Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts - Volume 4, Issue 3 – Pages 161-182

Ideas of Plato in the Context of Contemporary

Science and Mathematics

By Mark Burgin
For millennia, the enigma of the world of Ideas or Forms, which Plato suggested and advocated, has
been challenging the most prominent thinkers of the humankind. This paper presents a solution to
this problem, namely, that an Idea in the Platoʼs sense can be interpreted as a scientific object called
a structure. To validate this statement, this paper provides rigorous definition of a structure and
demonstrates that structures have the basic properties of Platoʼs Ideas. In addition, we describe the
world of structures and prove its existence. This allows us to resolve the controversy between Plato
and Aristotle concerning Ideas or Forms and to build a scientific interpretation of the metaphor of
the Divided Line, which Plato uses in his theory of Ideas.

Introduction

Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) is one of the greatest philosophers of all times and
all nations. His ideas had a formative impact on a diversity of philosophers
and scientists. He contributed to many fields of philosophy. Here we are
interested mostly in his ontological conceptions.
Classical Greece gave many great ideas to the world. Two of them
described the structure of our world. One was introduced by Leucippus of
Miletus (ca. 480 - ca. 420 B.C.E.) and Democritus from Abdera (460-370 B.C.E.),
who suggested that the universe consisted of a void and a large number of
invisible and indivisible particles, which were called atoms. In this picture, all
things were built of atoms.
Plato also pioneered the second great idea asserting that the world as a
whole consisted of two realms: the physical world, which people could
comprehend with their five senses, and the world of Ideas or Forms, which
people could comprehend only with their intellect. This teaching on Ideas or
Forms is at the heart of Platoʼs philosophy shaping his views on knowledge,
ethics, esthetics, psychology and political teachings.
In his writings, Plato uses two Greek words εἶδος (eidos) and ἰδέα (idea),
which were later translated as Idea in the Latin and German tradition and as
Form in the English tradition. However, here we use the term Idea as a general
concept and the term Form as it particular case.
Note that usually Platoʼs teaching on Ideas or Forms is called the theory of
Forms or the theory of Ideas. However, it is debatable whether there are theories
in philosophy. According to the contemporary methodology of science, actual


Visiting Scholar, University of California, USA.

https://doi.org/10.30958/ajha.4.3.1 doi=10.30958/ajha.4.3.1
Vol. 4, No. 3 Burgin: Ideas of Plato in the Context…

theories exist only in science and mathematics (cf., for example Mark Burgin, &
Vladimir Kuznetsov1) although a broader understanding of the term theory
allows using the name theory for different philosophical teaching. Thus, we
will call Platoʼs teaching about Ideas by the name the theory of Ideas or Forms as
he did not make a distinction between Ideas and Forms.
In spite of the great interest in the philosophy of Plato in general and in
the world of Ideas in particular, for a long time, neither philosophers nor other
researchers were able to explain clearly and consistently what Plato Ideas are.
The enigma of the world of Ideas constituted one of the longest standing
philosophical and scientific problems in the history of humankind. Only at the
end of the 20th century, that is more than two millennia after Plato, the author
discovered that the concept structure provides the scientific representation of
Platonic Ideas, while the existence of the world of structures, which can be
naturally equated to the world of Ideas, was postulated and proved.2
The goal of this paper is to demonstrate in a transparent and persuasive
way that structures studied in contemporary mathematics and science provide
a scientific explanation and representation for Plato teaching about Ideas in
the same way as subatomic particles studied in contemporary physics provide
a scientific reflection of the teaching of Leucippus and Democritus about
atoms. To achieve this goal, the paper is organized as follows. Next section
reminds the reader of Platoʼs teaching about the world of Ideas or Forms.
Note that describing Platoʼs teaching, we do not distinguish Ideas and Forms
because Plato did not do this. Subsequently, we explain why and how this
world is interpreted as the world of structures, and provide formal and
informal definitions of structures demonstrating that structures have the basic
properties of Platoʼs Ideas. Then, we exhibit how the conception of structures
as Ideas or Forms allows solving the controversy between Aristotle and Plato,
as well as providing a scientific interpretation of the metaphor of Platoʼs
Divided Line. Finally, in Conclusion, we discuss how technological and
scientific achievements change our understanding of the sensibility of the
physical world and intelligibility of the world of Ideas.

1. Mark Burgin, & Vladimir Kuznetsov, Introduction to Modern Exact Methodology

of Science (Moscow: International Science Foundation, 1994) (In Russian).
2. Mark Burgin, Structural Reality (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2012), ___,
Theory of Information: Fundamentality, Diversity and Unification, World Scientific (New York,
London, Singapore, 2010), & ___, Fundamental Structures of Knowledge and Information
(Kiev: Ukrainian Academy of Information Sciences, 1997) (In Russian).

