Plato's Worldview and How Humans Exist Within It

Plato's Worldview and How Humans Exist Within It

Plato lived in a very exciting time in history. The post-Socratic era had merits for exploration totally new to him. The idea that science and reason could be applied to more than static issues such as logistics and geometry, allowing the thinking men of the time the opportunity to examine the world around them with structured thought. He, like his mentor, was not happy with what science gave as answers to life. Though it gave a structure the world, It denoted a typically atheist view on the world. Plato had strong ideas about right and wrong, and other abstract ideas in general, but could not relinquish such a powerful tool as "scientific" reason or Grecian theories on the atomic nature of the world, so used them in his work.

One of Plato's core philosophies was what he called "The Forms". He postulated a duality that spanned the planes of human existence. The world around him was made entirely of crude matter that could only represent the purity of the next life, in the plane of the forms. If we examine any object (for argument's sake a glass) we should be able to identify what it is without having to think to hard. It is our ability to connect objects that aren't atomically identical to the same ilk that Plato found fascinating. How does a common understanding of what is glass arise? We could scorn any deeper meaning of this by saying that we can tell a glass is a glass by examining its function, but then consider common ideas such as justice. Even in cross-cultural examination common human concepts can be found. To Plato they were proof of a common human existence before this one, where these notions were first given to us. Thus was born the plane of the forms.

Plato ...

... middle of paper ...

...he forms seemed nonsensical. Plato's logical conclusion would have been to abandon earthly delights altogether, and though he didn't the idea of shedding possessions to pursue a spiritual quest of some sort endures today.

He paints a picture of all the non-philosopher caste as being chained by the hand and foot from birth in the bowels of a cave, a very precise metaphor of ignorance. Behind these captive minds is a wall that (if they were able to turn around) obscures a procession of people. These people carry objects with them, above wall height, the shadows of which are cast onto the wall in front of the prisoners via a fire at the rear of the procession. These shadows are literally and figuratively the representation of the material world that, as the people have known it from birth, the take so seriously.

Bibliography:

"The Republic" - Plato