Plato

Question 0

When did plato die?

Answer 0

348 BC

Question 1

When and where was plato born?

Answer 1

427 BC Athens - Greece

Question 2

Who was plato a student and later a teacher of?

Answer 2

Student of socrates, teacher of aristotle

Question 3

What does the cave symbolise?

Answer 3

World of sight/ appearances

Question 4

What do the prisonsers symbolise?

Answer 4

People in this world who are trapped by physical appearances and sense experience

Question 5

What do the objects symbolise?

Answer 5

Imitations of the forms

Question 6

What do the objects carried by people symbolise?

Answer 6

Represent those who lead people but don’t actually know the truth

Question 7

What does the fire represent?

Answer 7

The sun of our world

Question 8

What does the journey out of the cave symbolise?

Answer 8

Journey of the soul into the realm of the forms

Question 9

What does the sun symbolise?

Answer 9

Form of the good

Question 10

Why did plato say that knowledge of the forms is essential for any ruler?

Answer 10

So that a ruler can govern justly, not just to further their self- interests

Question 11

What is good about plato’s analogy of the cave?

Answer 11

Because empirical knowledge can be flawed - we live in an imperfect world and it gives a reason for imperfections in the world.

Question 12

What does reason take over?

Answer 12

Our senses

Question 13

What is plato unclear with in his analogy of the cave?

Answer 13

The link between the world of appearances and the forms

Question 14

Why wont some people accept plato’s argument?

Answer 14

Because it is an absolutist argument

Question 15

What do we have no proof of?

Answer 15

That the cave or outside world are real

Question 16

What are forms?

Answer 16

Perfect ideas, types of things

Question 17

What are the three qualities of forms?

Answer 17

timeless, unchanging and eternal

Question 18

what is the world of the forms more important than?

Answer 18

the changing world of appearances

Question 19

where do forms exist?

Answer 19

in their own right in the world of forms - not just ideas created by people’s minds

Question 20

what are particulars?

Answer 20

imperfect copies of the forms that participate in the form

Question 21

what is the form of the good?

Answer 21

the heirarchy of all forms

Question 22

what does the form of the good illuminate?

Answer 22

all other forms

Question 23

what is the aim of everything?

Answer 23

goodness

Question 24

what is the form of the good?

Answer 24

the ultimate end in itself

Question 25

what can the form of the good be understood to be?

Answer 25

an implication of God

Question 26

what is 1st in the hierarchy of forms?

Answer 26

physical inanimate objects

Question 27

what is 2nd in the hierarchy of forms?

Answer 27

physical living objects

Question 28

what is 3rd in the hierarchy of forms?

Answer 28

concepts and ideals

Question 29

what is 4th in the hierarcy of forms?

Answer 29

universal qualities

Question 30

what is last in the hierarchy of forms?

Answer 30

the good

Question 31

what does plato’s form explain to us?

Answer 31

why we always recognise the same essential elements in something

Question 32

what do plato’s forms help us to understand?

Answer 32

the imperfections and why they exist

Question 33

what do plato’s forms encourage us to do?

Answer 33

question in order to learn and accept things at face value

Question 34

what is there no evidence for which limits plato’s theory?

Answer 34

no evidence that we recognise the forms in our previous existence

Question 35

why does plato’s idea of having a form seem unlikely?

Answer 35

infinite regression

Question 36

what could forms just be? WEAKNESS

Answer 36

ideas in the mind rather than coming from the past

Question 37

what might the existence of the realm of the form not be? WEAKNESS

Answer 37

an obvious conclusion of logical reasoning

Question 38

what doesn’t plato make clear?

Answer 38

how plato’s forms relate to things in the world of appearances

Question 39

why is plato’s belief that senses are inferior a weakness?

Answer 39

because humans have relied on them for years so they must be of some significance