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This blog is intended to serve as a online journal for the Step-Ahead class of World Literature.
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One of the issues Plato was seeking to solve in his theory of forms was the dialectic statements of Heraclitus and Parmenides. These pre-Socratic philosophers proposed the issue of being vs. becoming. Plato sought to solve this problem by saying both. The world/ reality is both already being (eternal) and becoming. To solve this issue, Plato began by making the distinction between two realms. One of the realms being metaphysical and containing eternal forms, and the other realm being physical and containing temporary particulars. Plato then moved to say that the metaphysical realm of forms represents the being part of the dilemma. In this realm, ideas/ forms are immutable and eternally "being." Naturally, Plato then uses the physical realm to represent the becoming part of the dilemma. In this realm, ideas are imperfect and temporary copies of the perfect idea that is existing in the metaphysical realm. Through this synthesis of Parmenides and Heraclitus' ideas, Plato seems to have solved the problem of being vs. becoming by saying both!
Another issue that Plato tried to solve in his dualism, is the concept of knowing. Plato was after how someone could know something completely and undoubtedly, and, therefore, he left the sense out because they can easily be tricked. Again, Plato sets up a dualism with what our sense see and what are mind thinks and reasons. In the physical realm, obviously, resides the things that we gather with our sense, "opinions" as Plato calls them. In the realm of the metaphysical resides true knowledge that is gained through logic and reasoning. Therefore, Plato concluded that merely relying on the sense is foolish and even offers his allegory of the cave to further prove this.
One may ask, "how do I get this high knowledge that Plato speaks of?" To this question, one must look at Plato's anthropological dualism. In this dualism, Plato separates that body and soul. The soul, Plato argues, is eternal and resides in the metaphysical realm containing the perfect forms and knowledge. However, the soul, according to Plato, transmigrates into an imperfect body. Through this, and the process of the eternal soul existing in multiple imperfect bodies, Plato argues that the eternal soul looses the ability to recall the knowledge.
From here, one may ask how one can recall this knowledge. Plato uses his allegory here and shows the true purposes of education. A good teacher can educate his students through questions that pull the information into memory and out of the lost state. This is where our Socratic method of teaching comes from, as Plato mimicked Socrates in his questioning of people. Through these dualisms, Plato seems to have solved these issues of being v. becoming and knowledge v. opinion and body v. soul.
The main problem that Plato was trying to solve during his lifetime was the problem of being and becoming. He argued that the universe is not measured by forms, but it is forms, and he used his theory of forms and ideas to solve philosophical problems. One of the ideas that Plato used to solve the problem of being and becoming was metaphysical dualism, which was Plato’s distinction between two realms. There was the metaphysical realm, which contains being; the other one was the physical realm, which contains becoming. According to Plato, the world is full of imperfect copies of perfect forms. The physical realm contains the imperfect copies, and the metaphysical realm contains the perfect forms. Plato was after the common substance of something, not examples. One of his arguments dealt with a set versus the members of the set. He argued that we have knowledge before experience and fundamentally know distinctive concepts. Those concepts have always existed and always will exist according to Plato. They also do not exist solely in the mind; they have being, are eternal, immutable, and universal. One example we discussed in class to illustrate that is the concept of “chairness” and how we know fundamentally what a chair is. We are able to tell when something is a chair and when something is not a chair. Plato also argued that math and geometry prove the need for the existence of eternal and non-material forms and ideas. One of Plato’s famous quotes is about his circle; he defined a circle as “an enclosed line every point on which is equidistant from a given point fixed point.” He argued that from the definition, no figure that we might encounter in the physical world is or can be a circle. He claimed that a perfect circle can exist only in a different kind of reality, which is a world of eternal and unchanging essences. This perfect circle could only exist in a different realm, and Plato called this the metaphysical realm. Plato thought that the particular things that exist in the physical world only serve to imitate or copy the perfect forms. This was just one of the three main solutions Plato offered towards the problem of being and becoming. Another solution was his epistemological dualism in which he attempted to clear up the divide between knowledge and opinion. The third solution was his anthropological dualism, which dealt with reincarnation and the transmigration of the soul. One of Plato’s most famous works was his “Allegory of the Cave,” which has been discussed for many centuries. This story connects with the philosophical problems Plato was trying to solve, and he uses the illustration to benefit his arguments. A common interpretation of the allegory is that the prisoners represented the human race, the shadows are what we believe is reality through opinion (the senses), the freed prisoners were philosophers like Socrates and Plato, the outside of the cave was the realm of true reality, and the sun was the highest form, which is ultimate reality.
