...a) Explain Plato’s Theory of Forms Plato’s Theory of Forms is similar to many other beliefs about the world. For instance, Heraclitus’ notion was that we see a world of perception in constant flux of which we have no true knowledge, while Zeno believed that we can see a static unchanging world and it can be grasped through reason. Plato’s theory is strongly based on what is real and what is not. What is real is thought to be perfect, but something cannot be real or perfect if it is transient. He explains that the World of Forms is very different to the World of Shadows. The World of Forms can only be properly understood by philosophers and those who seek knowledge, not by the ignorant or those who do not wish to learn the truth. The Theory of Forms makes a distinction between those objects that are real and those that are only real in our minds. His dialogues, like the Allegory of the Cave, portray knowledge as the process of leaving the cave and going into the sunlight. The people in the cave find their reality in the shadows cast in the cave and assume there can never be anything beyond these shadows. These shadows symbolise how the world that we see is just a shadow or reflection of what is real. For Plato, the real world is not what we see around us, it is only the World of Forms that is real. Plato believes there are two distinct realms of existence which exists simultaneously. This approach to the two different worlds is know as dualism. The world we live in is...
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...Theory of the Forms and the Sensible World This paper will discuss the relationship between the knowledge of the forms and opinion about the sensible world. After describing the sensible world, Socrates brings up a new concept about how this world should be ruled. This paper will argue that because philosophy kings have knowledge about the forms they are better rulers of the sensible world, rather than sight-lovers. This paper is divided into two phases, each showing how Socrates has used the theory of the forms. Philosopher Kings and Sight Lovers: The idea of philosophy kings first comes up in Book V of the Republic at 473d. Socrates claims that the sensible world can only exist once kings, or those who rule practice philosophy. As Socrates is saying this, he himself realizes how his statement is somewhat radical. This radical claim by Socrates leads him to distinguish the difference between philosophy kings and sight lovers using the theory of the forms. At 476b (Rep. V), Socrates says that the lovers of sights only like beautiful characteristics such as shapes and sounds. Socrates argues that these individuals don’t see the underlying beauty. Although not explicitly mentioned, at this point, Socrates is using the theory of forms to distinguish philosophers and sight lovers. For sight-lovers, beauty is on a comparative basis; say for example “A” has beautiful features once it is observed alone. Once we compare “A” with all things beautiful, it may not posses the beauty it once...
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...Plato's Theory of Forms Plato was a Greek philosopher, one of the most important figures of the Ancient Greek world and the entire history of Western Philosophy. Plato wrote about many ideas in philosophy that are still talked about today. His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language. He was fascinated of the distinction between ideal forms and everyday experience. Plato was a student of Socrates and he thougth that Socrates has a pretty good ideas about the world, particulary when he came to his method of asking questions about established ideas. Since we know that Socrates wrote nothing down everything that we know about him comes in the form of dialogues written by Plato. Plato thinks that there is an explanaition for questions and he can answer "what is virtue ?" or "what is justice ?". Plato comes up with idea of answering these questions, with the Theory of Forms - the most imporant philosophical concept. Plato used his Theory of Forms to link the mind and reality. He taught that the real world consisted of universal ideas (forms). The world that people actually see is given form by these ideas and is thus less real because it is always changing, but the forms are eternal and unchangeable. Plato’s Theory of Forms states, that the physical world is not really the ‘real’ world, instead, ultimate reality exists beyond our physical...
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...philosophical different between the ‘fake world’ in which we live and the world of forms. Plato portrays this message through a story of a group of prisoners in a cave who can only see shadows cast upon the wall in front of them. These shadows are created by puppeteers behind them and they believe that the shadows are reality. The message created through this scene is that the real world is full of illusion which hides reality. It subtly represents the human which confines the soul, preventing it from seeking the truth, in this case, reality and the world of the forms. The analogy represents the entire human race that is yet to seek the philosophical truth. It teaches us that the world in which we live is full of illusion and everything we see is just an imitation of the forms. Each element of the analogy is symbolic and holds a meaning which may not be completely obvious until the analogy is further understood. We, as prisoners are believed to be rejecting of new ideas and that the actual process of teaching is distressing and difficult due to the fact that when the prisoner is first released he continuously attempts to return to the cave as it is where he feels comfortable. The way the prisoner is dragged up into reality again reiterates the idea that we are all quite narrow-minded and we don’t want to open up to new thoughts and ideas. When the prisoner begins to differentiate between the world of forms and the world of taught perceptions where everything is just a copy he returns...
