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Plato's Understanding of Reality
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Plato’s Understanding of Reality
Plato’s worldview is influenced by his desire to provide solutions to some of the key pre-Socratic debates that were then current.
Problems Plato was addressing
- Plato tries to answer questions about the possibility of certain knowledge in a world where everything is changing.
- Another problem Plato tried to address is sometimes known as the problem of the one and the many - are there many things, or is there only one thing really?
- These might seem odd questions, but they form a basis for a theory of knowledge still influential today.
Knowledge of changing things
- Heraclitus (pictured), a pre-Socratic philosopher, had said that everything flows; there is no unchanging essence to anything.
- This was a problem for two reasons (covered in the next slides).
Can I know a thing that changes?
- If I say I know something and then that thing completely changes, how can I be said to know it?
- For instance, when a good friend changes, we sometimes say: “I don’t know him any more”.
Essence & change cannot co-exist
- If absolutely everything changes, then there is no such thing as an essence. The very idea of essence relies on the fact that there is an unchanging core of something that stays the same regardless of changes in appearance.
- For instance, I might paint an egg blue, or crack it into a pan, or scramble it, but I would recognise that beneath that change in appearance, it remains an egg. So if nothing has an essence, then nothing is really knowable at all.
Breaking down the theory
- We can examine this idea by looking at the difference between knowing that:
- The interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees;
- Eggs have yellow yolks.
- The first proposition is much more certain than the second. Given the very nature of angles and triangles, it is impossible that it could not be true.
- But even though my past experience has shown almost completely consistently yellow egg yolks, I can’t be certain I won’t find one of a different colour in the future.
Only a priori knowledge is true
- So, mathematical or logical knowledge gives much more certainty than empirical knowledge (knowledge gained from experience).
- Plato argues that, in a real sense, the only kind of knowledge that can be called true knowledge is logical or a priori knowledge (knowledge that comes from theory or reasoning).
Plato's thoughts on opinions
- Having an opinion of something is not the same thing as knowledge. When we have an opinion, we think we know something, but we don’t.
- Plato is arguing for epistemological humility (awareness that our knowledge is always incomplete) but doesn’t say that we can never have true knowledge of anything.
- It is still possible to have true knowledge because if there wasn’t, it wouldn’t even be possible to have an opinion. This is because an opinion is a mixture of truth and falsity - you are right in some ways and wrong in others.
1Philosophy of Religion
1.1Ancient Philosophical Influences: Plato
1.2Ancient Philosophical Influences: Aristotle
1.3Ancient Philosophical Influences: Soul, Mind, Body
1.4The Existence of God - Arguments from Observation
1.5The Existence of God - Arguments from Reason
1.6Religious Experience
1.7The Problem of Evil
1.8The Nature & Attributes of God
1.9Religious Language: Negative, Analogical, Symbolic
2Religion & Ethics
2.1Natural Law
2.2Situation Ethics
2.3Kantian Ethics
2.4Utilitarianism
2.5Euthanasia
2.6Business Ethics
2.7Meta-Ethical Theories
2.8Conscience
3Developments in Christian Thought
3.1Saint Augustine's Teachings
3.2Death & the Afterlife
3.3Knowledge of God's Existence
3.4The Person of Jesus Christ
3.5Christian Moral Principles
3.6Christian Moral Action
3.7Development - Pluralism & Theology
3.8Development - Pluralism & Society
3.9Gender & Society
3.10Gender & Theology
Jump to other topics
1Philosophy of Religion
1.1Ancient Philosophical Influences: Plato
1.2Ancient Philosophical Influences: Aristotle
1.3Ancient Philosophical Influences: Soul, Mind, Body
1.4The Existence of God - Arguments from Observation
1.5The Existence of God - Arguments from Reason
1.6Religious Experience
1.7The Problem of Evil
1.8The Nature & Attributes of God
1.9Religious Language: Negative, Analogical, Symbolic
2Religion & Ethics
2.1Natural Law
2.2Situation Ethics
2.3Kantian Ethics
2.4Utilitarianism
2.5Euthanasia
2.6Business Ethics
2.7Meta-Ethical Theories
2.8Conscience
3Developments in Christian Thought
3.1Saint Augustine's Teachings
3.2Death & the Afterlife
3.3Knowledge of God's Existence
3.4The Person of Jesus Christ
3.5Christian Moral Principles
3.6Christian Moral Action
3.7Development - Pluralism & Theology
3.8Development - Pluralism & Society
3.9Gender & Society
3.10Gender & Theology
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