Plato essay

Question 1

introduction?

Answer 1

• form of epistemology based on rationalism
• a priori knowledge as mistrusted the senses
• interested in the origin of knowledge, why does 2+2 always = 4
• the republic
  ✅Iris Murdoch + Descartes
  ❌Aristotle + Locke

Question 2

rejection of sense and everything changing AO1?

Answer 2

• Inspired by Hercalitus who said ‘you cannot step into the same river twice’ he believed that knowledge should be fixed so knowledge must exist outside of the world as this is only way for knowledge to not always be changing
• Plato’s epistemology fuelled by reasoning as the chief source and test of knowledge, rationalism

Question 3

rejection of sense and everything changing AO2?

Answer 3

✅
- Plato’s theory can be comforting when trying to understand intense feelings such as discomfort, we are in the worst realm
- Descartes wax ball analogy
- Iris Murdoch, must exist a Platonic form of ‘goodness’ that guides us to become better people and rise to an external standard of morality
❌
- Some may argue that our sense aren’t always changing and that its actually our surroundings that change
- Is it rational to believe there’s another world with knowledge just because he mistrusts the senses, rather thantical theory when in reality we use our senses everyday as they keep us alive (why can’t they be trusted?)
- arrogant to presume that only philosophers will be able to understand this theology and therefore only they should rule, outdated
❗️
- Aristotle disagreed with Plato and instead believed that all concepts originate in experience - the sense experience

Question 4

realm of the forms AO1 + AO2?

Answer 4

• We live in material world, full of change (no true knowledge) and death we experience copies of forms
• A form is an everlasting, non changing concept which must exist in a different world
• the mathematical world (where knowledge has always existed) is full of the perfect version of each form we experience in our world
  ✅
• Supports plato’s rationalism as forms are everlasting and never change which we can observe on earth eg 2+2 will always equal 4
  ❌
• no actual evidence and doesn’t offer an explanation as to why we don’t have narrow concepts of things like beauty.
  ❗️
• John Locke was an empiricist who argued that we gain knowledge from experience, We understand the concept of a dog not because we recollect the Form of a dog that exists independently of any particular dog, but because we are able to compare a particular dog to other dogs that we have experienced

Question 5

Cave analogy AO1 + AO2?

Answer 5

• before the soul was tied down it was connected to the real world of the forms (this is why we instinctively recognise things) and thus can recognise them on earth now
• Anamnesis is word to describe how we experienced the forms in our souls
• Plato focused on the realm of beauty,truth and justice as these can be applied to all sorts of things
• Then reborn forget everything but we can still recognise things such as beautY
• Allegory of the cave, free prisoner symbolises the atonement of knowledge by recognising true forms when escaping the cave,the shadows watched by the other prisoners represents our world (the untrue reality) but they believe this is true reality
  ✅
• Accurate that people don’t believe Plato the same way people did not believe the freed prisoner
• warning against relativism in his allegory of the cave when he describes those who are bound by popular opinion as being prisoners
  ❌
• but Plato does not offer any solution of how to escape, could you be stuck here for eternity?
• Aristotle would disagree with us finding knowledge in this way,instead arguing that we gain knowledge from the four causes that we can observe in our world,does this not make more logical sense?