Platos Theory of Forms and the Sun Line

Plato’s Theory of Forms, and the Sun, Line and Cave A falasafaz! presentation 1

Plato What is justice? What is the ideal state? What is the human soul? What is knowledge? What is reality? 2

Understanding Plato • How does Plato understand the nature of reality? • What is the relationship between existence, knowledge, and virtue? • How successful are Plato’s Sun, Line & Cave similes? 3

Plato’s overall position • Metaphysics (Reality) • Epistemology (Knowledge) THEOR Y OF FORMS • Ethics (Good) 4

What is real? Appearance Reality • Sensations • Empirically observable data • Particular examples of ‘X’ • Beyond senses • Mind/reason • ‘The Forms’ • ‘The X-initself’ 5

The Forms Particular beautiful things 6

The Similes/Allegories The Sun The Cave Republic Bk VI 507 a Republic Bk VII 514 a The Divided Line Republic Bk VI 509 d 7

The Sun Source The Sun The (Form of the) Good Provides what? Light, growth Reality, truth – ‘light of reason’ Where? Sensible world Intelligible World In order to… See Know With what? Objects i. e. ‘particulars’ 8

The Divided Line A Dialectic B Mathematical Reasoning Physical Objects C Belief Shadows / Images D Illusion Forms OPINION Visible Realm Epistemic States KNOWLEDGE Intelligible Realm Objects 9

The Cave 10

Evaluating Plato • What are the similes meant to achieve? How successful are they? • What are Plato’s arguments? How persuasive are they? • What objections can we identify and develop? 11

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non. Commercial. Share. Alike 2. 0 UK: England & Wales License. To view a copy of this license, visit http: //creativecommons. org/licenses/by-ncsa/2. 0/uk/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. 12