Plato solves several issues with his Theory of Forms/ideas. Metaphysical dualism, epistemological dualism, and anthropological dualism are Plato’s three main theories he abides by. The metaphysical is the theory that explains the distinction between the two realms/worlds. The epistemological goes into the distinction between reason and the senses. This also leads into the idea of opinion vs. knowledge. Lastly, anthropological explains humans are composed of two parts: the body and the soul. The one thing these three theories have in common are that they are all imperfect copies of a perfect idea. The theory of epistemological dualism goes deep into the idea of opinion vs. knowledge. These two ideas are distinct in their own different ways. To start, opinion is based on the senses. One’s opinion is also made up of two parts: the belief and the conjecture. The belief of one person’s opinion is based on what and how they might perceive a certain image or idea. The conjecture equals the image that the person perceives. With these two ideas that make up the idea of Plato’s opinion, any person can produce their own opinion over anything. Then to describe the idea of knowledge in the epistemological theory, it contains the two ideas of dialectic and understanding. Knowledge stands on these two columns and without, Plato believes, you cannot have knowledge. Understanding, Plato defined as the hypothesis. This is how one was to make use of what he has learned. Understanding is believed to be a self-evident truth that every human must contain. Plato stated that the second column of Knowledge, dialect, is the pure knowledge of the forms. Dialect can also be considered the highest form of knowledge, according to Plato. As where opinion is based on via the senses, knowledge is based on via reason. Opinion and knowledge make up the epistemological part of the epistemological dualism. Dualism is defined as when the knowledge and opinion in one human being come to the surface. Before the two surfaced, they were pushed down and hidden by the human who contains them. Plato believes to surface the ideas of knowledge and opinion is triggered to surface by one certain thing. Therefore each person contains his or her own knowledge and opinion to begin with. He uses the words ‘a priori’ to explain the before experience. With this, ‘a priori’ leads into rationalism. This completes the whole epistemological dualism theory created by Plato himself. He uses this to solve the problems of lack of knowledge and any one lack of opinion.
-Abigail
Like his teacher Socrates, Plato strived to answer the big philosophical dilemmas of his day. He sought to bring people out of the darkness of ignorance into a state of enlightenment. One of the major questions that plagued the great philosophers of the day even in pre-Socratic times was the idea of being and becoming. Many chose to argue for one side of the argument like Heraclitus and Parmenides who chose to come at the argument from a particular side. Plato with his theory of forms, in which he argues an idea of two different realms; one of being and the other of becoming. This theory is known as Metaphysical Dualism. The Metaphysical Realm is the realm of being and the perfect forms and ideas are transferred into the realm of becoming. The theory of forms discusses the Perfect realm of being where all forms and ideas are without flaw and the realm of becoming is the realm that consists of imperfect copies of those perfect forms/ ideas. Plato continues this argument by bringing up the question of how an imperfect human race can have knowledge of these perfect forms and how we are able to know that these forms are in fact imperfect copies of perfect forms and ideas in a perfect realm. For example, how do we know to define even the simplest of things like a chair as a chair? Plato would argue that when our souls are transplanted into our bodies we are also given this innate knowledge or Priori where without realizing it we have knowledge of these perfect ideas without ever having seen the original perfect form or idea. Which raises another perplexing question of how do we know that these ideas are not just inside our minds or something that we came up with of our own wits and wisdom. Plato would argue that these ideas are not of our own thoughts, but that they come from a supreme being in a perfect Metaphysical realm that is just out of reach of ours in the realm of becoming. These perfect forms are archetypes for every object on this earth. Plato in this argument brings together his opinion that stems from his being both a Realist and an Idealist. Plato uses his argument of Metaphysical Dualism to bring to light aspects of each argument from opposing sides of the discussion on whether Humans are Humans Becoming or Human beings. This theory of forms and ideas related to Metaphysical Dualism attempts and very well answers the argument of Human Beings or Human Becomings.
