Plato

?
View mindmap
  • Plato
    • The world of forms (outside world)
      • idea of reality
        • Entities that correspond to those in the human world
          • these are forms (supreme ideals) which give meaning to the world around us.
            • We remember the forms as our soul encountered them before birth e.g. objects such as animals have forms-these are more real as the earth examples are imperfect.
      • transcendental
    • The world of particulars
      • A place of illusion where particulars or predicates are represented as the imperfect representation of the forms, e.g. beauty can describe a flower.
      • material/less real
    • Soul and body
      • Plato was a dualist-mind and body are separate (soul lives on when the body dies)
      • The soul was born in the world of forms and transmigrates to this world to join the body.
        • The trauma of birth makes us forget everything we knew.
          • 'Learning is remembering'
      • source or reason
      • tripartite- intellect, spirit, appetite-analogy of the chariot.
    • Symbols in the analogy
      • Analogy-the description of something else to describe something less familiar
      • Allegory- the use of symbols to convey different meanings of the analogy
      • shackles
        • neck- trauma of birth
        • body- soul is shackled by the body and its senses
      • Shadows and echoes- illusions of reality-experience of the senses.
      • Journey out of the cave-journey of philosophical reasoning to realise what is true
        • slope-education and understanding
      • Fire- reflects the form of the good (sun), creates the shadows.
      • Sun-form of the good-life+intelligence-illuminates.
      • Reflections-'learning is remembering', parallel of 2 worlds
      • Return to the cave- prisoners reject his thoughts and want to kill him- parallels with Socrates explaining to the Athenians about their illusory thoughts and wanting to kill him.

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar Philosophy resources:

See all Philosophy resources »See all Plato resources »