Plato

What type of reasoning did Plato believe was the key to unlocking reality?

A priori

What is A priori knowledge?

Knowledge which is not dependent on experience.

What do the prisoners in the story of the cave represent?

The ordinary people in our world

What does the cave represent?

The empirical world that we see and hear around us

What do the shadows represent ?

Our every day sense experiences

What does the escapee represent?

The philosopher who is able to access knowledge

What does the difficult ascent represent?

The road to philosophical Knowles’s is difficult

What does the outside world represent ?

The real world, the world of the forms

What does the sun represent?

The highest of all forms, the form of the good.

What does the return to the cave represent?

* The philosopher once englightened feels it is his duty to free and educate others.

What does the difficulty in adjusting to the darkness represent?

Once a philosopher knows the truth it is difficult to experience things as an ordinary person would.

What does the persecution govern by the other prisoners represent?

He prisoners are naive and shallow minded so the philosopher will be ridiculed and threatened.

What is A posterior knowledge ?

Knowledge which is dependent on sense experience, can only be known after sense experience.

What are the key messages of the cave?

• Metaphysics- what is real?

• Epistemology- How do we gain knowledge? - plat believes it is through the mind, not senses

• Politics-Who should rule? Democracy puts power in the hands of the majority who lack knowledge.

• Ethics. What is good?- Only the philosopher understands what is good.

What are the weaknesses of Plato’s cave?

• The information we gain through are senses are still essential and we need them to survive

• No proof of another realms and he is unclear on how the two worlds relate with each other

• Guilty of elitism- differences in a degree of Knowledge

• Why should philosophers rule if this is only a shadow world?

What are the objects in our world according to Plato?

Merely shadows of real objects in the world of the form.

What are forms according to Plato?

The name Plato gives to ideal concepts that exist in reality

What are particulars?

The name Plato gives to the objects in the empirical world which are merely imperfect copies of the form.

Why does Plato believe that there are forms?

• difference between our changing world and the mathematical world- mathematical truths do not change .

• Plato believes in the same way that there is a similar unchanging truth about every type of object/quality.

What are the qualities of the world of the forms ?

• each form is one single thing ( one idea of perfect beauty)

• They are known by the intellect or reason

• They are eternal

• They are immutable

• They are non-physical

• They are perfect

What are the qualities of the wold of particulars?

There are many particulars ( many beautiful things

• Known through empirical sense

• They pass in and out of existence

• They are constantly changing

• They are physical

• They are imperfect

What is the ultimate form?

The form of the good.

What does the form of the good do?

• the form of the good illuminates the other forms

• It is the reason why the forms are good

• It enables us to “see” the forms

• IT is the ultimate end in itself.

What is Plato’s argument for the forms: The one over many argumen?

• When we observe different particulars, eg chairs, cats and beautiful things we are able to recognise that they have similar qualities. Eg a child can identify a cat when they have never seen one like it before.

• We can acknowledge similarities between objects

• We have an innate ability to recognise the forms tat our souls know before we were born. Our souls were in the world of the forms before they were tied down to earth.

• Without the forms it is not possible to explain “sameness”

What is Plato’s argument for the forms: The ideal standard?

• idea of forms can be used to support a belief in absolute unchanging moral rules.

• Higher form such as goodness and justice seem to important to be a matter o opinion. The form of the good gives us an absolute idea of what goodness really is, it’s not a matter of opinion.

What are the two arguments for the world of the forms?

• The one over many argument

• The ideal standard.

Why did Wittgenstein reject the one over many argument ?

• His family resemblance theory

• there is “no one over many” but simply overlapping characteristics- just like a family, resemble each other but there is no specific one thing to that family

What is the “third man” argument ?

• Responds to the theory’s claim to explain reality

• If we need the forms to explain why things have qualities in common, what’s to stop us from asking what the forms have in common and therefore require a “third man” it explain this

• Indefinite process

What does Stephen Law say?

• Plato’s claim of the forms can be carried to absurdity

• he says “the form of the bogey”

Why do new inventions and extinction cause a problem for Plato?

Plato’s belief in the unchanging nature of the world of the forms seems to require there always be a “form of the iPad”

Why is evolution a threat to Plato’s argument ?

The theory of evolution and advances in chemistry mean that we do now have an empirical means of explaining what similer objects or animals have in common.

Do Plato’s forms have practical value?

• no- don’t have practical value, study of them takes us away from useful scientific study of the world.

• If there are forms of every possible number, as Plato claimed there are an infinite number of forms.

Why can critism be undermined?

Critism only arise if you take Plato to literally- Plato is ambiguous about whether all objects have forms. He is primarily concerned with properties such as justice and beauty.

What are the three main disadvantages to Plato’s forms?

1. seems illogical - ideal standards

2. not practical

3. infinite regress

What are the min advantages to Plato’s forms?

• explains imperfections in the world

• explains recognition

• Encourages us to question everything