- Gracie Cahalan
Throughout his lifelong teachings, famed Greek scholar, Plato attempts to solve the problem of being and becoming. In an attempt to answer this philosophical question he introduced his argument that the world we live in is made up of two separate realms, the first being a perfect and eternal realm, in which he called the metaphysical realm and the other being a flawed as well as temporary realm which has imperfect copies of perfect forms. The metaphysical realm contains being while the physical realm contains becoming. In an effort to find a solution to the problem of being and becoming, Plato introduces the idea of knowledge verses opinion. Plato claims that humans have an opinion based on what the person can gather through their senses. Using this method one can form partially correct opinions about certain objects. An opinion is made of the belief as well as the conjecture. The conjecture is what the person forming an opinion sees, in Plato’s, “Allegory of the Cave” the conjecture is the images that are displayed onto the wall of the cave that the person is forced to see. A person’s belief is what the human believes that he will see, or perception. Without the use of effective and a well-educated opinion, the philosopher Plato believes that it is almost impossible to have a quality understanding of a situation, or knowledge of something. Plato now discusses the levels of knowledge, the highest level of knowledge being dialect, which is based on a firm and accurate knowledge of a concept. While Plato states that one’s opinion is based on the senses, knowledge is founded on a person’s reason as well as experience. As a dualist, Plato believes that knowledge as well as opinion is what compose epistemological dualism. This theory helps to explain the difference between reason and senses. This confusing doctrine that Plato wrote, helps explain the perfect realm, which is being, and attempts to bring to light the issues that faced the ancient Greek society on the issue of being verses becoming. At that time these issues were rarely discussed in society at that time, this was not a popular issue and the philosopher Plato attempted to educate and provide knowledge to the common man concerning the issues of his time
Jack Brunton
The pre-Socratic philosophers proposed a question that Plato sought to answer. The issue of being and becoming is what Plato strived to answer and the conclusion he came up with was amazing. The world and reality are both being and becoming, but Plato, to answer the question distinguished the two realms from one another. The two were broken up into the Metaphysical and the physical. This is called Metaphysical dualism. The Metaphysical realm is a “store house” of ideas, and ultimately is the realm of being. This is the realm that holds the perfect forms of what we know. They can’t be changed, they are always being, they are eternal. Next, the Physical realm. In this realm are all the imperfect forms of the ideas in the Metaphysical realm. What we see in this realm are imperfect copies of perfect ideas. An example is a circle. we all know what a circle is but we have never seen a perfect circle because we are in the physical realm. In the Metaphysical there is a perfect circle and there always has been. This is Plato’s argument for being and becoming. We don’t have perfect forms of anything in the physical world so we are always becoming in the physical world. Another issue arises for Plato. How can we really know something? Plato wrote the “Allegory of the Cave” to help us understand how to know something. He depicts a dark cave with two prisoners chained to a wall. The only light source is a fire behind the wall. The only things these prisoners see are the shadows of real images that come by the wall. One of the prisoners, with help, escapes the cave and is drug out of the cave and put into the reality, outside. The rest of the Allegory is explaining how education and knowledge is not something easy to come by, it takes time and is painful and frustrating at the beginning but in the end, is worth it because you see things in the light how they are supposed to be. The prisoners in the cave represent the uneducated who are “chained” down because they are uneducated. One of Plato’s main points was that the if the prisoner were to go back to help the other prisoners they would kill him. Much like they would do to Plato, Plato argues that when we try and help others out of uneducation they wont except and will get angry and kill you. Like they did to him.
^Joseph Huett
Plato was not, what we would call today, a dumb jock. Although being a broad shouldered wrestler, he was also Socrates best and brightest student. He aimed to answer the questions and problems circling the Greek world at the time. The three main dilemmas were metaphysical dualism, epistemological dualism, and anthropological dualism. Metaphysical dualism is the idea that there is a distinction between a physical realm in which we reside and a metaphysical realm where perfection lies. Epistemological dualism is explained by separating and seeing reason and the senses as two separate avenues to obtain knowledge. Anthropological can be defined as separating a person into two parts. One of the parts is the body, which is not eternal, and the soul, which is eternal. Plato spent most of his time discussing the idea of a metaphysical dualism. He taught that the physical world was a world full of imperfect ideas that derived from the metaphysical realm. A tactic of teaching that he used was one where he asked questions to individuals in order to draw the answer out of them. He learned this from his teacher Socrates. He would ask questions like “How do you know that that is a stool?” Some would answer because of its shape or size. He would then respond with no, it is because you are installed with the basic concept of a stool with a perfect example in your mind. The perfect idea comes from the metaphysical realm where other perfections reside. Mathematics and geometry were topics he used to explain his theology. Another example of sorts that he would use is the circle. He claimed that, in the physical world, there can not be a perfect circle. He explained that the idea is like that of the stool where we only have the concept of a perfect circle, but we are incapable of achieving a perfect circle. This is because the definition of a circle is an infinite number of points that are equidistant from a given point or origin. The key word that makes this impossible for the physical realm is the word infinite. We can not have an infinite number of points in this realm, it is impossible. A common question about metaphysical dualism would be, “How do these perfect ideas come into the physical realm. He responded with the idea of anthropological dualism. Reincarnation was an idea that derived from the anthropological dualism concept. He explained that the soul would travel to and from the metaphysical realm with these ideas of perfection; however, since a perfect soul is entering into an imperfect body, the soul looses the ability to recall knowledge. This leads to the reasoning for education and the processes of recalling the knowledge that we have forgotten from our soul traveling.