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Two Worlds Postulated by Plato

Now let us look in more detail at Platoʼs theory of Ideas or Forms where
the world as the whole is structured into two distinct worlds - the physical
world and the world of Ideas.3
To explain the relations between the physical world and the world of
Ideas or Forms, Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave described in the Republic.
In this allegory, Plato compares people to prisoners confined to a cave for the
whole life and chained so that they are turned away from the entrance of the
cave being unable to turn either themselves or their heads. Near the entrance
of the cave, a big fire burns. Between the fire and the prisoners, there is a
parapet. Other people are walking there holding up the real objects as
puppeteers hold up their puppets. These real objects, which are behind the
prisoners but in front of the fire, cast shadows on the wall of the cave open to
the prisoners. The prisoners, unable to turn their heads, cannot see these real
things. What the prisoners can see are shadows cast by objects and always
hear echoes of the sounds of the people holding real things the prisoners do
not see directly. As a result, the prisoners confuse appearance with reality.
They believe what they see on the wall (the shadows) is real but they know
nothing of the real causes of the shadows. In the same way, compared with
the reality of the world of Ideas, physical objects and events are only shadows.
Being the ultimate reference points for all objects people see in the physical
world, Ideas are more real than these objects. Therefore, the general terms of
peopleʼs languages are not names of the physical objects but the names of
Ideas or Forms, which people can only grasp with the mind.
Only released, the prisoners can turn their heads, see the real objects and
realize their error. Such liberation can come only through intelligence. Plato
conceives that correct knowledge is no more than the knowledge of Ideas
because what came through our senses is not knowledge of the thing itself but
only knowledge of the imperfect changing copy of some Idea. Thus, the only
possible manner to acquire correct knowledge of Ideas is through reasoning as
senses can provide only opinions and reasoning is the way to liberation from
the cave. Compare this with the Meno, where Plato treats knowledge
acquisition as recollection of Ideas latent in the soul.
This is a beautiful allegory but the crucial questions are what these Ideas
or Forms are, where they are and how people can know about them. Plato
says they are perfect templates, which exist somewhere in another realm,
which is cognizable only by the intellect. However, neither Plato nor other
thinkers have persuasively told us where this world is situated, and nobody
has consistently described these Ideas.

3. Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1961).

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The World of Ideas as the World of Structures

Thus, having no empirical evidence for and clear understanding of the

World of Ideas, many philosophers and scientists, starting with Aristotle,
argue that the World of Ideas brings about many problems. Where is this
world of Ideas and how do people contact and comprehend it? What is an
Idea in this sense? How is it possible for the mind to interact with the Platonic
realm so that the brain receives information about Ideas? Plato and his
followers have not provided convincing answers to these questions. For
instance, some researchers write that Forms are abstract properties or
qualities. However, the notion of an abstract property or quality is not clearer
than the notion of a Form or Idea. In a similar way, the assertion that
Forms/Ideas are archetypes of physical objects simply reveals one of the
characteristics of Forms/Ideas given by Plato.
That is why, in spite of the attractive character of the theory of Ideas, the
majority of scientists, philosophers and other intellectuals strongly believe that
the world of Ideas does not exist, because nobody has been able to find any
positive evidence in support of it. The crucial argument of physicists is that
the main methods of verification in modern science are observations and
experiments, and nobody has been able to find this world by means of
observations and experiments. Nevertheless, in the 20th century, there were
outstanding modern thinkers, such as the philosopher Karl Raimund Popper,
mathematician Kurt Gödel and physicist Roger Penrose, who believed that the
world of Ideas existed. They and other intellectuals before them gave various
interpretations of this world but suggested no means for experimental
validation.
For instance, starting with ideas of Plato, Plotinus (c.a. 205 – 270 C.E.),
who is generally regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism and one of the
most influential philosophers in antiquity after Plato and Aristotle, further
developed the theory of Ideas/Forms by stratifying the incorporeal realm of
Ideas with three principles.4 The three basic tenets of Plotinusʼ metaphysics
are "the One" (or "the Good"), Intellect, and Soul. The One is the prime
principle, which is "self-caused" and the cause of existence for everything else
in the universe. The Intellect is the system of Ideas/Forms and is the first
derivation from the One. The role of Intellect is to establish distinctness of the
abundance of Forms, which are virtually amalgamated in the One. The Soul is
the derivation from Intellect being the principle of desire for objects that are
external to the agent of desire.
However, we can see that the new description of the incorporeal realm of
Ideas developed the theory but added vagueness and commotion generating
new questions about the theory of Ideas/Forms.

4. Lloyd Gerson, Plotinus (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014).

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Popper, one of the major philosophers of the 20th century, suggested

another approach by trying to explicate the incomprehensible world of
Ideas/Forms introducing the world 3 of abstract or intellectual products of the
human mind. Examples of such products are languages, tales, stories, contents
of books, movies and documents, music, scientific conjectures and theories,
mathematical constructions and engineering schemas, etc.5 According to
Popper, this world 3 together with the world 1 of physical bodies, including
microparticles, physical processes, physical energy and physical fields, and
the world 2 of thoughts, feelings, decisions, perceptions, observations, etc.
constitutes the world as a whole.
To define the world 3, Popper writes:

"If we call the world of "things" or of physical objects - the first world, and
the world of subjective experiences (such as thought processes) the
second world, we may call the world of statements in themselves the
third world ... .

