Transcript Assessing Plato (AO2) - Caroline Chisholm School

Assessing Plato (AO2)
What does the specification say?
Critical Assessment of Plato’s ideas
The specification states that:
Candidates should be able to discuss critically
the validity of the points being made in Plato’s
Analogy of the Cave.
&
Candidates should be able to discuss critically
the validity of Plato’s World of Forms.
What criticisms or support
for either:
the analogy of the cave
or
the World of Forms
can you think of?
Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave
– Plato’s view
Plato essentially wants to convince you that the
physical world around us is an illusion
The analogy (at face value) seems convincing
After all, how well do we know the universe? (as we
shall see with the world of quantum physics!)
It may be that there really is more to life than physical
appearances (beauty is only skin deep)
Plato certainly believed that the ‘passions’ or emotion
clouded our rational minds – so becoming fixated on
things of physical beauty might lead us to a warped
experience of true reality
Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave
– Basic problems with Plato
Plato wasn’t speaking in the general terms
discussed above. He LITERALLY meant that
the entire visible world was an illusion and that
the World of Forms (WoF) was the only true
reality we should seek.
In one very real sense the analogy can only be
valid if the WoF is real. Without the WoF the
analogy breaks down (remember this as there
are far more criticisms of the WoF).
Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave –
Would the prisoner return to the cave?
Plato also assumes that someone who discovered
the Form of the Good (like the released prisoner)
would never want to return to their old ways – is this
necessarily true?
It could be argued that Plato underestimates the pull
from emotions, desires, drives, lusts or physical
pleasure
I know what the right thing to do is but have failed to
do it on a number of occasions (I can be very selfish –
Aristotle identified that people suffer from a weakness
of will – desire is too strong for some people to
combat!) – So can we really say that the released
prisoner would definitely not wish to return to the
cave? It seems doubtful and if so the analogy breaks
down…
Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave
– Gloomy Cave Vs Physical delights
Plato paints a gloomy reality in the analogy.
Remember that the cave is meant to represent the
physical realm, do you think that a gloomy cave is a
fair representation of the physical world?
Plato appears to underestimate the physical world
around us. It is far more beautiful than Plato makes
out.
Plato believed that all matter was inherently evil as it
was subject to change – he would argue that you are
being duped by the physical realm and that you should
train yourself to look beyond the realm of experience.
Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave
– Buddhist Support
Buddhism agrees in principle with Plato’s
assessment of reality. The Buddhists believe
that life is ‘dukkha’ or ‘suffering’. This suffering,
according to the Buddha, comes about through
human desire to hold on to the physical realm.
Buddhism agrees with Plato that physical
reality is in a constant state of change. True
reality exists beyond the physical realm.
Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave
– Physical Vs Spiritual difference
Plato’s analogy tries to explain that there is a
spiritual/meta-physical realm beyond the
physical (cave = physical realm – outside =
WoF). However, there is an obvious problem
with his analogy – Plato fails to make the
distinction between the visible world and the
WoF because the analogy contains physical
objects.
The Sun is a physical object, the fire in the cave
is merely a smaller version of the Sun. This
does not provide an accurate explanation of the
relationship with the physical and the metaphysical
Evaluating the
World of Forms
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Plato’s understanding
Plato is going to argue that through the use of
reason or our mind we can recall what our soul
remembers from the WoF.
We recognise beauty, truth or justice because
we have seen this before.
Again, at face value this seems plausible.
The task of the philosopher is to seek out true
reality by training himself not to see the
‘shadows’ of the physical world around him.
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Basic Problems
THERE IS NO PROOF OF THE WORLD OF
FORMS!
We only have Plato’s theory and (as we have
seen) a flawed analogy to explain the WoF.
Popper: Believed that Plato sought
permanence in the WoF as a way of dealing with
the uncertainty of life.
Plato couldn’t accept that TRUE REALITY can
change – someone like Popper would ask ‘Why
can’t true reality change?’. If Popper is right
then there is no need to posit the existence of
another realm to find the truth.
