Plato Flashcards
Recite the main points of the story of the cave.
- Prisoners tied to wall, shadows are their reality, they play a game
- One day a prisoner is freed, sees surroundings
- Enlightenment, burns eyes, adjusts, sees sun
- Returns to cave, can’t see shadows as well
- Prisoners threaten to kill him
Who was hate teacher of Plato?
Socrates
What is Plato trying to say about the prisoners and the shadows?
The prisoners are effectively humans, believing what they can see around them and believing it is the only reality. The shadow casters are a metaphor for a larger reality, that only philosophers know of. The game symbolises the pettiness of our world as it is nothing compared to the larger reality.
What is Plato trying to say about the process of enlightenment?
When the prisoner escapes, the light hurts his eyes, suggesting philosophers have difficulty understanding but when they do, they can’t go back. The Sun relates to Plato’s form of the good as it appears the sun makes everything visible.
What is Plato trying to say when the prisoner gets threatened by others?
That humans are scared to believe in an alternate reality as they are comfortable in the current one.
Give an example of what Plato means by forms.
All dogs are are different in shape, size and breed. However they’re all dogs. This means they all have something in common, which Plato believes in distinguishable by forms.
Plato believes that all object and items are…
Shadows and images of the higher forms.
What is Plato’s most famous book called?
The Republic
In The Republic, Plato uses what form as an example?
Beauty
How does Plato use Beauty as an example in his book?
States ideas or concepts of beauty are shades of the form of beauty. He states these are unchanging, transcendent forms.
What is the highest form?
Form of the Good
State four ways of describing forms
Transcendent
In unseen world
Ultimate reality
Unchanging
State four ways Plato would describe visible objects
Shadows
Imperfect copies
Impure
Material
State three problems of Plato’s allegory of the cave
- Cave represents the general condition of ‘people like us’ however there are people manipulating the prisoners, implying false education
- How could the prisoners walk, excrete, eat etc
- The extent of our inferences may not be what Plato was trying to say
Name four issues of the theory of the Forms
- How can forms be invisible?
- How does the perfect ideal produce an imperfect copy?
- Of how many particular things can there be a form?
- No evidence of an alternate reality
