Plato,reality and the forms

Question 1

What is episteme?

Answer 1

To gain knowledge

Question 2

What is doxa?

Answer 2

Opinion

Question 3

Who was Plato?

Answer 3

Plato was a rationalist and believed we should use priori reasoning

Question 4

Who was Arsitotle?

Answer 4

Aristotle was a empiricist and believed we should use a posteriori reasoning

Question 5

How should we gain episteme according to Plato?

Answer 5

We should gain episteme through reason. Empirical observation only leads to doxa because our senses can deceive us, for example the world is always changing.

Question 6

World according to Plato?

Answer 6

This world is therefore the realm of appearances which is full of doxa and true reality exists in the realm of the forms where we can gain episteme.

Nothing in this world is permanent, these forms must exist outside of this world – we can only know them through reason and not experience them empirically.

Plato concludes that the world in which we live is the realm of appearances and true reality exists outside of this in the realm of the forms.

Question 7

Plato and the world of the forms?

Answer 7

Within The World of Forms there exists the immutable, perfect, form of every thing/property that you can think of.

The forms are concepts and can be used to help us understand The World of Appearances in which we live.

In the Republic it says, “there is one form for each set of many things to which we give the same name”.

This means there are many tables, many beds in the World of Appearances, but only one form in The World of Forms, which is the perfect version.

The world of the forms is a non-physical world in which the perfect form of all
things exists. In our world now, we see reflections of this world, but, not the true
forms.

Question 8

Philosopher Kings?

Answer 8

The soul came from the realm of the forms before being attached to the body

Therefore people have innate knowledge of the forms, he calls this anamnesis

To understand the world of The Forms they must undergo a ‘difficult education’

Only a philosopher is capable of this

Society can therefore only be governed by philosophers

Question 9

Hierarchy of the forms?

Answer 9

1. The form of the good
2. Universal qualities e.g. beauty and justice
3. Physical living objects
4. Physical inanimate objects

Question 10

The form of the good: Analogy of the sun

Answer 10

Form of the good illuminates all other forms allows us to gain knowledge of them just as the sun illuminates things in the realm of appearances enabling us to see them

Question 11

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

Answer 11

The cave: Physical world of appearance
The prisoners: Normal people who experience the world and take their experience as
reality.
The shadows: Things that we sense in the world empirically.
The puppets: The forms which exist in World of Forms.
The jagged path: The journey the philosopher takes from ignorance to knowledge.
The Sun: The essential form of the good