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Aristotle
Aristotle had several criticisms of Plato,
particularly the Form of the Good.
He suggested that Good comes in so many
varieties that there cannot be one Form of it;
Goodness of a person is different from the
Goodness of a shovel. A person may be a Good
person but a bad shovel.
In essence Aristotle was looking at purpose as
the definition of whether something was good, in
other words something was good in relation to
something else – a good knife is one that cuts, a
bad one doesn’t fulfil its purpose as something
that cuts.
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Aristotle
Aristotle also suggested that something does
not have to be eternal to be pure. Something
white does not become more white if it is eternal
– eternity and whiteness are different qualities
(meaning that the realness of something does
not depend on it remaining unchanged as Plato
tried to suggest).
The Forms have no real practical use. They
cannot be applied in the physical world.
Aristotle’s Third
Man Argument
The copy of the copy of the copy of the copy of the Form of
Man(5) ad infinitum
Copy of the Copy of the
Form of Man(3)
Form of Man(1)
(1)
(5)
(4)
WoF
Physical
Reality
(2)
(3)
Copy of the Form of Man(2)
Or is it the copy of the copy of
the copy of the Form of Man(4)
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Aristotle’s Third Man Argument
Aristotle put forward a very famous criticism known as
the third man argument (caution – very tough idea!).
Suppose that an individual man is a copy of the Form
of Man (but every object in the physical realm has a
copy in the WoF!).
Therefore there must be a Copy of the Copy of the
Form of Man (a copy of the one that exists in the
physical realm).
Is the man in the physical world a copy of the Form of
Man or a copy of the copy of the copy of the Form of
Man?
This paradox appears to render the Theory of Forms as
meaningless (look at the diagram to help you
understand).
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Negative Forms?
Plato insists that everything that exists in the
physical realm is a pale reflection of something
in the WoF.
He is not clear on what exists in there.
Does this mean that the WoF contains negative
forms such as the Form of Disease, Violence,
Cancer, Death or even Evil? If we accept that
the physical realm is a poor reflection of the WoF
then these negative concepts would be ‘perfect’
in their negativity.
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Negative Forms – Augustine’s
Comeback
St. Augustine argued that evils or negative
things do not really exists at all. They have no
true substance as they are simply privations of
goodness – the absence of Good.
For Augustine blindness was the absence of
sight, darkness the absence of light and evil the
absence of good.
This appears to be a strong criticism of the
negative Forms idea as Plato can argue that
only positive things have any Form in the WoF.
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Specific Forms?
Even if we accept Augustine’s understanding of
negative simply being the absence of good things the
WoF is still confusing…
Are we to believe that there is a perfect Form of the
Laptop, Telescope, iPod and Deodorant?
However: it is highly unlikely that Plato was interested
in the Forms of physical things. A more sophisticated
reading of Plato might suggest that he believed that
everything in the physical realm was made up of a
series of concepts – Beauty, Symmetry and Sturdiness
Griswold believes that Plato was not serious when he
mentioned the Form of a Bed in the Republic, he sees it
more as an example of Plato’s sense of humour…
Evaluating the World of Forms – Are
the Forms all in the mind?
Dawkins believes that ideas or concepts are passed
on genetically from generation to generation. He calls
these ideas ‘memes’. Could this account for our
apparent recognition of ‘Forms’ such as Beauty, Truth,
Justice or Symmetry?
More over Jordan, Lockyer and Tate argue that
because of the radical difference between the physical
and spiritual it is difficult to see how we could ever gain
‘knowledge’ of the WoF.
It seems impossible to understand the Form of Justice
without placing it in a physical concept. The ideas or
concepts are far too conceptual for us to grasp entirely.
In a very real sense the Forms don’t exist unless placed
in a physical context.
Evaluating the World of Forms – Are
the Forms all in the mind?
Let us suppose that we could ‘know’ these
concepts in the WoF.
