Critique of Plato’s Theory of Form: Shortcomings and other conflicts and problem The world according to Plato is divided into two worlds: The Visible: The world we live in, the world we taste or touch. The Intelligible: We can only grab this with our mind. It is made up of Abstract forms, which are absolute and this exists in the permanent relation with the visible realm and makes the visible realm possible as all our knowledge of the visible world is derived from here. Because only they possess the eternal unchanging truth of mind and not the senses. Conflict: Plato is not very clear about how the Forms relate to things in the realm of Intelligible and Visible.
At the same time he has in mind a problem which claimed much attention from pre-Socratic thinkers, the problem of change. The Platonic theory of Ideas is an attempt to solve this crucial question by a metaphysical compromise. The Eleatics, Plato said, are right in maintaining that reality does not change; for the ideas are immutable. Still, there is, as contended, change in the world of our experience, or, as Plato terms it, the world of phenomena. Plato, then, supposes a world of Ideas apart from the world of our experience, and immeasurably superior to it.
Another limitation of Plato’s theory is when Plato says that things in the ‘world of Becoming’ “participate” in the Forms of the ‘world of Being’ (Solomon, et al., 2012). It could be suggested, that the word “participates” is just a word, not an explanation of the relationship between the Form and the particular thing (Solomon, et al., 2012). With regard to this limitation, Plato himself found doubts, which he expressed through his later dialogues (Solomon, et al., 2012). It can be argued that Plato’s theory of Forms does not fully account for all areas of knowledge or appearance and reality without creating limitations. His theory suggests to provide for a universal reality, however suggestions of how this may not be can be found, providing that it does not completely account for universal reality.
Protagoras theory states, “Man is the measure of all things”. Plato took his theory further and mentioned; “there is no absolute knowledge: one person’s views about the world is as ... ... middle of paper ... ...be the realm of forms through his epistemology and metaphysics. In disagreement, Aristotle relied on his senses to study the natural sciences. Even though he mentioned that the human mind is the smallest organ in our body, people still use some of his theories. Aristotle agreed with Plato that knowledge is something that’s true and it must be justified.
The analyzation and interpretation of Plato’s argument and theory of epistemology Book V to Book VII are what the article consists. Starting off with Book V from Plato’s Republic it introduces the argument of philosopher versus the sight lover. This dialogue of course is narrated by Socrates through Plato’s writing. It starts off with the example that the man ran by doxa (belief) can make up and see countless of beautiful things, but unlike the awakened philosopher, the man cannot grasp beauty itself. Throughout the article, Boylu works to validate Plato’s theory of knowledge and the distinction between episteme (knowledge) and doxa (belief/opinion).
Behind them is... ... middle of paper ... ...ue that we must dismiss the objects of our senses as completely false because they act as a basis on the long journey towards knowledge. This therefore means Forms would not be completely separate from the particulars. On the whole I believe that Plato’s theory is a speculation not to dismiss and there are points, which are very valid and questions our reality and existence. But there criticisms which affect the way we see things; ‘what is goodness’, this is a changing answer and I believe cannot be answered. Plato does not really present the Forms as a theory; what is the nature of forms?
Even though, he did not explicitly say that he was countering Plato’s theories about art, in his writings that was what he did. First, Aristotle contested Plato’s belief that a person is either rational or emotional, split between a half animal and half divinity and that one should only strive to be logical. Instead, Aristotle saw the fault in this theory and believed that there is no such thing as two irreconcilable parts but that all the faculties interacted together. Mainly all we do uses the mind, and it is impossible to separate a rational part from the emotional. And so it is incorrect to say that art appeals solely to emotion but not reason because they two are connected.
The way in which we can know the objects of reality is very important for Plato. Much like his concept of metaphysics, Plato breaks down his concept of epistemology into two categories: Knowledge and Belief. According to Plato, knowledge is always true and justifiable while belief can be true or false and can be a matter based on persuasion. Plato uses his Allegory of the Cave to introduce these distinctions of knowledge and belief. Plato's concept of the soul also takes on a multi-pronged approach.
The argument of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is not that this worldview is provable or disprovable; the mere fact we are able to reason about abstract objects without having to perceive them is evidence enough of this order. Rather, Aristotle attempts to tackle some of the most fundamental questions of human experience, and at the crux of this inquiry is his argument for the existence of an unmoved mover. For Aristotle, all things are caused to move by other things, but the unreasonableness of this going on ad infinitum means that there must eventually be an ultimate mover who is himself unmoved. Not only does he put forth this argument successfully, but he also implies why it must hold true for anyone who believes in the ability to find truth by philosophy. Book XII of the Metaphysics opens with a clear statement of its goal in the first line of Chapter One: to explore substances as well as their causes and principles.
Plato was an inside/out philosopher as opposed to Aristotle’s outside/in thinking. This simply means that Plato developed his ideas from within and applied them to the outside world. Conversely, Aristotle took the views from the world around him and applied them within. These different approaches to metaphysics lead to the issue of Aristotle’s imminent reality versus Plato’s dualistic, transient reality. Aristotle’s beliefs lead to him seeing only one level of reality.