It would be easy ... to regard the whole of world 3 as timeless, as Plato

suggested of his world of Forms or Ideas ... I propose a different view -
one which, I have found, is surprisingly fruitful. I regard world 3 as being
essentially the product of the human mind ... . More precisely, I regard the
world 3 of problems, theories, and critical arguments as one of the results
of the evolution of human language, and as acting back on this
evolution."6

Thus, we can see that Popperʼs interpretation is inconsistent with Platoʼs

world of Forms/Ideas because Platonic Ideas are eternal and perfect, while the
products of the human mind are temporary and imperfect. In addition, Platoʼs
Ideas are not mental entities, nor even mind-dependent. They are
independently existing objects, the being and nature of which are
comprehensible only by the mind, even though they do not depend on this
comprehension in order to exist.
However, it was much easier to understand Popperʼs world 3 than Platoʼs
world of Ideas. In spite of this more realistic interpretation the abstract nature
of world 3 caused criticism and many questions about it real existence. As a
result, Popper decided to extend this world adding other products of the
human mind, such as books and cars, paintings and sculptures, ships and

5. Karl Popper, Replies to my critics, The Philosophy of Karl Popper (Open Court,
La Salle, IL, 1974) & ___, Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1979).
6. ___, Replies to my critics.

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planes, as well as other feats of engineering.7 Therefore, world 3 acquired

parts that also belonged to world 1. This feature is completely inconsistent
with Platoʼs Ideas.
There were also attempts to interpret the world of Ideas as the world of
signs in the sense of Charles Saunders Peirce.8
The prominent physicist Roger Penrose suggested his interpretation of
the world of Forms or Ideas treating it as the world of mathematical truths.
This did not make things clearer because the notion of truth is vague and
imprecise.
Nevertheless, the progress of science and mathematics brought forth the
discovery of the world of structures,9 allowing the researchers to solve the
mystery of Platonic Forms and Ideas and to consistently represent Popperʼs
world 3. We can see that on the level of ideas, it is possible to associate this
world with the Platonic world of Ideas or Forms in the same way as we may
relate the atoms of modern physics to the atoms of Leucippus and
Democritus. At the same time, in contrast to Plato, science has been able to
prove existence of the world of structures, demonstrating by means of
observations and experiments, that this world constitutes the structural level
of the world as the whole. Each system, phenomenon or process whether in
nature or in technology or in society has some structure. These structures exist
like material things, such as mountains, chairs, trees or buildings do, and form
the structural level of the world. When it is necessary to learn or to create some
system or generate a process, it is done, as a rule, by understanding or
development of the corresponding structure as structures determine the
essence of things.
In the next section, we examine existing definitions of the concept
structure; elaborate the most advanced definition, which encompasses not only
mathematical structures but any kind of structures; and show that the world
of structures is consistent with Platoʼs theory of Ideas or Forms.

7. ___, Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach.

8. Peter Skagestad, Thinking with machines: Intelligence augmentation, evolutionary
epistemology, and semiotics, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 16 (1993); & Rafael
Capuro, & Birger Hjorland, The Concept of Information, Annual Review of Information
Science and Technology 37, no. 8 (2003).
9. Mark Burgin, What is the Surrounding World Built of (The Ontological Aspect),
Philosophical and Sociological Thought no. 8 (1991) (In Russian) & ___, Is it Possible that
Mathematics gives new Knowledge about Reality? Philosophical and Sociological Thought no.
1 (1994) (In Russian and Ukrainian) & ___, Fundamental Structures of Knowledge and
Information.

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The Concept of a Structure

Without exact definition of the concept structure, the world of structures

would remain as vague and incomprehensible as the world of Ideas or Forms.
Therefore, we analyze definitions that different researchers have suggested.
Based on this analysis, we develop a comprehensive definition of a structure.
Looking at the ordinary usage of the word structure, we see that on the
intuitive level, structure means a complex of objects and relations comparable
with one another in principle. There are also more exact definitions. For
instance, Grossmann10 defines a structure in the following way.
Definition 1: A structure is (a representation of) a complex entity that
consists of parts in relations to each other.
This definition implies that two structures are identical if and only if: (a)
their nonrelational parts are the same; (b) their relations parts are the same;
and (c) corresponding parts stand in corresponding relations. A similar
definition of a mathematical structure is used in logic and mathematics.11
Definition 2: A mathematical structure is an abstract (symbolic) system,

A = < M; R1 , R2 , … , Rn >

where M is a set and R1 , R2 , … , Rn are relations in this set.