How could we hope to emulate these ideas in
our everyday lives? The Forms would be so far
removed from the reality that we experience that
it would become impossible to put this
‘knowledge’ of the Good into practise. Our
behaviour involves physical actions that the
concepts are completely devoid of…
Possible support for
Plato from Rationalism
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Support for Rationalism (Descartes)
Descartes was also a rationalist. He could be
used to support Plato because he agreed that
we have concepts that exist in the mind first and
then help us construct reality.
The difference is that Descartes believed that
these ideas existed solely in the mind and not in
an independent reality elsewhere (like the WoF).
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Support for Rationalism (Kant)
Kant was also a rationalist. He believed that there
was, in essence, two realities – 1) the world of sense
experience (phenomenal world) and 2) the world as it is
without observation (noumenal world).
He believed that our ideas of the world came from the
way that we perceive or interpret the universe around
us (what he called the phenomenal world).
He argues that the noumenal world can never be
known as the very fact that we observe it through our
five senses means that we change its nature though
our perception (Rather like rose-tinted spectacles).
WARNING – This is one of the
most difficult concepts that you
will study at AS – if you don’t
understand it straight away,
give it time! Here is a visual
representation to help you…
This can only ever be an interpretation
of the REAL or ABSOLUTE because of
our experience or perception
Therefore need to check
experience or perception
using REASON to see that
it is correct (synthetic)
Knowable through
reason alone (apriori)
Noumenal
object
Understanding
Unknowable
Real /
Absolute
Thing in itself
Phenomenal
object
If Kant is correct, then in one
sense he is agreeing with Plato
– Kant is also saying that
empiricism cannot give us
accurate information about the
world around us because we
can never ‘sense’ the world as it
REALLY is.
The Empirical
Evidence Against
Plato
Evaluating the World of Forms –
Empiricists’ Challenge
Someone like Hume, Locke or Dawkins would argue
that Plato’s ideas about the physical world are
counterintuitive.
This means that it flies in the face of common sense to
say that the world around us is an illusion – it seems so
real!
In fact the physical realm has empirical evidence to
back up its existence.
Dawkins would argue that any talk of the ‘transcendent’
(a world beyond the physical) is meaningless as there is
no evidence to support such a claim – for Dawkins real
knowledge comes through empirical/scientific testing of
the universe around us.
Evaluating the World of Forms – The
Quantum Physics Spanner
Unfortunately for the empiricists like Hume, Locke and
Dawkins there is one MAJOR hurdle… that of quantum
physics (profoundly difficult idea alert!!!).
Since the discovery of the quantum world (a world that
deals with the exceptionally small – far, far smaller than
the humble atom) our understanding of the physical
world has taken a turn for the VERY bizarre.
In brief, the laws that govern the world of big objects
(from atoms upwards) DO NOT apply to the quantum
world.
It may be that what we think we see is not a truly
accurate picture of the world – this is certainly backed up
by Einstein’s theory of general relativity!
Evaluating the World of Forms – The
Quantum Physics Spanner
In short what quantum physics does is send a
shockwave of doubt through the empirical
universe. We can no longer be sure that our
experiences of the world we observe around us
are accurate
This links nicely with Kant’s ideas on
phenomenal world and the world that exists
without anything experiencing it (noumenal world)
Evaluating the World of Forms – The
Language Problems (tough idea!)
Kotarbinski has suggested that Plato is guilty of
making a mistake about language – the mistake of
reification.
Words exist in our language that do not exist in an
objective sense like ‘nothing’ or ‘infinity’
Kotarbinski has argued that Plato has made the
mistake of thinking that words like Justice or Good or
Love really exist independently. They only ‘exist’ in as
much as a person is loving or just or good but he is quick
to suggest that we cannot say that these things ‘exist’ in
any absolute sense.
In this view Plato’s ideas are fundamentally flawed as
he is searching for concepts that do not exist
independently from human language.
Main Points to consider in your AO2
Evaluation
‘Plato’s theory of Forms is of
little use in understanding the
physical world’. Discuss
Plato
Aristotle’s criticisms (Third Man)
Rationalist views (Descartes + Kant)
Empiricist views (Dawkins)
Problems with the Analogy itself
Problems with the World of Forms
Quantum Physics (the world is not as it
seems to be!)