One of Plato’s theories of dualism is epistemological dualism. Plato designed this theory to explain the problem of knowledge versus opinion. He also uses his theory of metaphysical dualism to help solve this problem by explaining the world of being and becoming and the idea that in the world of being there are perfect ideas and forms and in the world of becoming there are copies of these ideas and forms. He claims that knowledge comes via reason. Essentially, knowledge is information people already have but education is used to tap into this reason and allow people to recall this knowledge. Opinion, on the other hand is reached through people’s senses. The definition Plato gives for knowledge is that “knowledge through reason is a rational understanding of unchanging forms.” According to Plato this knowledge takes place in the realm of being. In the realm of knowledge Plato gives two ideas that come from that: Dialectic and understanding. Dialectic according to Plato is the pure knowledge of forms. He claims that this is information that comes to us “intuitively.” Next he defines understanding as making use of the mirrored ideas and forms that we see in the realm of becoming. Through Plato’s ideas, to understand knowledge, one must agree that knowledge is something that people already have, they just need something to help tap into that knowledge and that’s what teachers and education are for. The definition that Plato gives for opinion is that “opinion through senses comes from awareness of changing particulars and that his is a result of the world of becoming. The two sub-ideas in this category are belief and conjecture. According to Plato belief is when you perceive a particular thing and this normally comes from experiences that are experienced in the realm of becoming. Conjecture is described as the perceiving of a shadow or an image. This idea of opinion vs Knowledge also connects to the allegory of the cave. Just like the prisoners, Plato alludes to that people who constantly base everything off of opinion are trapped and are unaware of the truth- which is knowledge. And like the free prisoner, the only was to obtain this knowledge is by breaking away from this world of opinion and into the new world of knowledge, which in the allegory of the cave is the outside world and everything that is outside of the cave- the true reality. So while in the real world the only way to break into this new real of perfect forms and being Is through knowledge and we as humans acquire this knowledge through teachings and educations.
Plato used reason alone to solve the problem of being vs. becoming. Heraclites and Parmenides started the debates in Ancient Greece, long before provided his solution. Instead of choosing a side, he created a third option: dualism. He believed there were two realms, the physical realm in which we experience as reality, and the metaphysical realm of thoughts, forms, and the souls of humans. He believed everything in the metaphysical realm was perfect, eternal, and unchangeable while everything on Earth was merely an imperfect copy of the perfect idea. In his mind, the metaphysical realm was in a state of being while the physical realm was in a state a becoming.
Plato wanted to know how we could look at an object we have never seen and instantly group it with a particular set, despite never seeing that particular object before. We preformed a simplified version of this exercise in class by discussing the differences between a chair and a stool. They both have for legs and are meant to be sat on, but our brains instantly register them as being different. Instead of appealing to posteriori knowledge and common sense, he argued humans have a priori knowledge and fundamentally know the concepts of “chairness” and “stoolness.” Another aspect of the metaphysical realm in Plato’s Dualism is mathematics. Mathematical principals are independent from and rule over the physical realm. He applies it to the earlier theory of ideas and forms by defining a circle as “an enclosed line every point on which is equidistant from a given point fixed point.” He believed his definition of a perfect circle could not exist in the physical world, only in the metaphysical.
Epistemological Dualism was the second “dualism” Plato created. In this, he addresses the problem of the subject/object and the divide between knowledge and opinion. Each living being is its own subject while everything else is an object to it. Knowledge is aimed towards understanding the realm of being while opinion is using the senses to create conjectures about the physical world. In his Theory of Recollection he claimed knowledge was immediate and intuitive, it comes from the metaphysical realm, and that people just need a teacher to ask them the right questions to bring that knowledge to the surface.
Plato’s third dualism was Anthropological Dualism. It discussed the relationship between mortal man and the eternal soul. He held to reincarnation and the transmigration of the soul. He believed a soul returns to the metaphysical realm when a person dies and eventually finds its way back to the physical realm inside a new body with no memories of his past lives. He illustrates all these ideas through his “Allegory of the Cave.” In the story, the prisoners represent the human race. The shadows they see represent false reality or reality through the senses. The freed prisoner who tried to help them and was eventually killed was Socrates. Outside the cave was true reality with the sun being the highest form of reality, which is “The Good.”