Note that in mathematics, a relation in a set M is a subset of the Cartesian

product M  M  …  M.
Some mathematicians12 use the name model or relational system for the
concept defined in Definition 2. Physicists and other scientists understand
mathematical structures in a similar way. For instance, Tegmark13 gives
Definition 3.
Definition 3: A mathematical structure is a system that consists of:

1. The set of entities that belong to the union S = S1 S2  …  Sn of sets

S1 , S2 , … , Sn.
2. Functions (functional relations) on these sets and their Cartesian
products,

10. Reinhardt Grossmann, The Fourth Way: A Theory of Knowledge (Bloomington,

Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990).
11. Abraham Robinson, Introduction to Model Theory and Metamathematics of Algebra
(Amsterdam, New York: North-Holland, 1963); & Isaac Yaglom, Mathematical Structures
and Mathematical Modeling (Moscow: Sov. Radio, 1980) (In Russian).
12. Anatolij Malcev, Algebraic systems (Springer, 1973).
13. Max Tegmark, The Mathematical Universe, Foundations of Physics 38, no. 2 (2008).

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Rk : Si1  Si2  …  Sit  Sn

In their informal definition of a mathematical structure, mathematicians

from the French group with the pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki14 add one more
condition - axioms.
Definition 4: A mathematical structure is a set with relations in this set and
axioms that these relations satisfy.
It is necessary to remark that Bourbaki15 also elaborated a formal
definition of a general mathematical structure as an exact but very abstract
concept. However, their formal definition is essentially much more
complicated and much longer than their informal definition, covering several
pages in the book.16 Besides, the formal definition is too sophisticated and
complex even for the majority of mathematicians, who prefer using the
informal notion of a mathematical structure or the definition where a structure
is formalized as a set with relations in it. As Corry17 writes, Bourbakiʼs concept
of structure was, from the mathematical point of view, a superfluous
undertaking. Even Bourbaki themselves did not use this concept in their later
books of the Eléments after they had introduced it in Theorie des Ensembles.18
Besides, we can see that this definition is not only too complicated but is
also counter-intuitive because Bourbaki describe a structure as a term, i.e., a
logical formula. However, a structure may be described or characterized by a
formula but a formula can be only a specialized (logical) structure.
In addition, specific terms are called sets in the process of defining a
structure.19 However, terms are names of sets in formalized set theories but
they are not sets themselves. In real life, there is a difference between objects
and their names. A similar difference exists between mathematical objects and
their formal or informal names. A new definition is elaborated in the general
theory of structures.
Definition 5: A structure Q consists of elements/parts, which belong to this
structure Q, and relations of three types:

14. Nicolas Bourbaki, Lʼarchitecture des mathématiques, Legrands courants de la

pensée mathématiques (The architecture of mathematics, Great currents of mathematical
thinking) Les Cahiers du Sud (1948).
15. ___, Structures (Paris: Hermann, 1957); & ___, Theorie des Ensembles (Theory of Sets)
(Paris: Hermann, 1960).
16. ___, Theorie des Ensembles.
17. Leo Corry, Modern Algebra and the Rise Mathematical Structures (Basel, Boston,
Berlin: Birkhäuser, 1996).
18. Bourbaki, Theorie des Ensembles.
19. Ibid.

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1. Relation between elements/parts of Q.

2. Relation between elements/parts of Q and relations of Q.
3. Relation between relations of Q.

Note that conventional definitions of structure take into account only

relations of the first type.20 Two other types were discovered only in the
general theory of structures.21
The most fundamental structures are called named sets or fundamental
triads, which are described in next section. There two primary kinds of named
sets (fundamental triads) - ordinary named sets (fundamental triads) and
bidirectional named sets (fundamental triads) although a bidirectional named
set is a composition of two ordinary named sets. It is proved in Burgin,22 that
all other structures are either named sets (fundamental triads) or are built of
named sets (fundamental triads).
The described in Definition 5 typology of relations allows us to build a
hierarchy of relations in a structure.

A. A relation of the first level in a structure Q is a relation between the

elements from the structure Q.
B. There are two kinds of relations of the second level in a structure Q:

1. relations between the elements from Q and relations of the first

level in Q;
2. relations between relations of the first level in Q.

C. There are two kinds of internal relations of the n-th level in a system M:

1. relations between the elements of Q, relations of the (n - 1)-th level

in M and perhaps relations of the (n - 2)-th and lower levels in M;
2. relations between relations of the (n - 1)-th and relations of the (n -
1)-th and lower levels in M.

The level of relations stratifies the system of all relations and defines the
structural hierarchy (Figure 1). It is described in the following way. At the first

20. Abraham Robinson, Introduction to Model Theory; Isaac Yaglom, Mathematical

Structures and Mathematical Modeling; Reinhardt Grossmann, The Fourth Way: A Theory of
Knowledge; Max Tegmark, The Mathematical Universe.
21 Mark Burgin, Structures in mathematics and beyond, Proceedings of the 8th Annual

International Conference on Statistics, Mathematics and Related Fields (Honolulu, Hawaii,

2009); ___, Theory of Information: Fundamentality, Diversity and Unification; & ___, Structural
Reality.
22. ___, Theory of Named Sets (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2011).

