Philosophy Friday: Plato
Plato: 428-348 B.C
Plato, the pupil and voice of Socrates,
was just as influential in the world of philosophy as was Socrates. Most famous
is his Theory of the Forms, a theory which states that everything that exists
has an essence that exists in a metaphysical reality. This theory is not unlike
Socrates ideas of an objective standard of virtue and knowledge, but it is
unique in the length that Plato goes into to define it. Platonic philosophy is
certainly more specific than what is known of Socratic philosophy.
Plato argued for a dualistic
metaphysic of reality. He argued that there exists two worlds. One world is
changing, temporal, material, and particular. The other world is unchanging,
eternal, immaterial, and universal. The first world he called “The World of
Becoming.” The second world he called “The World of Being.” In the first world
exists the Forms. The Forms, are the very essences of everything that exists.
From tangible objects, like a wooden chair, to intangible objects, like truth
and goodness, the essences of everything exist in the world of the Forms. [1]
Plato gives a brilliant allegory for
existence of this metaphysical reality and its convergence with epistemology,
in his Republic, known as the Allegory
of the Cave. In this allegory, Plato describes prisoners locked within a cell
deep inside a cave. This cave is all that the prisoners can remember seeing,
having been locked away there since childhood. Furthermore, they are bound in
such a way to always face the stone wall. In this position the prisoners have
seen nothing but the shadows of things carried behind them, cast there by the
light of a distant fire. When those holding the prisoner finally set him free
and make him see the fire and the actual things that have been making the
shadows, he can hardly bare it. Furthermore, when they take him out of the cave
and he sees the light, he would be amazed and scared. But with time, he would
come to be able to look at everything outside the cave without fear. And soon,
he would feel sorry for his friends in the cave. But if he should return, his
eyes know unaccustomed to the dark, his friends would think him in a sad state
unable to see in the darkness. They themselves would be loath to leave the
cave. Plato would consider this world to be the cave, and the real world of
light to be the world of the Forms. Furthermore, he would argue that just as
people looking at shadows, we cannot use our senses to gain knowledge of the
Forms. Knowledge of the forms is only attained through reason. [2]
Plato, like Socrates, placed great
value on the pursuit of knowledge. Plato, expounding on Socratic views, unpacked
the philosophical concepts that Socrates introduced. While Socrates argued for
an objective standard of good and evil, Plato argued that everything had an
objective standard. While Socrates considered knowledge to be virtue, Plato went
a step further to say that one could only receive knowledge through reason.
While Socrates argued for the immortality of the soul, Plato argued that
everything had an eternal form. And
while one wonders where Plato would be without Socrates, there is no doubt that
without Plato most of Socratic philosophy would have died with him.
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