(a) Explain the concept of ‘Ideals’ in Plato’s writings. [25]

PLATO'S THEORY OF FORMS

• he believed world was divided into : reality and appearance
• Reality- intelligible world, beyong our senses, full of true knowledge
• appearance- visible world, world of senses & opinions
• empirical knowledge is not true knowlege but merely a set of opions which are subjective
• in the world of Forms , ideas are eternal & immutable thus ideas become more real as they cannot change
• we are able to reconise or recollect Forms from our eternal soul who once knew the Forms so our soul pre exists and post exists in our bodies
• when we call something a name we are reffering to a particular qualit/ essence  that it has
• The most important Form is the Form of Good
• Good is the greatest thing we have to learn

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

• In the book 'Republic'
• illusrates his ideas about human knowlegde in relation to reality
• imagine a dark, large cave…