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level, we have the set 0 of all objects from this structure. On the second level
of the structural hierarchy, we have the set 1 of all relations between objects
from this structure. At the second level, we have two sets:

 01 is the set of all relations between objects from this structure, which
form the set 0 , and relations from 1,
 11 is the set of all relations between relations from 1.

At the third level, we have five sets:

 (0)(01) is the set of all relations between objects from this structure,
which form the set 0 , and relations from 01,
 (1)(01) is the set of all relations between relations from 1 and relations
from 01,
 (0)(11) is the set of all relations between objects from this structure,
which form the set 0, and relations from 11,
 (1)(11) is the set of all relations between relations from 1 and relations
from 11,
 (01)(11) is the set of all relations between relations from 01 and relations
from 11.

Then we can build the fourth level, the fifth level and so on. In general,
relational hierarchy can grow as far as we want and even be infinite for some
structures.

…………………………………………………………….
(0)((0)(01)) ….. (01((01)(11)) ……. (1)((1)(11))

(0)(01) (1)(01) (01)(11) (0)(11) (1)(11)

01 11

1

0
Figure 1. Four Levels of the Relational Hierarchy

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The relational hierarchy induces the structural hierarchy in the following

way:

 A structure Q has order 1 if it has relations only of the first level.

 A structure Q has order n if it has relations only of the level n and lower
levels.

For instance, a fundamental triad has order 1. At the same time, the order
of such a mathematical structure as a functional is 3 or more. Structures are
intrinsically related to systems.
Mathematical definitions of structure show that there are two classes of
structures: set-theoretical structures, which consist of basic elements and
relations, and mereological structures, which are based on such an area as
mereology23 and consist of parts, which may be essentially connected, having
common subparts. For instance, it is possible to consider the structure of the
human organism, which consists of parts such as the body, head, neck, arms
and legs. We also have relations between these parts: the neck, legs and arms
are connected to the body, while the head is connected to the neck. Here the
emphasis is on set-theoretical structures because mathematical structures are,
as a rule, set-theoretical.
In the general theory of structures, introduction to which Burgin presents
in the book "Structural Reality"24 there are two sorts of structures: abstract
structures and embodied structures. An embodied structure is a structure of
some system, while an abstract structure is a structure by itself.
To make the concept of an embodied structure exact and complete, we
need a definition of a system, which makes the difference between structures
and systems apparent.
Definition 6: A system is a collection of objects connected with one
another forming an intrinsic unity. Note that it is possible to treat a structure
as an abstract system.
According to the general theory of structures,25 there are five types of
embodied structures:

1. An internal structure TQ of a system R contains only inner structural

parts, components and elements, i.e., parts, components and elements

23. Stanisław Leśniewski, Podstawy ogólnej teoryi mnogosci I, Prace Polskiego Kola
Naukowego w Moskwie, Sekcya matematyczno-przyrodnicza, 1916 [trans. Foundations of the
General Theory of Manifolds I, Stanisław Leśniewski, Collected Works (Dordrecht: Kluwer 1
(1992))]; & Peter Simons, Parts: A Study in Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1987).
24. Mark Burgin, Structural Reality.
25. Ibid.

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of R, relations between these parts, components and elements,

relations between these parts, components, elements and relations
from TQ and relations between relations from TQ.
2. An inner structure IQ of a system R is a substructure of an internal
structure TQ of R, where IQ is obtained by exclusion of (1) the whole
system R as a part, component or element of itself and (2) all relations
that include R.
3. An external structure EQ of a system R is an extension of the internal
structure, in which other systems, their parts, components and
elements are included, as well as relations between all these included
parts, components and elements, relations between these parts,
components, elements and relations from EQ and relations between
relations from EQ.
4. An intermediate structure MQ of a system R is a substructure of an
external structure EQ of R, where MQ is obtained by exclusion of (1)
the whole system R and other systems from EQ, as well as (2) all
relations that include these systems.
5. An outer structure OQ of a system R is an inner structure of a system U
in which R is only one of the inner elements of the inner structure IQ of
the system U.

To show that the world of structures is consistent with the Platoʼs theory
of Ideas or Forms, let us compare properties of Ideas/Forms, which Plato
ascribes to them, and properties of structures as abstract objects.
In the dialogues Phaedo, Phaedrus and Timaeus, Plato gives an extended
description of the characteristics, properties and functions of Ideas. They are:

1. Unchangeable, that is, always the same.

2. Eternal.
3. Uniform.
4. Intelligible but not perceptible and not mental, that is, independent of
individual mentality.
5. Indissoluble.
6. Causes of being.
7. Incorporeal.
8. Non-temporal.
9. Non-spatial.
10.Existing without becoming.
11.Divine.
Now let us examine whether abstract structures have these properties.

1. Abstract structures are unchangeable, that is, always the same, because
any change (transformation) of a structure is simply another structure.