One of the problems the Theory of Forms/Ideas is a solution to the Heraclitus’ and Parmenides’ problem of being and becoming. During his lifetime, Plato attempted to solve the dialectic statement proposed by these two pre-socratic Greek philosophers. Plato, unlike other philosophers who chose a side when attempting to solve this idea, chose to prove that it was both. His idea is known as Metaphysical Dualism. He believed that there was a perfect realm in which everything inside was without flaw and that the Realm of Becoming in which we lived was just an imperfect copy of everything in the Realm of Being. Plato argues for his point, by questioning how we know what we know about things. For example, how do we know one stool from another while they are both still a stool despite their differences. Plato argues that the reason we know these things is that the soul and the body are two different things and that our soul is transplanted into our body from the realm of being. Plato uses this theory to attempt to solve this problem. He also contemplates how one’s soul may recurrently transcend in a crude interpretation of reincarnation. While Plato would not have believed in god, he did often argues with the greeks about their many gods and their desire to make a perfect form of them, which he claimed was not possible in this realm. He argues that because we are both soul and body, we are both flawed and perfect. Also, that because we have this perfect part of us, we understand the perfect form of things. He also argues that this is not just inside our head, but rather based on our experiences and how our things are portrayed through our senses. These concepts are not only within us, they are immutable, eternal, and universal. Fundamentally know by all regardless of the amount of education one has received. He also claimed that much of this knowledge is inherent rather than based solely on our experiences. Our experiences instead only shape our view of this world. This problem has been a concern for philosophers for centuries, even before Plato. Plato was just one of many philosophers to attempt to solve this problem of Being and Becoming and how our souls and body interact as one. As well as how imperfect things can differ from each other yet still be inherently the same to us and our senses and reason.
One of the main issues Plato attempted to solve is the epistemological dualism of being and becoming. The concept of ideas and forms are something that Plato spent his entire life working on and processing. He used people in the streets to form the idea that people already contain an innate knowledge. The thing that draws this innate knowledge of a perfect form out of a student is a good teacher. He came to the conclusion that within he idea of being and becoming there are perfect forms. These perfect forms do not exist within this reality. There can be an idea or concept of a perfect chair but there can never be a perfect chair in this reality. This is the idea of the two realms of being and becoming. The idea of the perfect chair is in the realm of being. The chairs in this world are undergoing change. The paint chips and the chair will eventually break. Therefore the chair is always in a state of becoming. This is something that Plato always strived to not only prove but figure out to what extent each of these realms traversed. He used everyday people to prove these theories of dualism. In addition, he pondered the ideas of opinion and knowledge. Unlike other philosophers of his time he did not believe in ideas that were subjective, but rather he held the belief that ideas were objective. He argued the difference of opinion and knowledge. He believed that there were absolute truths that coincide with the ideas of the two realms of being and becoming. Plato and Socrates came to he understanding that knowledge could not be learned. They believed that the knowledge was already in us. It just had to be drawn out. Just like the Pythagorean theorem was able to be drawn out of the slave boy, Plato suggests that this too can happen with anyone if they are supplied the right teacher. Along with everything previously stated, he is known for making the seemingly outrageous claim that a circle can never be perfect in the reality that we live in. Even though a circle is a line that is equidistant from the center point. A line is made up of thousands of points and each of those points can never be fully equidistant from the center. Hence, the idea of a circle is perfect but the reality in which we live dictates otherwise. This and the example of the chair are examples of what Plato would argue is the difference between a perfect form and the broken form we live in.
Plato came up with the Theory of Forms and Ideas to answer the question poised by Parmenides and Heraclitus, the issue between a state of being and of becoming. Plato suggested that both Parmenides and Heraclitus were correct, in a sense. Plato conceptualized this idea of dualism which states that there are two separate realms divided from each-other, a realm of being and a realm of becoming. Plato argued that our domain resides in the realm of becoming and that everything made here is simply an imperfect copy of a perfect idea, as everything is constantly undergoing change and never truly lasts in it's original state for any period of time. The realm of being, on the other hand, is where the perfect forms of everything reside and never change. This realm of being is unobtainable in the realm of becoming other than through theory or concept, physically unachievable. Plato held to three separate conepts of Dualism, Anthropological Dualism, Epistemological Dualism, and Metaphysical Dualism. Anthropological Dualism contains the Doctrine of the Transmigration of the Soul which states that because you live in an imperfect copy of a perfect body, you will forget things. Knowledge, however, is not lost, but instead your recollection of that knowledge. This ties directly into the Theory of Recollection contained in Plato's Epistemological dualism. This theory states that this knowledge can be returned if one has the right teacher to assist in bringing it back.
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