I just finished the Socrates tetralogy and the Sophistic tetralogy

What are "forms"?

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>>8495101

>>8495101
I see them as the pure, unpolluted essence that all things are a reflection of: roundness, blackness, goodness, pleasure, etc. The Forms always exist beyond space/time and we are cognizant of them before we are born and before we "learn". How else would we be able to determine that things are pleasing, good, etc. when we have nothing to compare them to? Things cannot exist only relative to each other; there must be a pure, true form they are all based off of.

All things we see in this world are pulled from the forms. If you try to describe anything that exists, you must describe it using innate properties such as squareness, largeness, color. Therefore, all things that we see are only in existence because of the Forms. Forms, then, can be said to be reality, whereas the world we live in is just a copy, or reflection.

I'm aware this idea gets expounded on more in Republic, but this is what I gathered from Phaedo

I know you asked about math/logic, but in terms of political philosophy and the Greeks the bare minimum is:

Important dialogues (up for you to decide)
The Republic in its entirety
Nichomacean Ethics
Politics
The Handbook by Epictetus

Then you're ready for Locke, Leviathan, Machiavelli, Descartes, and so on

source: phil major at an ivy league university who completed a course beginning with plato

>>8495266
Metaphysics should be on the list

>>8495164
>How else would we be able to determine that things are pleasing, good, etc. when we have nothing to compare them to?
we compare them to things we experienced in previous lives, anamnesis