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Plato’s Theory of Forms, and the Sun, Line and

Cave

A falasafaz! presentation

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Plato

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

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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?

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Plato’s overall position

• Metaphysics (Reality)

• Epistemology (Knowledge)

• Ethics (Good)

THE THEORY OF

FORMS

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What is real?

RealityAppearance

• Sensations• Empirically

observable data

• Particular examples of ‘X’

• Beyond senses

• Mind/reason• ‘The Forms’• ‘The X-in-

itself’

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The Forms

Particular beautiful things

BEAUTY-ITSELF

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The Similes/Allegories

The SunRepublic Bk VI 507a

The Divided Line

Republic Bk VI 509d

The CaveRepublic Bk VII 514a

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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’ FORMS

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The Divided Line

Objects Epistemic States

Forms

Physical Objects

Shadows / Images

Dialectic

Belief

A

B

C

D

Mathematical Reasoning

Illusion

Inte

lligib

le R

ealm

Vis

ible

Realm

KN

OW

LED

GE

OPIN

ION

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The Cave

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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?

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