Plato - The World of the Forms

PLATO - The World of the Forms

Plato was a rationalist who believed that the best way to knowlege is the use of reason and logic, however he never undermined the use of empiricism. He was influenced by a man named Heraclitus who famously said "no man ever steps into the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man", which told Plato that the wold is contantly changing and so isn't perfect.

Plato then contemplated and analysed things around him. Such as a circle. He noticed that like circles which we have never truly experienced as they can never be perfect. We still manage to recognise and so therefore we must have experienced the perfect versions of these elsewhere where there are the perfect versions. This would have to be before your are born in a seperate perfect world. Plato would call this the World of the forms, in which the greatest form would be the "form of…