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...The Theory of the Forms is also seen as unconvincing as it is highly abstract. Therefore it is too incomprehensible to see the way in which these detached Forms can be practical or have significance in the real world as they are too distant. Even if they do exist, do they have a practical function? Can they help humans make decisions about practical matters? In addition very few people will obtain knowledge of the good therefore can the Forms realistically be understood and accepted by all? In this way the Theory is not convincing as it leaves many basic questions unanswered. We are also to question whether there are Forms for everything, from a stone to a lampshade. Plato rarely discusses physical and material objects but more Forms of concepts such as Justice. While he does mention the Form of a bed in The Republic, we are uncertain as to whether this was a serious remark, some even think it was a joke. Furthermore Plato does not clearly explain the link between the World of Forms and that of Appearances, how do they connect? Furthermore we question how general the Forms are. Is there a Form for every breed of horse or just a general Form of a horse? If a Form is a general idea then there is a risk that it lacks detail. However if every breed has a Form then surely the Form loses it's point. One could argue that every breed of horse has enough in common to reflect to some extent the Form of a horse. Again this may not be an issue for Plato if the Theory of Forms applies...
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...Theory of forms The theory of Forms may be understood best in terms of mathematical entities. This Theory was his way of explaining how the same universal term can refer to so many particular things or events. An individual is human to the extent that they resemble or participate. In the Form "humanness" if "humanness" is defined in terms of being a rational animal and human being to the extent that he or she is rational. An object is beautiful to the extent that it participates in the Idea, or Form of beauty. Everything in the world of space and time is, what it Is by virtue of it's resemblance to, or participation in, it's universal Form. The supreme Form is the Form of Good, which like the sun in the myth of the cave, illuminates all the other ideas. The theory of Forms is intended to explain how one comes to know and also how things have The forms are eternal and changeless, but enter into a partnership with changeable matter, to produce the objects and examples of concepts, we perceive in the temporal world. These are always in a state of becoming, and may participate in a succession of forms. The ever-changing temporal world can thus, only be the source of opinion. Plato likens the opinions derived from our senses, to the perception of shadows of real objects, cast upon the wall of a cave. True knowledge however, is the perception of the archetypal forms themselves, which are real, eternal, and unchanging. Whilst the forms are invisible to the eye, our souls have participated...
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...Realm of The Forms, found in his dialogue ‘The Republic’ is a theory with many criticisms formed of it. I would agree that there are many flaws to Plato’s Theory of The Forms. Although there have been many philosophers defending his theory, I would still argue that the weaknesses outweigh these counter arguments, and that these criticisms are definitely valid. Some may try to defend criticisms posed in Parmenides by Plato himself, that the Theory of The Forms is ambiguous and lacking in detail on issues such as how detailed the forms are. They may argue that for mundane things such as bus tickets, Plato was ambiguous on these as he was primarily interested in metaphysical thinking, rather than concentrating on the material world. They may also defend the lack of explanation on forms of the bad, in that there is no form of the bad, just that there is a lack of good. I however would argue that these are both very weak defences, as using Plato’s ideas and arguments in support of Plato’s theory is extremely unconvincing. Also as the real world is a reflection of the realm of The Forms, why is there a lack of good in this material world? I would argue that the criticism in Parmenides is a very valid one, as i struggle to find any weaknesses to this criticism. Additionally, I would argue that Aristotle’s analysis of the theory of The Forms in his works Metaphysics is very valid as well. This is a very strong argument in that it highlights the ambiguity of Plato’s theory and criticises...