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For instance, in mathematics, such structures as functions and

operators represent transformations.
2. Abstract structures are eternal because they are unchangeable.
3. Abstract structures are uniform as they consist only of two types of
constituents - elements and relations.
4. Abstract structures are intelligible but not perceptible and not mental,
that is, independent of individual mentality, because they are not in
mentality of people and cannot be reached by senses.
5. Abstract structures are indissoluble because they are unchangeable.
6. Abstract structures are reflected in embodied structures, which make
things what they are, and in this way, structures are causes of being for
all things.
7. Abstract structures are incorporeal because they do not belong to the
physical world.
8. Abstract structures are non-temporal because they are unchangeable.
9. Abstract structures are non-spatial because they do not exist in the
physical space.
10.Abstract structures do not become, they simply are because they are
unchangeable.

Thus, we see that abstract structures have almost all properties of

Ideas/Forms that Plato ascribes to them. We do not discuss here Platoʼs
conjecture about divinity of structures as we do not have enough information
to make a judgment on this issue.

Why Structures Are Real

According to contemporary science, an object is real if it is possible to test

its existence by observation and experiment. This is how people substantiate
reality of trees, mountains and tables. This is how physicists assert reality of
atoms, electromagnetic waves and radiation. This is how astronomers verify
reality of planets and stars.
To demonstrate reality of structures, let us consider the simplest structure
called a fundamental triad (or a named set) and describe observations that
confirm existence of this structure. Here we describe only ordinary
fundamental triads (named sets) as the most simple structures.
In the symbolic representation, a fundamental triad (named set) has the
form X = (X, f, I) in which X is called the support of X, I is the component of
names (reflector) of X, and f is the naming correspondence (reflection) of X.
In the graphic representation, the following diagrams describe a
fundamental triad:

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connection
Entity 1 Entity 2 (1)

or
correspondence
Essence 1 Essence 2 (2)

Thus, people can see structures but as Plato wrote about Ideas (eidos),
they can comprehend structures only using their intelligence and knowledge.
Now let us describe how we can see a fundamental triad. Imagine, it is
raining and you can see a cloud, the ground and streams of water, which go
from the cloud to the ground. In essence, it is a fundamental triad (X, f, I), in
which the support X is the cloud, the reflector I is the ground and the streams
of water form the reflection f.
Some will object that they do not see a fundamental triad. They will argue
that they can see only a cloud, rain and ground. To understand why it
happens, let us look into the history of human civilization.
For a long time, the majority of people have assumed that only those
things (objects) were real that were comprehensible by the senses people had.
However, even a material thing such as a table, tree or mountain, is
comprehended not only by senses alone – understanding is necessary. For
instance, if a person who lived in ancient Greece would see a plane, this
person would not understand what he saw without explanation, and for many
even a good explanation would not be enough.
To clearly see the reality of structures, it is useful to know that in some
areas structures have played an indispensable role for a long time. For
instance, in chemistry, researchers have recognized the significance of
chemical structures almost from the very beginning of chemistry as a science.
May be the most evident example of the importance of structures is the
striking difference between diamond and graphite. Both materials
(substances) are built entirely from the chemical element carbon and the
difference in their properties is completely caused by their distinct crystal
structures.
One more transparent example of a structure is an organization because
organization is not so much people that work in the organization or material
things used by these people but a definite structure. Without the
organizational structure, it will be only a bunch of people and things. The
same people can form different organizations depending on different
organizational structures.
Embedded structures exist in diverse physical and mental things. At the
same time, to figure out where the world of abstract structures exists, it is
necessary to understand that there are different types of existence and
physical or material existence is only one of them. This understanding

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demands a mental effort similar to the effort in seeing that many stars, which
people can see only as points, are actually as big as the Sun and some are even
bigger.
Note that when we observe structures, e.g., a fundamental triad, they are
embedded structures.
Taking natural numbers as examples of structures, it is possible to ask
where number 3 exists. Note that the number 3 is not the symbol "3" used as
its name because number 3 has many other names: III in the Roman numerical
system, 11 in the binary numerical system, three in English and so on. There
are also different models of this number: an axiomatic model in formal
arithmetic, for example, in Peano arithmetic,26 a set theoretical model as the
class of all objects with the cardinality three27 or an abstract property as its
model.28 However, having all names and models, it is natural to assume that
all of them are names and models of some essence and this essence is an
abstract structure called number 3.
We see that this and other abstract structures exist in the constituent of
the world of structures that contains abstract structures and we are able to
find this structure by intelligent reasoning presented above. Moreover, it is
possible to regard number 3 as several structures. For instance, in the context
of a formal arithmetic, number 3 is an outer structure, while according to the
set theoretical model, it is an inner structure.

