plato

what is reality according to plato

-must be unchanging however our world is constantly changing (in flux)

-objects change; the physical world is defined by change

-therefore, the physical world is not real

-the real world is the world of forms

idea vs examples

idea=non-physical

examples=physical

the ‘one over the many’

reality is the non-physical ideas (forms) not the physical examples

e.g., beauty is the form; flowers are the examples

analogy of the cave 

-we are all prisoners, we see only the shadows (examples) so we trick ourselves into thinking they are real

-however, the journey of the philosopher discovers reality

roles of the analogy of the cave

prisoners=humanity

chains=ignorance to see the world

shadows on the wall=world of appearances

journey out of the cave=journey of the philosopher toward enlightenment

sun=highest good/form of the good

return to the cave=journey of the philosopher towards enlightenment of others 

persecution of the prisoner=rejection of philosopher’s enlightenment 

what is the analogy of the cave about?

-metaphysics; what is real? - the analogy explains the realm of forms 

-epsitemology; study of knowledge, we gather knowledge through reason not through our senses (as they cannot be trusted) - apriori reasoning 

-politics; who should rule society? - philosophers should rule as they have access to truth 

forms vs appearances 

forms; ideas, reality, soul, eternal

appearances; physical, examples, illusions, body, flux, temporal

hierarchy of the forms

1.form of the good

2.form of ideas e.g., beauty, hope, love

3.form of physical objects e.g., a chair 

priori

not based on sense experience

-innate ideas (present at birth)

-learning is remembering, we use our reason to uncover it

-senses are constantly changing and can be unreliable

what are we born with according to plato?

-with a dim recollection of what forms are, due to our immortal soul

-reason leads us to genuine truths

-person who uses reason to escape the world of appearances, this is the philosopher

analogy of the divided line 

a——b———c——d————————-e

a-b represents opinions and beliefs (analogy of the cave)

b-c represents scientific knowledge

c-d represents mathematical knowledge 

d-e represents philosophical knowledge (longest so most important)

the form of the good

source of anything that is knowable and of the knowable world

-allows us to know what things are and what is knowable

gyges’ ring

whether any person who had a magic ring of invisibility could resist using it and the affect such a ring might have on the user’s moral identity

strength - learning is remembering

-plato argued that the boy learning geometry already had the knowledge as his soul had experienced it in the realm of forms; so he was not learning something new, he was remembering something he’d always known

-therefore the realm of forms must exist to make this possible

strength - a priori

-plato argued that we cannot trust our senses; this is because sense data is unreliable

-this means sense data cannot tell us about reality

weakness - a priori

-no evidence for his ideas; no empirical/scientific evidence 

-plato would say that no evidence could be trusted, as it would be sense data

weakness - occam’s razor

if given a range of possible scenarios, one should believe the scenario that has the fewest number of things that need to be true/ the simplest

-either we live in a fake world where nothing physical is real

-or we live in the real world

-to believe the first option we need evidence and we don’t have any

weakness - aristotle’s third man argument

-every example has a form, meaning bob will have a form

-every form is also an example, so bob’s form must be an example

-examples have a form; a form of a form of bob

-leads to ‘infinite regress’ so plato’s arguement is nonsense

weakness - memes

criticism of ‘learning is remembering’

-genes=we inherit biological characteristics 

-memes=cultural genes which enables us to understand the world, when we see something new but familiar we know what it is because we have that meme as knowledge we have been exposed to 

-e.g., if an iphone was taken back in time to henry viii he would not recognise it as he does not have that meme; therefore learning is not remembering