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...At the start of Plato’s theory, he describes the scene by stating “On top of the wall are various statues”, these statues are reflected onto a wall in which the prisoners can only gaze at, this means that the statues are very significant to the story as they can only be seen as a shadow cast on to the wall and only by the prisoners. The shadows of the moving statues may represent the fact that what they are viewing are merely appearances of the real forms, for example they can only see the shadows on the wall and not the actual form of the object, therefore you could argue that the prisoners perception of objects are faulty and just an illusion as they haven’t seen the ideal itself. In addition, this links to Plato’s theory of the forms due to the fact that the theory is based on the fact that everything on earth, whether an object (such as a car) or an idea (such as justice), is actually an imperfect copy of an ideal and permanent “form” that exists somewhere, beyond our universe. The place where all these ideal forms exist is guided by a heavenly force that Plato believed should influence our behaviour. Therefore, this link contributes to the shadows being an imperfect copy of an ideal that is in fact the only image we can see of the object as the real existence is in an alternate world which the prisoners cannot view. Alternatively, the shadows also could symbolise the darkness and unknown in which the prisoners are experiencing as since the cave is encased in darkness and...
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...Ancient Philosophy 3rd November 2011 Epistemology - The theory of knowledge. Theory of Forms or Ideas... • Plato believed that what the senses show us/what we see/what we perceive is called world observation. • Things are not as how we see them • If you are trying to produce an unphysical cause you would use different vocabulary • A physicist can say that the only answer to give a theory about the existence of the world you have to study physics. • Plato brings abstract ideas for examples what is justice? • Plato would say in order to know what justice is you have to get a certain essence of justice. 10th November 2011 • If you want to grasp on reality what you really need to think of is not the world of sense but the world of Ideas that can only be grasped by the philosophers. • What you start with at the bottom are simply dreams... as you climb up the ladder you move from the world of dreams to the world of Doxa(opinion/ordinary common sense) until you reach the epistemei(the only kind of knowledge that gives you Truth) • Plato says that you can never find the perfect justice. You cannot find perfection since perfection is only found in the abstract form of justice. • The ideal of the early Greeks was the perfect male model like hipieus. • Socrates tells hipieus and asks him what beauty is? • Hipieus answers that beauty is a beautiful woman... he thinks that this is obvious • But Socrates continues to challenge him that beauty is not just related to...
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...Theories of knowledge Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of Western philosophy that studies the nature and scope of knowledge. But how much and what do we really know? The debate in this field has been on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. The ability to store and retrieve information provides individuals with the ability to form logical thought, express emotions and adapt to the world around them. In order to understand the theories of knowledge it is necessary to investigate the aspects of the theories. The neural network model attempts to explain that which is known about the retention and retrieval of knowledge. Neural network models have been examined for a number of years. While in the mid 1940's the first of the network model appeared, the publications introduced the first models of as computing machines, the basic model of a self-organizing network (Arbib, 1995). Martindlae (1991) states that "The brain does not have anything we could really call a central processing unit, and the brain does not work in a serial fashion. The brain is therefore more like a large number of very slow computers all operating at the same time and each dedicated to a fairly specific task" (p. 10). The more modern is the dual coding approach, which believes that knowledge is a series of complex associative networks. Within these networks there are imagined (visual) and verbal representations...
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...their different perspectives of the Theory of Forms. Plato was one of Socrates’ students and he believed in idealism. Plato’s metaphysics which is also referred to as the Theory of Forms explains that there are two sides of the world of Forms. One of them is separated from the reality and one of them is the reality of the world. (Moore, pg 38) Aristotle was Plato’s student and he disagree with Plato’s believes. He was the first philosopher to explain what existence and essence is (Moore, pg. 63). One of Aristotle’s strongest arguments against the Theory of Forms was his Third Man argument. He explains that there must be a third thing or person to tires together a Form (Moore, pg. 65). Plato and Aristotle have excellent views of Theory of Forms and the Third Man argument; however there are points I agree and disagree with. Plato was one of the most important philosophers. Plato spends most of his life living in Greek. He was the first metaphysics thinker Theory of forms was one of Plato most important idea. He believed that we are living in two worlds; the world of appearances and the world of ideas. The appearances world is the world we are living in where we can touch and see around us. Our senses help us guide us in the visible world. In the ideas world, we can only sense it with our thinking. The intelligible world is in our mind, we control what the intelligible world looks like. The material world is a shadow of the real world of the form. Therefore according to Plato we...