Resolution of the Aristotle-Plato Controversy

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) was a disciple of Plato but he did not accept
Platoʼs theory of Ideas or Forms. Instead, he suggested his own approach to
these issues.
Aristotle taught that each thing (physical object) is a synholon, which is a
composition of substance (hyle) and form or idea (eidos).29 Form/idea comes into
substance, but neither of them can exist independently in the physical world.
Any form/idea is based on a prote hyle (a "first matter"), which is the
hypokeimenon (foundation) of the form. Forms, according to Aristotle,

26. Joseph Shoenfield, Mathematical Logic (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley,

2001).
27. Abraham Fraenkel, & Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, Foundations of Set Theory (Amsterdam:
North Holland P.C., 1958).
28. Mark Burgin, Numbers as properties, Abstracts of papers presented to the American
Mathematical Society 10, no. 1 (1989).
29. Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984).

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determine essence of things. A philosophical teaching about relations between

form and substance is called hylomorphism.30
Note that the Greek word form is usually interpreted as the sight or
appearance of a thing, while Aristotle treated forms in a more general way.
Aristotle defines substance of a thing as "that out of which" this thing is
made or as the "constituents" of this thing. As a result, substance is not
necessarily physical. For instance, letters are the substance of words. Aristotle
even calls the parts of a geometrical shape by the name intelligible substance.
Substance is only potentiality of things as they do not exist without form,
which is actuality of things. According to Aristotle's theory of perception, the
senses perceive an object by receiving its form. For instance, bronze is the
matter of both a bronze statue and a bronze sphere. They have the same
substance but different forms. When a bronze statue is transformed into a
bronze sphere, the bronze as the substance remains constant throughout the
change. While bronze is a bronze sphereʼs substance, roundness is its form.
Bronze is potentially a bronze sphere. It becomes actually a bronze sphere
when it acquires roundness, which is an actuality of the bronze sphere.
However, forms need not always be shapes - shape is only a kind of forms.
We have demonstrated that it is possible to rigorously interpret Platonic
Forms/Ideas as structures. The same is true for Aristotleʼs forms. They can be
also interpreted as structures. It is interesting that implicitly physicists already
did it although the explicit statement that Aristotleʼs forms are structures was
only in Burgin.31 To show this, let us look at what scientists have written about
structures.
The outstanding physicist Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) wrote
that physical reality has substance and structure.32 This statement shows that
structures are prevalent in the physical world – any physical system has its
structure.
In a similar way, another outstanding physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-
1961) asserted that structure was the basic feature of an object. He wrote:
"… in palpable bodies, composed of many atoms, individuality arises out
of the structure of their composition, out or shape or form, or organization, as
we might call it in other cases. The identity of the material, if there is any, plays
a subordinate role. You may see this particularly well in cases when you speak
of "sameness" though the material has definitively changed."33

30. Joseph Wulftange, & Merrill Greene, Hylomorphism and contemporary physics
(Woodstock, MD: Woodstock College Press, 1952).
31. Burgin, Theory of Named Sets, & ___, Structural Reality.
32. Arthur Eddington, The Theory of Relativity and its Influence on Scientific Thought
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922).
33. Erwin Schrödinger, Science and humanism (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1952).

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As we know substance is only a general term (name), which has no

comprehensive definition because any attempt to further this naming
immediately involves attachment of some structure. At the same time, as we
have seen, it is possible to develop with high precision the general concept of
structure.
Another great physicist Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902-1984) asserted
that with the advance of quantum physics, physical objects start becoming
more structures than real things.34 The contemporary physicist Max Tegmark
advocates an even more extreme approach to physics suggesting the
Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, in which he assumes the external physical
reality to be a mathematical structure.35 He believes that this unification of
physics and mathematics would allow physicists to understand reality more
deeply than most dreamed possible.
All these examples show that if we interpret Forms/Ideas as structures,
we can see that physicists write exactly the same as Aristotle did millennia
ago. The only difference is that structure is an exact mathematical and thus,
scientific concept, while Aristotleʼs form is a vague philosophical notion.
Nevertheless, we can admire the genius of Aristotle, who was able to describe
the structural organization of the physical world with high accuracy.
Now to reconcile approaches of Plato and Aristotle to Ideas or Forms, we
use the general theory of structures, which tells us that there are two sorts of
structures: abstract structures and embodied structures.36 An embodied structure
is a structure of some system, while an abstract structure is a structure by
itself. This allows us to associate embodied structures with Aristotleʼs forms
and abstract structures with Platoʼs Ideas.
Regarding abstract structures as a scientific representation of Platoʼs
Ideas, we can see that they exist in reality but this is a different kind of reality.
As Burgin37 explains, there are various types and kinds of reality and
structural reality is one of the three basic types of reality that constitute our
world. Namely, there are physical reality, mental reality and structural reality.
The world of structures is a new type of reality and it demands a lot of
intelligence, as Plato already forecasted, to understand this. Although in our
times, it might be easier to do this because the development of quantum
physics also discovered a new kind of reality – quantum reality, which is
essentially different from the reality of the everyday life. As Bohr declared
during a conversation with Åage Petersen: "There is no quantum world. There

34. Paul Dirac, The origin of quantum field theory, The Birth of Particle Physics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
35. Max Tegmark, The Mathematical Universe.
36. Burgin, Structural Reality.
37. Ibid.

