Plato

Question 1

Explain Plato’s Theory of the Forms

Answer 1

Plato saw a very important distinction between the world we live in and the world of the forms. He proposed that the world we live in is a world of appearances, but the real world is the world of the forms.
Plato believed that behind everything with a physical existence was a timeless mould from which something comes and that everything with a physical existence changes or ‘‘everything tangible flows’’.

Question 2

How can we recognise the imitations of forms?

Answer 2

We only recognise the forms because when we are born we have a dim recollection of them. Plato said that before our soul became tied down by the body it was connected to the real world of the forms. The reason we can recognise beautiful things or kind acts is because we have all seen the forms before - a person can instinctively know that something is beautiful even if we haven’t been taught it.

Question 3

Explain the ideal forms and the highest form of a form - the form of the good

Answer 3

Plato thought that some forms were greater than others; universal qualities like justice, truth and beauty. These ‘ideal’ forms all have have the presence of good in them; therefore Plato said that ‘good’ is the most important form.
Once you can understand good, then you can understand all other forms because they are all aspects of goodness.
The good is like the sun: It illuminates everything else, and the further away you get, the paler things become.

Question 4

Explain Plato’s view on Knowledge

Answer 4

Plato believed that empirical knowledge (gained from the senses) cannot be accepted as fact; it does not show reality.
Plato believed in knowledge gained wholly from logical reasoning and independent of sensory experience - a priori.
In his analogy of the sun, Plato said that the form of the good makes think knowable.
Knowledge of the form of the good is the highest knowledge a human is capable of. An ordinary person struggles to see past the illusion of this material world because they are ruled by their senses. Only the person who’s questions and investigates can learn the truth behind the illusion.

Question 5

What is a form?

Answer 5

Plato’s believed that behind anything with a physical existence was a timeless mould from which something comes or form.
A form does not change, it is a concept that is everlasting.
There are a limited number of moulds of forms behind everything that we see - there must be a reality behind the material world.

Question 6

What are the weaknesses of Plato’s theory?

Answer 6

• Lack of Evidence
• There is no real empirical evidence to prove that Plato’s world of the forms exists, it an alternative universe not within human knowledge/experience.
• Infinite Regression - A form of a form
• If there are ideal and higher forms then can they not be idea/ higher forms of them forms? It goes on forever.
• Recognized by Plato in his dialogues
• Subjectivity
• values such as ‘beauty’ ‘justice’ and ‘truth’ are subjective to everyone’s individual opinion.
• unlikely that 2 people will come to the same conclusion
• Not Rational or Reasonable
• it is not logical to say that there is a world we cannot see
• Why shouldn’t we rely on our senses?
• our senses have been vital for survival for millions of years and to help us gain a better and fuller understanding of the world we live in.
• Plato was not clear
• How does the world of the forms relate to our world?
• It is unlikely that everything in existence had an ideal form
• Empiricist Challenge
• David Hume & Richard Dawkins believe Plato’s ideas are counterintuative
• flies in the face of common sense to say the world around us is an illusion, the physical realm has empirical evidence to prove it’s existence.

Question 7

What are the arguments to suggest that Plato’s theory is not effective?

Answer 7

• Weaknesses of Plato’s theory

- Can we base an explanation of the world on an idea that some from of transcendent reality exists?

Question 8

What are the arguments to suggest the Plato’s theory is effective?

Answer 8

• Plato offers a logical and reasonable theory concerned with the idea that there are universal concepts that exist independent of our experience
• Plato’s theory helps us understand that concepts of beauty, justice, and love are universal and absolute; we have not invented these concepts, we discover them within ourselves.
• Mathematics can be looked at as a universal truth. We have not invented maths but we have discovered it.