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...Plato was an Ancient Greek Philosopher who was taught by Socrates. Plato believed the world we live in a world of appearances, however he also believed that there is a world beyond, one containing forms which was the world of ideas which he the world of the forms. Forms are the general realities or ideals versions of something. Forms in Plato’s eyes where perfect versions of something, and in the world of the appearances they are many particulars which have copies or impact versions which imitate the perfect version of the form. The world of the forms is an epistemology which can only be used by tapping into the intelligible world without using your senses. For example in the world appearances they are many types of cats but in the world of the forms there is only one perfect version of that cat. Plato’s analogy of the cave is a way to interpret Plato theory of the forms and his idea about the universe. Plato’s analogy begins with the prisoners sat in the cave, chained together, and facing a wall preventing them to see or to gain any movement: a fire blazes behind them and on the other side of a passage way. Along the pass way men carrying statues and talking casting shadows on the wall which the prisoners face which made the prisoners it is a puppet because that is all they have seen all their life. When a prisoner escapes the cave, he realises that the shadows casted are real people and that they is another world with a sun outside which at first he is blinded by. When he returns...
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...a) Explain Plato’s Form of the Good Plato believed that the world we around us is an illusion, and that everyday things that we take for granted are merely weak imitations of the true object behind it. He believed that behind every earthly object, and every earthly concept (e.g. beauty), there is an unearthly truth; a perfect version. He believed that there was a place where everything that is, has been, or ever will be in existence in kept, and that is how we know that a pen is a pen, a chair is a chair. This he believed, was the only possible explanation to the philosophical question: ‘What makes a thing, the thing that it is?’ Plato believed in the soul- the only part of a human that yields any importance or relevance. He believed that it was once, (before we were born), free to roam the World of the Forms, and now that it is in our world, held prisoner in our bodies, it longs to go back. Whilst I in the World of Forms, the soul had access to true knowledge, and everything that we ‘know’ today, is just remembering what we have already learnt. Forms are placed in a Hierarchy, the Form of the Good, being the most important. It is central to the existence of our entire Universe and without it there would be no perfect beauty, no perfect justice, no perfect anything. It structures each form, giving it its own characteristics. Plato used an analogy to explain his theories. He told people of a cave, where there is a row of men, chained up, facing the...
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...Leah Forline Professor Ndovie Essay Response 1 02/20/2014 Plato Plato, one of Socrates most valued students, is one of the first known philosophers. He followed Socrates around, wrote down his theories and added on to them. Plato was born in 437BC and died around 347BC. He came from a wealthy and powerful family. When he was about 20 years old he came under Socrates spell and decided to devote himself to Philosophy. “He was also a mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world.(Piyong)” “He divides reality into two: on the one hand we have ontos, idea or ideal. This is ultimate reality, permanent, eternal, spiritual. On the other hand, there’s phenomena, which is a manifestation of the ideal. Phenomena are appearances, things as they seem to us, and are associated with matter, time, and space.” (Carlson) Phenomena are illusions which decay and die. Ideals are unchanging and perfect. Ideas are available to us through thought, while phenomena are available through our senses. Plato taught us this so we can realize that some things in life are reality and some are always changing and never forever. He relates back to this theory when he talks about art. Plato believes that art is imitation. Although Plato is not the first person to believe and understand that art is imitation, he does explain why very greatly. Plato says that “art must be imitating the world as it appears...
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...world and the world of forms. Plato thinks that this analogy helps people to understand why the physical world is all an illusion. Only true reality can be found in the world of forms, in which everything is unchanging. Plato’s analogy is set in a cave, the cave is meant to represent the physical world, from which people only see what Plato describes to be an illusion. The prisoners within the cave know of nothing but what they have seen for all their lives. Behind the prisoners are a low wall and a walkway, in the walkway a fire burns, every now and then people walk past the fire carrying objects that reflect into the cave as shadows. The prisoners see the shadows and think that what they see is reality, like we think about our world now. The sounds made by the people walking past are thought to be from the shadows, what is seen and herd here is thought to be real. The shadows represent the images of the forms, which are all that is seen in the physical world. The prisoners in this case represent the ignorant individuals who need to discover the philosophical truth; they believe that the shadows they see are the real objects because they know of nothing else. Plato relates this to the 5 senses, touch, taste, smell, sound and sight, it is easy for people to believe what is seen, touched, tasted because it is what we believe to be true. He believes that what we see in the physical world is an imitation of true ‘form’ of an object in the world of forms. Furthermore the people...
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