Plato

• Form:

  perfect expression of something that never changes
• This world based on senses is the Horaton (phenomena)
• Sense Experience creates illusion
• Humans who believe these illusions are ignorant: Eikasia
• Episteme:

  achieved true knowledge of the Forms
• Plato believes in A Priori knowledge, meaning his argument is based on reason not senses
• Cave Allegory:

  • People chained to face a cave wall
  • A small fire projects shadows of objects onto the wall
  • The people believe these shadows are real and they boast about seeing the images
  • One day, a person escapes out of the cave and he sees the true world
  • He sees the sun and actual objects
  • When he returns to the cave, the others don't believe him and infact they wish to kill him
• Strengths of the cave theory:

  +

  • It allows an explanation of why our world is imperfect
  • Explains how we understand beauty and goodness
  • Explains where our immortal soul must go
• Weaknesses of the cave theory:

  -

  • Where is the world of forms?
  • Why does evil exist?
  • Goodness is subjective
  • Aristotle believed the Forms where imperfect and in our world
• A particular for example is a beautiful person, the participate is what that is
• Plato’s One Over Many argument:

  • we can only categorise things if we know their concept e.g. trees
  • share something in common, shows that there must be an abstract quality of treeness
  • Plato doesn’t see how we could recognize a tree unless we already have in our mind a perfect abstract ideal of a tree; an idea of ‘treeness’, with which we can recognize a particular tree due to it being an imperfect representation of treeness
• Aristotle’s response to Plato’s One Over Many argument:

  • doesn't disagree with the idea of a form, but does disagree with the idea that it is separate
  • believes the form is an essence
• Wittgenstein’s Criticism of the One Over Many argument:

  • that there is no precisely definable form or abstract ideal of a category
  • e.g. family photo
  • not a set of definable categories
  • humans divide the world linguistically and conceptually in a disorganised haphazard way when it is useful for us within our social context
• The Third Man argument:

  • made by Aristotle
  • infinite amount of forms to make one judgment undermines the theory that plato believed in
• Plato’s view can be seen as weak as there is no scientific evidence to support it. This is because we cannot access it the forms in anyway.
• Some believe that Plato’s theories are the extreme version of dualism. He saw physical pleasures as unimportant which could be a reason as to why he believes our world is imperfect
• Plato’s view of Goodness is also challenged, as it appears only those at a certain intellect are seen as capable of doing and being Good. This is unecessary and highly elitist.
• Aristotle also argued that there can’t be a single Form of Goodness as goodness was specific to every action. Morality cannot be eternal and changeless, as no two situations are the same
• ‘To them,’ I said, ‘ the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images’


  Plato
• my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all

  Plato
• Allegorical meaning of the cave theory:

  • the cave = world of the senses
  • the shadows on the wall = illusions found in our reality
  • the chains = ignorance
  • the fire = the sun
  • the objects on the wall = physical things
• Allegorical meaning of the cave theory:

  • the difficult ascent from the cave = the dialectic —> process of arriving at truth
  • the reflection = the process of understanding
  • the moon and the stars = forms of justice and beauty etc
  • the sun = form of goodness