THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE GOOD

Socrates' reply is, of course, founded on the Forms. The reason that this life is not of great significance is that reality lies elsewhere (500b), and the reason death is to be welcomed rather than feared is that it is simply the sloughing off of the body and the release of the logistikon into the purely intellectual realm of Forms which is its true home (611b–612a). Furthermore, if the Forms are the divine (500C9) origin of all the goodness and beauty in the phenomenal world, then it would seem that divinity is not capricious or dangerous. There is also a point which is implicit in the Republic and explicit in the Symposium: if all beautiful loved ones (and loved objects) participate in the single source of Beauty itself, then they will all, Socrates thinks, be beautiful in the same way. The beloved is therefore not unique and irreplaceable, as Achilles mistakenly believes, but the replaceable token of an enduring type; for this chilling reason, too, the fear of his or her loss or death will be greatly diminished.

Equally important from our present perspective is the fact that the Forms preclude the necessity of making tragic choices between noble and beneficial courses of action. There are two possible ways in which this might be so. The more common, and less controversial, reading is that the ultimate cause of both all good and all beautiful particulars is the same, namely the Form of the Good.