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is only an abstract quantum description."38 It means that quantum theory is

not a theory of objects in a micro-world but a structural description of
quantum reality.
Even before the discovery of the world of structures, people developed a
science that studies this world and this science is called mathematics.39 It is
interesting to know that similar to other sciences, mathematics has theoretical,
experimental and applied parts.40
In addition, the general theory of structures offers a better understanding
of other ontological and epistemological conceptions of Plato. In particular, to
better explain his theory of Ideas, Plato brings in the metaphor of the Divided
Line (γραμμὴ δίχα τετμημένη in Greek), when Socrates explains it to
Glaucon in the Republic. Socrates suggests dividing a segment of a straight line
into four segments (Figure 2) and explains that they represent four separate
"affections" (παθήματα) of the psyche. These affections are introduced in
succession as corresponding to the escalating levels of reality and truth from
conjecture (εἰκασία) to belief (πίστις) to thought (διάνοια) and finally to
understanding (νόησις).

A B C D E
| | | | |
Figure 2. The Divided Line

The left half AC of the segment AE corresponds to the visible world, while
the right half CE of the segment AE is associated with the intelligible world. In
this schema, the segment AB represents reflections of physical things and the
segment BC the physical things themselves.
Plato describes the segment CD as the "lower" part of the intelligible
world containing abstract mathematical objects such as geometric lines and
involving mathematical reasoning (διάνοια dianoia). At the same time, the
segment DE corresponds to the "higher" part of the intelligible world
containing principles, paradigms and general patterns.
The structural interpretation of Ideas provides a scientific explanation and
interpretation of the Divided Line metaphor.

 The segment AB represents mental images of physical things.

 The segment BC represents physical (sensible) things themselves.

38. Åage Petersen, The philosophy of Niels Bohr, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 19,
no. 7 (1963).
39. Mark Burgin, Is it Possible that Mathematics gives new Knowledge about
Reality? Philosophical and Sociological Thought, no. 1, (1994).
40. Mark Burgin, On the Nature and Essence of Mathematics (Kiev: Ukrainian
Academy of Information Sciences, 1998) (In Russian).

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 The segment CD represents embodied individual structures of physical

things.
 The segment DE represents abstract pattern structures.

In this interpretation, we discern two types of structures (Ideas): pattern

structures and individual structures.
Definition 7: A pattern structure is a structure common to several (often,
to many) systems. For instance, the structure of a triangle is a pattern structure
because it is the same for a multitude of triangles.
In the Republic, Plato writes, "there is one Idea for each set of many things
to which we give the same name." This exactly relates to a pattern structure,
which is the "one over the many."
It is possible to show that a structure in the sense of Bourbaki,41 is a
special kind of abstract pattern structures because axioms are kinds of
relations at a higher level defined by formulas. However, not all structures in
the sense of Definition 5 can be represented by structures in Bourbakiʼs sense.
For instance, it is impossible to represent even structures where a system is
considered as part of itself. Indeed, according to the axioms of set theory, a set
cannot be an element of itself, while Bourbakiʼs definition of structure is based
on sets.42
Definition 8: An individual structure is a structure of some individual
object. For instance, taking a definite triangle and determining its structure so
that it would define a unique triangle, we obtain an individual structure of
this triangle.
In their definition, Bourbaki deal only with pattern structures ignoring
individual structures because they assume that mathematics studies patterns.
However, in principle, mathematics also studies individual structures.

Conclusion

We described the main precepts of Platoʼs theory of Ideas and analyzed

the concept of a structure demonstrating how it is possible to treat structures
as the scientific interpretation of Platonic Ideas. At the same time, the
development of technology extends the scope of our analysis posing new
problems and bringing in new challenges for philosophers and other thinkers.
In his theory, Plato assumed that the physical world was the sensible
realm, as people could grasp it with their five senses, while the world of Ideas
was the intelligible realm, as people could comprehend it only with their
intellect. However, the development of technology changed the situation.

41. Nicolas Bourbaki, Theorie des Ensembles.

42. Ibid.

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Now people use many technical devices to get the picture of physical objects,
i.e., to comprehend them, – they use a variety of telescopes, microscopes,
binoculars, tomographic systems, detectors and many others. As a result, on
the one hand, sensing becomes mediated by technical devices, while on the
other hand, comprehension of observed objects demands intelligence when
many of these devices are utilized. Often computations are necessary to make
sense of the data produced by such devices.
At the same time, computers started to extend human intelligence.
Consequently, it becomes possible to know structures with the help of
computers although computers employ intelligence, which embedded in to
them by people. Computers discover structures of chemical elements in
chemistry and biological structures in genetics and its computerized part –
biological informatics.
Besides, computers can prove theorems developing mathematical
structures, write programs developing computational structures and construct
new chemical and biological structures. In such a way, computers cognize not
only embedded structures but also abstract structures, or Ideas in the sense of
Plato.
Thus, technology extends ways of comprehension of all kinds and types
of reality with its basic forms – physical, mental and structural reality.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to reviewers for their helpful comments.

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