Plato

Who was Plato?

An Ancient Greek philosopher who lived from 427-347 BCE.

Former student of Socrates

One of the most influential and well known philosophers in history.

Plato’s belief about empirical knowledge was

That empirical knowledge (gained from senses) cannot be accepted as fact as it does not show reality. This knowledge of reality based entirely on reasoning is called a priori (gained entirely from logical reasoning and independent sensory experience)

What is Plato’s argument?

Absolutist (fixed). He believed his argument to be true for all people in places at all times. It is universal.

Difference between worlds

The world of appearances and the real world, proposed that we live in the world of appearances, but the real world is the world of Forms (ideas)

Concept of Forms

All cats that exist in the material world, our world, conform to the idea, or the Form of a cat. A form does not change, it is an everlasting concept. Plato argued that the true Form of everything must exist somewhere in a different reality. He called this reality the world of Forms

Plato on change

Believed that everything that has a physical existence changes “everything tangible flows”. Everything in our world erodes. He was interest in establishing an idea that behind everything with a physical existence was a timeless mould from which something comes. He concluded that there must be a reality behind the materials world.

Form of beauty

He saw that concepts like beauty can be applied different things such as a person and song. None define beauty because they’re different things. This led him to think there was a form of beauty which all these things correspond to some extent.

Shadows and images of forms

In our world, there are only shadows and images or forms. Material things in our world imitate a form. Plato argued that we recognise these forms is because when we are born we have a dim recollection of them. He said our soul is immortal and unchanging. We can recognise beautiful things because we have seen the forms before. This was Plato’s evidence that a person can instinctively know that something is beautiful, even if we haven’t been taught it.