@emnj,
emnj wrote:I have read many sources and I get what the theory of forms is, but the question posed is puzzling me. I have tried to rephrase it and think in basic terms it is asking me, do you believe that Plato believed in his theory of forms? Am I on the right track or way off?
You will have to deal with Plato's criticism of own theory in
Parmenides. There's no consensus among scholars about how to interpret the work. So whichever way you go -- that Plato did later change his mind about "forms" or did not (that is, only strengthened apprehension of them in the discourse method of that dialogue) -- the applicable texts will have to be recruited as evidence for your take on it.
Plato via the characters of Parmenides to a young Socrates:
"I think that you should go a step further, and consider not only the consequences which flow from a given hypothesis, but also the consequences which flow from denying the hypothesis; and that will be still better training for you."
You cannot even appeal to Kant's conclusion, alone, about the ancient rationalist tradition. Which he turned on its head to create his own version of / fusion with empiricist thought:
The dictum of all genuine idealists from the Eleatic school to Bishop Berkeley, is contained in this formula: "All cognition through the senses and experience is nothing but sheer illusion, and only, in the ideas of the pure understanding and reason there is truth."
The principle that throughout dominates and determines my Idealism, is on the contrary: "All cognition of things merely from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer illusion, and only in experience is there truth." [Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics]
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