Plato: The Analogy of the Cave
Key ideas surronding plato and the analogy of the cave.
- Created by: Bethany
- Created on: 02-12-14 13:14
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- Plato: The Analogy of the Cave
- Plato
- Book = Republic
- thought lots about the natural world and how it works
- Believes everything has an ideal form - EXAMPLE of the chair
- Differences between reality and an illusion
- Forms have a greater reality than objects in the physical world because of their perfection
- Metaphysical concept = the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space.
- Epistemology = the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.
- Problems relating the many to the one (chair)
- Reality and perfection were closely linked
- Book = Republic
- 7 parts of the cave
- The Prisoners
- The Shadows
- The Cave
- The Outside World
- The Sun
- Return to the prisoners
- The Journey
- Explanation
- The Prisoners
- This refers to us ('ordinary people') who are in the phenomenal world
- The Shadows
- Our perceptions - this is what we see in our world
- The Cave
- The Phenomenal World - our world we live in
- The Outside World
- The realm of forms - where the original 'perfect' version of everything is
- The Sun
- The Goodness - The Form of the Good
- This for Plato was philosophical understanding - Think of the idiom 'come to light'.
- Enlightened understanding of reality
- The Goodness - The Form of the Good
- The Journey
- Using our reason and our thoughts to come to the realisation that there is more than our world
- Return to Prisoners
- Someone who has achieved understanding (philosophers) trying to explain to others and them not believing
- The Prisoners
- Strengths and Limitations of the analogy
- Strengths
- Explains why we recognise the same essential elements in everything (appleness)
- Teaches us to question things and not accept things at face value we have different levels of perception
- Explains why there are imperfections in the world around us
- Influenced many Philosophers and the way they think
- identifies different levels of reality
- Limitations
- Forms could be ideas preserved in peoples minds
- Form of a form - could there be an infinite regression
- Plato is part of the phenomenal world (world of appearances) so he is subject to change and is imperfect the same as everyone else
- There is no proof of any other world apart from the physical world (never will be) LACK OF EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
- Plato does not explain the link between the realm of the forms and the physical world
- Reflect the goodness of the form of the Good - but what about bad things such as cancer or war
- Can there be a form of everything?? Each breed of animal ect?
- Strengths
- Plato
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