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Foundational Debates in Philosophy, Plato - Coggle Diagram
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Plato
Theory of forms
There is an immaterial/perfect realm of forms, and the material/imperfect world we live in. Everything in the material world has a perfect 'form' in the RotF. Our souls come from this realm of the forms, and this is how we recognise things on earth. When we die, our souls go back to the realm of the forms.
We only ever interact with 'particular' things, but these things can share universal properties such as 'beauty'. There is therefore a form of beauty, which is a distinct thing as it could continue to exist even if all beautiful things were destroyed.
Beautiful things 'participate' in the form of beauty. Forms do not change, and are just a single property.
Things like the form of 'justice' are expressed in doing your job, which is multiple things
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Particulars are imperfect, material and changing, and participate in the forms
If they are in different worlds, how can they interact— Plato, Parimenides
They are what they are through participating in the forms, and cease to exist when they cease to do that
Because we can only know things through their properties, and these are constantly changing for particulars, we cannot truly know them. Knowledge requires more fixed certainty.
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To gain knowledge of the forms we must 'reorient' ourselves away from being caught up in the world of the senses. This is done through philosophy.
Plato's soul
We have a soul in three parts, and being aware of this can help us to make better decisions
Each part has a division, body part and drive
Rational, brain and logic (the charioteer)
Spirited, heart, emotion (horse)
Appetitive, stomach/genitals, desire (horse)
A demiurge formed the world from disorder into one of order, and modelled it on the world of the forms
He couldn't make it one of complete order, so gave us souls
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Arguments for the soul
Cyclical argument
Everything comes from its opposite, eg. only short people can become tall
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Recollection argument
Things on earth aren't perfect, eg an equilateral triangle
We still recognise them, so must have seen the perfect version
We can't do this on earth, so our soul must have seen their form
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Form of the Good
Analogy of the sun
The form of the good is like the sun: it illuminates all of the truth and good in the world and allows us to experience the good in the world
Like the sun causes growth and survival, all forms are contingent upon the form of the good for their survival
All of the forms are good, and participate in the ultimate form, the form of the good
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Politics
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Can only breed with members of your class, and only the top two classes are educated
Analogy of the cave
Humans are chained up in a cave, and a fire behind them casts shadows onto a wall which they can see
Since they only ever experience the shadows, the humans assume this is the real world
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Criticisms
Aristotle: the forms have to participate in something as well. Does the form of beauty participate in beauty 2.0? This is an infinite regress.
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Russell:Problem of infinite regress. A man partakes in the Form of largeness. There must now be a Form to embrace both the largeness and the man(ness) of this individual. If this is so for all things, there must be an infinite number of Forms.
Aristotle: there is no proof the forms exist beyond this world, argued instead that the forms cannot be separated from the object.
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