What is Plato's from of the Good?

Question

Can anyone explain Plato's form of the good in layman's terms?

Answer 1

The Good = God.

If you experience reality like Plato, particular objects are transitory, but their Forms are immortal. When you experience a yellow flower the flower will die eventually, but yellow as a universal category lives on. You can see yellow again and again in various objects. Likewise mathmatical reasoning is not about particular objects in the world, but about the abstractions themselves-- say, the perfect Form of a triangle -- which leads us to greater understanding. Again, the particular "appearances" of Forms lack the reality of the structural universals that exist beyond time. And as you rationalize up the understanding ladder of existence to apprehend the Forms of Beauty, Justice, Piety, further abstraction render these categories as subsets of one: the Good.

"To know the Good is to do the Good" for Plato's Socrates. Coming to supreme knowledge which explains every universal and universal instantiation is no different from moral practice. Every irrational activity is like a circle in the sand, lacking clarity of what is truly Real. We may never KNOW the Good while living in the world of appearances, but we can get CLOSER to knowledge through reasoning.

Answer 2

The Good, is the highest form of knowledge.
According to Plato, The Good is what every philosopher is trying to attain.
He has something like a pyramid of FORMS.
The Good, is right up there on the top.