Plato & Aristotle

Plato For the exam you need to know: The analogy of the cave The concept of the Forms – especially the Form of the Good. The concept of body / soul distinction.

Plato’s Cave (a) Prisoners have been held in a cave since they were children. Behind them, higher up, a fire is burning. Between the fire & the prisoners, above them, runs a road, in front of which is a screen. People carry all sorts of things along behind the curtain wall. The prisoners assume that the shadows cast are real things.

Plato’s Cave (b) If one of the prisoners was freed and dragged out, she would see the shadows for what they are. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she would see more and more of the world as it really is, including the sun. She would realise that the sun provides light and warmth , produces seasons and controls everything in the visible world.

Plato’s Cave (c) Plato argued that our sight reveals the world of shadows, but as we ascend into the upper world, we will see the true reality. OR everything we experience in the world is a vague shadow of what it really is in its true Form. Ultimately we will see the Form of the Good. The Form of the Good is responsible for whatever is right & valuable in anything. It is perfect beauty, justice and goodness.

Plato’s Cave (d) The Form is the perfect expression of something that we only see in shadow. Epistemology = true knowledge. True knowledge cannot come from our senses because we can’t trust our senses. True knowledge can only come from thinking and reasoning.

Plato’s Cave (e) Most people are imprisoned by their misperception that what our senses reveal to us is the true world. The cave is the world as we see it, a distortion of the truth. It is distorted by our refusal to pursue the journey to truth through philosophy. When those who have seen the truth return to persuade others, they are treated as fools due to our limited perceptions – based on our senses.

Plato’s Cave for the modern audience This YouTube clip shows the moment when the character Neo is presented with a choice – much as the prisoners in Plato’s cave. Does he want to remain in ignorance – or see ‘reality’ as it really is? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE7PKRjrid4 The Matrix is a programme which fools our senses into believing that what our senses tell us is reality.

Plato’s FORMS Most people are imprisoned by their misperception that the shadows are the true world. Plato believed that true reality existed beyond our normal perceptions of the world. What we see around us is just a shadow of the truth. This ‘other world’ was inhabited by the one and only, original and perfect example. The Forms are invisible to us.

Plato’s FORMS We can never see perfect BEAUTY in this world. We can see things that we call ‘beautiful’ but we cannot see ‘beauty’ itself in its higher form. Plato thought that goodness was the higher form of reality – an absolute thing that existed eternally beyond our limited world.

Plato believed in a demiurge (creator God). Forms – the absolute and perfect things like goodness and beauty – could not have made such a distorted world. Plato believed in a demiurge (creator God). Forms only seemed accessible to educated philosophers. Ordinary people were cut off from the truth. Because Forms exist beyond our physical world they cannot be proved empirically. Plato relies heavily on human mental ability to escape the shadows and confines of our limited perceptions.

Body / Soul distinction Plato believed that the soul existed before the body. Humans remember things from a previous life before that of the body, such as our ability to recognise goodness and beauty.

Before taking on the body, the soul existed and was aware of the Forms, or pure essences. After death, the soul leaves the body and lives on in a cycle of life and death. The soul is closer to the Forms.

Plato thought that philosopher’s souls lived on in a state of wisdom. Those people who were primarily concerned with bodily demands were reborn as lower creatures. True philosophers should strive to separate the mind and be unhindered by bodily distractions.

The body’s need for things means that we have no time for philosophy. Plato said that we needed to be liberated from bodily needs to contemplate things with our souls. This is the journey from the cave. Plato is negative about the body. Plato’s separation of the soul goes against the holistic view that the ‘self’ is made from both our physical and spiritual elements.

Aristotle on the Forms Aristotle felt that there was proof the Forms existed – BUT – he thought they could only exist within the world e.g. That beauty was part of the world and not an objective universal thing that exists beyond our world.

Aristotle – God, cause and purpose. Objects change and those changes are caused. Everything in nature has a purpose. If there is any change in the universe, there must be something that initiated the change.

The Unmoved Mover The Unmoved Mover is intelligence or thought. Aristotle never talked about God in personal or anthropomorphic terms God has no divine plan and does not know the world.

Aristotle does not explain where the matter in the world came from. Was it caused too? It seems odd (a disparity) between an entity powerful enough to set the universe in motion – but is then unable to know it.

Aristotle – the body / soul Objects in the world are either alive or inanimate. Aristotle believed that ALL living things had souls, but that these varied in complexity according to their level of life.

The soul provides the power of nutrition, perception, movement and thought. Souls are part of living bodies and cannot live apart from a body any more than skills can be separated from a skilled person. Souls don’t just drift into a body at a certain point as they cannot live beyond it.

HOWEVER (a complete contradiction) Aristotle suggests that a certain type of thought (active intellect) comes from outside the body and is unconnected from the body and separate from it. Once separated it is immortal and eternal.

Critical comments Frederick Copleston Said that reality can be known and is not just a creation of the mind. Reality is rational and real. Bertrand Russell Aristotle said that people could only know the divine as rational, living beings. This rules out life after death.

TIPS for AS exam questions (a) Explain what Plato meant by Forms. Refer to the Cave Emphasise that the Forms are beyond this world & involved in the world – use examples. Explain how someone might perceive the Forms with reference to the Cave. ‘Plato’s theory of the Forms is useless’. Plato’s emphasis is on the ‘real’ world and not the physical one. Do you agree? Is the physical world just a distraction? Plato perhaps wants the physical world to be judged and measured against the spiritual world.