Abstract
Plato’s theory of ideas states that if something exists, then it can be proven by the idea. Plato’s method in the Phaedo is to provide a context that shows how a priori ideas come into existence through proof. But he does not give empirical reason a place to combine the utilities of objects with ideas. Since the forms exist in an eternal world, science cannot change semantic contexts to isolate the variables that contain them in actual reality, such as through names, classes, and types. Peirces’ pragmatism suggests that the Platonic form can be employed as a practical entity when it unites distinctness with an abstract definition of the real. The nature of these relations is known through action and must say why reflection ultimately proves that the existence of the forms depends on the universal concept soul.