1. Plato Honors World Studies Mrs. Steinke

2. Plato Plato is considered by some to be the most influential thinker in the history of Western culture.

3. Plato He was so respected throughout history that his written work has survived practically undamaged and more completely than that of any other Greek writer.

4. Plato He was born into a wealthy family and was groomed to be a political leader.

5. Plato But, the political corruption he observed in his youth led Plato to withdraw from political activity.

6. Plato His life changed completely when he met the philosopher, Socrates.

7. Plato Plato’s theory of ideas deals with the difference between appearance and reality.

8. Plato For instance, Plato said the general world “horse” refers not to this horse

9. Plato But to any horse. There is, somewhere or another, an IDEAL horse, outside space and time. The idea, the real, is only apparent.

10. Plato Take the color blue…we apply that word to a variety of things, but how did we learn to do so when we never really encounter an unambiguous example of blue?

11. Plato Consider what we take to be our knowledge of something blue, like a shirt. It is fairly clear that the world around is constantly changing. This blue shirt will be washed and washed; it will begin to fade, and soon it won’t be the fetching shade of blue that it is today.

12. Plato This shirt might inadvertently be washed with something else that is not color fast, something bright orange, in which case the faded shirt will not even be blue at all.

13. Plato And, in the fullness of time, it won’t even be a shirt anymore, returning, as all things must, to dust. So…as this shirt fades, what standard do we use to say, truly, that it is not blue anymore?

14. Plato And, as this shirt falls apart, and looks less and less like a shirt (perhaps more like a rag) what standard do we use to say, truly, that it is not a shirt anymore?

15. Plato Some unchanging standard seems needed to make sure of these judgments, but what could do the job in this changing world?

16. Knowledge, thought Plato is the only thing that is above the fluctuating vagaries of this imperfect world.

17. Plato For Plato, the big question was WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE ??

18. Plato Is it sense perception?

19. Plato No, to rely on mere senses, on appearances, is not complete.

20. Plato Is it purely mental?

21. Plato No---for then it would impossible to commit an error.

22. Plato So it is an interaction between perceiver and perceived, under the guidance of an overall sense, the soul or mind.

23. Plato And that is where The Simile of the Cave comes in. To illustrate the difference between appearance and reality.

24. Plato Everyone is chained in a cave. The prisoners see only shadows and take them for beauty. One man escapes. He leaves the and sees the real world. He returns, but dazzled by the light, seems more stupid than before.

25. Plato Plato also set up the prototype of all universities. The basic studies were arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and the harmonics of sound.

26. Plato This Academy had scientific equipment and a library.

27. Plato The aim was to train men’s minds and enable them to think for themselves in the light of reason.

28. Plato The method seems to have been research under supervision.

29. Plato Education, he believed, required a joint effort on the part of teacher and pupil—a truly dialectical process.

30. Plato Does Plato’s ideal of education hold true at Air Academy High School? Do we really have a student and teacher partnership that works?

31. Plato Plato’s star pupil was Aristotle— who studied at the Academy for twenty years. We will talk about him next class.