology.
While Plato argues that words or objects have meaning because of ideal forms, Saussure
argues that words or objects have meaning because of underlying structures. Saussure invents
structural linguistics. In structural linguistics, Saussure describes the component of language as
the sign, which is made up of a signifier and a signified. In comparison to Plato, the signified
represents the word, while the signifier represents the thing.
According to Saussure, a chair is not a chair because it is called a chair. Rather, he feels
that the relationship of the word chair and the thingness of the chair, or chairness, is
complete arbitrary. Saussure feels that what gives a signifier meaning lays in how it is compared
to other signifiers. In Course in General Linguistics, Saussure states, Language is a system of
interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous
presence of the others. He goes on to describe, The conceptual side of value is made up solely
of relations and differences with respect to the other terms of language, and the same can be said
of its material side.
In other words, Saussure feels that parole, the rules of language, and langue, the language
itself, are entirely made up of differences.
Both philosophers ultimately agree that true and pure meaning lies above language.
However, there are extreme dissimilarities between Plato and Saussure, and it is through these
dissimilarities that Saussure, in Course of General Linguistics, prepares to overturn Platonism
thinking.
Plato ultimately believes that meaning derives from an idealist state of reality, one that he
defines as beauty and goodness. For Plato, meaning is found in a transcendental and
metaphysical reality that one must find through the rejection of material objects, words,
language, and written wordor, as Plato calls it, the imitations and the imitations of the
imitations.
For Plato, finding reality and the purest form of imitations can lead to one truly
understanding a singular meaning of an object or word. However, as Saussure points out, a
meaning cannot be singular, as it is pinpointed by a system of linguistic differences. Finding
meaning, in other words, is not as simple as deciphering what a thing truly is. Rather, Saussure
states that meaning comes from deciphering what a thing is not.
Works Cited
Plato. The Republic. New York: Basic, 1968. Print.
Saussure, Ferdinand De. Course in General Linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.
Print.
