Many modern and contemporary thinkers (though often based on misinterpretation) criticize Plato as having lost "himself in speculative thought" and having forgotten "what it means to exist" (Kierkegaard, in his work Concluding Unscientific Postscripts). Existential philosophers, especially, attribute this belief to Plato's usage of the term eidos or idea, which translates on one level into the English terms "idea," or "form." These modern philosophers interpret this term throughout the dialogues as understood to be an abstraction of ideas from objects. The ideas, therefore, necessitate a position hierarchically superior to objects as experienced in sensible reality. This assumes a separation of a kind of distinct and perfect reality from the earthly, imperfect reality of intelligibility, which has come to be known as Plato's metaphysical "Realm of Forms." However, this separation simply is not supported by Plato -- through his speaker Socrates -- in the dialogues; in fact, as Plato shows throughout Politeia, in light of the search for the meaning of the Good, that there is a necessary "yoking together," a codependence, of the sensible and intelligible realities of human experience.
Plato's Politeia, arguably his most well-known and consequently often most misrepresented work, introduces Plato's typical character, Socrates, in open dialogue initially with the Pythagorean thinker Thrasymachus, and later his own followers Glaucon and Adeimantus. Socrates employs the strategy of myth and imagery -- typical to most of his dialogues; using the concrete discussion of a perfectly structured and ordered, just city as a tool for uncovering the proper structuring and order of the just human soul, Socrates describes a city built upon the foundations of a working class, supported and governed by the Guardians within which an individual -- the Philosopher-king -- must come to rule. Despite his interlocutors' affinity for becoming enveloped in the imagery themselves, Socrates' purpose in this discussion is simply to draw connections to the proper orientation of the human soul. In Book VI, Socrates engages his followers in defining the philosopher as a lover of truth and wisdom. The image of the philosopher leads to the more pertinent discussion of the good person, and by extension, the nature of the Good itself.
Socrates is initially reluctant to define the good, arguing that it is "something" but that the soul is "perplexed and cannot adequately grasp what it is" despite its pursuit of it (Politeia 505e). He is, however, quick to dispel the popular notions of the good as pleasure or knowledge. Socrates, as per usual, begins the discussion of good with his famous analogy -- the sun -- the "offspring of the good and most like it" (Politeia 506e). His quest for understanding beings in the sensible with perceptible things, particulars, in relation to sight and visible objects. It is clear that there is a relationship between both: in order for objects to be visible, there must be the ability of vision, and conjugally, in order to have vision, there must be visible objects. Socrates reminds however that there must be a "third kind of thing" that is present, "which is naturally adapted for this very purpose" (Politeia 507e).
This "third kind of thing" -- at least in the visible realm -- is light, which allows for things to be seen and for sight to occur. Without light, there is neither seeing nor the thing seen. Light is that which connects self -- which has sight -- to the object sen, and is a "more valuable link than any other linked things have got" (Politeia 508a). The link, or unifier, "yokes together" (syzeuxis) the two elements of sensible reality. The sun, as the cause of the light which allows for the yoking of the sensible experience, is then elevated, in the sense that it is "neither sight itself nor that in which it comes to be, namely the eye" (Politeia 508b). Therefore, the sun is not a part of sight or an ingredient of the visible, but is necessary to it, as it is "the cause of sight itself and seen by it" (Politeia 508b).
Socrates uses this image of the sun as analogous to the Good; what the sun it sot he sensible, the Good is to the intelligible. Within the intelligible, the Good acts as a unifier which yokes together (syzeuxis) the intelligible (idea) and the intellect that apprehends it. Without the good, there is no way of apprehending the things apprehended. It is the good which gives "truth to the things known," as well as "power to know to the knower" (Politeia 508e). This shows the necessary and codependent relationship of both the elements of the self and thing as either sensible or intelligible, though neither of them is the Good itself. Yet in this discussion, Plato has only hinted at the meaning of the Good, itself. He does, however, give a clearer picture of the good and its nature in another dialogue -- Philebus. Socrates, in Philebus, continues a more detailed discussion of the Good as either pleasure or knowledge. Again in this dialogue, Socrates is adamant that it is neither -- instead, the good occurs everywhere, in reality, and yet "we cannot capture the good in one form" as it is a conjunction, a unifying integration, and act of collecting the forms (as idea) of "beauty, proportion, and truth" (Philebus 65a). It is the unity of the mixture that "makes the mixture itself a good one" (Philebus 65a). It is not a blending, or an "unconnected medley" of many, but the coordination of the many (forms) into a single, unified whole (Philebus 64e). The Good, itself, is not an ingredient in the unified whole to which one can point or locate. Therefor, it is not one of the many intelligible forms, and not intelligible itself by itself.
In the discussion of book VI of Politeia, the objection may be raised that there still seems to be a disconnect between sensible and intelligible, as sight and that which is seen is still separate from the intellect and that which is intelligible. This seems to still indicate an imperfect lower realm of sensible experience, which must strive and relate to a metaphorically 'higher' realm of 'perfect,' intellect, as supported by the view that idea means an abstracted 'form' from which all sensible objects are merely copies. However, nowhere in Politeia -- beyond the claimed images and metaphors -- does Plato espouse any separation. In fact, he claims that "objects of knowledge" not only "owe their being known to the good," but more importantly, "their being is also due to it" (Politeia 509c). While the Good, itself by itself, is beyond intelligibility (in that it is not an object of knowledge, but rather an act) in seniority and power, it is still the source of the reality of things. It is that which allows things to be any thing, or some thing. The emphasis he draws here is not idea as 'form' above or beyond things, but that their trough can be found within the existing object -- the reality of things (ousia), what is most true of things (aletheia). Plato's warning is not that sensible objects are mere appearances, or imperfect tools (organon); instead, his warning is not to see the appearances -- just as his images and myths suggest -- as the realities themselves by themselves (as universals), but as sharing in them and reflecting in their truth (as particulars which must be collected as a whole in order to discover the true form -- the purpose -- of the particulars in collection). The unity of the many forms make an object good and true, while the unity of the many appearances of a single form make its single whole, good and true. Therefore, perceptible things are not forms in and of themselves, but are true appearances of those forms in conjunction and unified with others -- neither the intelligible nor the sensible object can be abstracted from the other, as it is their unity that makes their essence good.
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