Plato Revision
- Created by: Rebecca112
- Created on: 22-01-15 10:06
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- PLATO!
- Everything that we see around us is imperfect
- The cave analogy
- Prisoners are unphilosophical, unthinking people...live in the changing word of appearances, limited to sense perceptions of the world and accept what they see in front of them - no knowledge of the Forms
- Known as 'sight lovers'
- Shadows represent the ordinary, everyday, changing world of appearances - the world that is apprehended through sense perceptions (which are poor and unreliable reflections of the deeper realities of life
- People walking past the cave: true realities of the world of ideas - the ideal Forms...they're unchanging, eternal and perfect and everything in the material world is a pale reflection of them
- Escaped prisoner: the philosopher who has developed his intellect to move beyond the changing world of the senses - he understands the deeper reality of the world of the ideal Forms and knows that objects in the everyday world are reflections
- Light of the Sun: represents the 'shining' Form of the Good
- Prisoners' hostility towards returned escapee (who throw rocks at him) symbolises that we do not recognise our need to be enlightened
- Prisoners are unphilosophical, unthinking people...live in the changing word of appearances, limited to sense perceptions of the world and accept what they see in front of them - no knowledge of the Forms
- The Forms
- Invisible
- Perfect
- Changeless
- Eternal
- The highest and most fundamental kind of reality
- Only things that can provide us with genuine knowledge
- Everybody came into contact with them (existed in the realm of the Forms) before birth
- This is why we immediately recognise material objects as shadows or reflections of the Forms
- Most pure compared to all of the types of them in the material world
- Examples: The Forms are ABSTRACT CONCEPTS
- Justice
- Truth
- Beauty
- WHY CAN'T I SAY THAT SOMETHING IS BEAUTY ITSELF?
- We can acknowledge that something is beautiful due to having existed in the realm of the Forms...
- But we cannot label a person or object 'beauty itself' because we have never experienced the ultimate form of beauty...
- Beauty itself does not depend on our senses...
- But our opinions of 'beautiful' things always change depending on time and culture
- They also change based on personal opinion, which is why the Form is objective
- But our opinions of 'beautiful' things always change depending on time and culture
- Beauty itself does not depend on our senses...
- But we cannot label a person or object 'beauty itself' because we have never experienced the ultimate form of beauty...
- We can acknowledge that something is beautiful due to having existed in the realm of the Forms...
- WHY CAN'T I SAY THAT SOMETHING IS BEAUTY ITSELF?
- Equality
- Holiness
- Courage
- Order and symmetry
- THE FORM OF THE GOOD
- HIERARCHY of Forms...Forms of objects (e.g chairs), Forms of concepts (e.g. beauty/justice), Form of the Good
- A more perfect, changeless and eternal version of the Forms
- Ultimate Form of existence and perfection
- SUPREME
- Passes on and reflects its existence and perfection (in the Forms and their types)
- GOD!!!
- MENTAL PHENOMENA THAT ARE NON-PHYSICAL
- PLATO'S DUALISM
- Believed in 2 worlds - material world and world of the Forms
- Dualism = the Forms as the first thing, second thing is that mind and body are NOT identical
- Plato believed that only our MIND and SOUL are important in helping us to believe in more real, perfect world
- Our mind provides us with genuine knowledge (knowledge of the Forms) and real knowledge, which comes from doing philosophy
- OUR SOUL IS IMMORTAL
- Our souls were presented with the Forms before we were born so they help us reason and gain true knowledge as well as identify reflections of the Forms - reasoning helps remind us of the Forms, so the job of the soul is to keep alive the idea of a more perfect world rather than the material world
- Our body simply comprises our senses, which deceive us by tricking us into believing that the material world is reality
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