Plato Flashcards
(13 cards)
Academy
The first formal school of Greek philosophy, founded by Plato ca. 385 B.C.
Aristocracy
From a Greek term meaning “rule by the best” A form of government in which those who are most qualified to rule are in charge of society.
Divided line
Plato’s metaphor of the structure of reality. The world is like a line divided between a lower, visible realm and a higher, intelligible realm.
Hierarchy
The ordering of people or things according to a scale of higher and lower or better and worse.
Idealism
The belief that the world is fundamentally made up of ideas rather than of some other substance, such as matter.
Ideas
Those entities that are present to the mind when one is thinking.
Justice
The state in which all things are given their due. It is most often thought of as a fair balance between the competing needs and desires of people or between the competing forces of the universe.
Myth of the Cave
A story that appears in Book VII of Plato’s The Republic. The story likens the lives of humans to the lives of prisoners in a cave. The path out of the cave is a metaphor for education and eventual enlightenment.
Philosopher kings
According to Plato, a just and well-ordered society should be run by those who are the wisest. He claims that either kings must study philosophy or philosophers must become kings.
Plato
Ancient Greek philosopher (427? 347 B.C.). A follower of Socrates and the founder of the first university, called the Academy. He taught that the world of ideas is more real than the world of material existence and that the most real idea is the Good.
Platonic idealism
The Platonic doctrine holding that the most real entities that exist are pure ideas, or forms
What is the platonic puzzle
The idea that the three forms help to justify each other and support each other like pieces of a puzzle
Key difference between Socrates and Plato
Platos thinking focuses less on the recognition of ignorance and more on the attempt to get out of the cave.
