Plato Flashcards
What is doxa?
Guess work/ opinions
What is Noeton?
Reality realm
What is Horaton?
World of appearances
What is Eikasia?
Illusions
What is the forms also known as?
Ideals
What is Nous?
Using your mind
What is Anamnesis?
Remembering the forms
What is dualism?
Mind and body separate but linked in some way
What is empiricism?
Knowledge through experiences
What is innate?
Knowledge existing from birth
What is rationalism?
Foundation of knowledge is reason
What is noesis?
Refers to Plato’s idea that knowledge is gained through experience
What is a priori?
Knowledge that is held before sense experience is gathered
Referring to Plato and his teachings?
Platonic
Greek word for ‘Forms’?
Eidos
What are the characteristics of the forms?
Timeless, spaceless and perfect
What are particulars?
Objects in the world of appearance
What is the Demiurge?
Plato’s god who is a craftsmen
What is the analogy of the cave?
- Prisoners in a cave ( chained) face towards a the back wall
- Fire burns behind them and in front of fire is a screen
- Puppeteers carry artificial objects
- Fire cast shadows on the wall
- Shadows real to prisoners
- Prisoner is released
- Sees the sun and returns back to prisoners to tell truth
What does the cave itself and prisoners mean?
People are trapped by the illusionary world of the senses. Prisoners minds are empty of philosophy
What does the shadows mean?
Illusions
What does the puppet handlers mean?
Influential, powerful members of society. False reality
What does the ‘released’ prisoner mean?
Represents Socrates himself who has no concern for the conventions of the day
What does the released prisoners journey out of cave and the return mean?
Journey of mind and soul in and examined life. Prisoner journey is a gradual awakening and presents becoming a true philosopher
What does the world outside the cave mean ?
Real world of forms
What does the sun mean ?
Source of absolute truth- the form of the good
What are the characteristics of the Forms?
divine, invisible, timeless, spaceless
What is the highest form?
Form of the Good
What are Particulars and how do they relate to the Forms?
Particulars are objects in the real world and is the pale copy of the Forms
What is the Form of the Good?
Highest form, most important because enables us to assess and understand things clearly
What are the universal concepts?
Beauty, truth and justice
Why did Plato argue that philosophers are the most suitable people to rule society?
Philosophers have been more educated in what they believe and had an experience with their thoughts. Whilst not philosophers have not thought deeply of what they actually know
Who is the Demiurge?
Demiurge is Plato’s God who didn’t create matter but raw matter which had been existed. Demiurge used ‘pre existing matter’ to fashion the universe
How are the Forms to be seen in relation to the Demiurge ?
The Demiurge used them as a model after which to fashion the universe
What problem did the Demiurge have in creating the universe?
The Forms were timeless meaning the material that Demiurge had to work with was temporal and spatial.
So Demiurge had to use imperfect materials making the world an imperfect model
What characteristics did the Demiurge had?
He is perfectly good but in not omnipotent
Strengths of rationalism as a source of knowledge
- Gives an idea of what’s true and what’s not
- Gives an explanation to the questions
- Uses logic
Weaknesses of rationalism as a source of knowledge
- No evidence proven
- Can be opinionated
- How do we know it’s true knowledge; relies certain ability
What is Plato’s rational approach to knowledge?
Plato didn’t think we gained knowledge from our senses but we remember things as knowledge- innate knowledge
What is the realm of reality?
- World of the souls
- A world of perfect concepts
- An intelligible world
- A world beyond the senses
- A world of true knowledge
- Eternal and unchanging
What is the realm of appearances?
- Our world
- A world of imperfect phenomena
- A visible world
- A world of opinions
- Decaying and changing
What did Plato say about the soul?
The soul is immortal- a part of the world of ideas. The body is a part of the m
What did Plato say about the body?
The body is a part of the material world.
What did Plato say about the mind and body?
The mind and body are often in opposition. The mind wants to understand ideas, to gain real knowledge of the forms but the body is interested in sense pleasures and it has its needs e.g. eating and sleeping which are constantly getting in the way of intellectual pursuits because they keep interrupting
What does Plato compare the soul to?
A charioteer, in charge of two horses, the mind and body. The soul tries to guide the two together. Many people never achieve this direction, they allow their lives to be completely dominated by the bodily needs and sense pleasures
Why is the Form of the Good the most important?
Knowledge of the Form of the good is the source of all other forms and gives meaning and purpose to life
