1. Introduction to Philosophy Lecture 5b The metaphysics and epistemology of Plato
By David Kelsey

2. Plato Plato: 427-347 B.C. A friend and admirer of Socrates
Aristotle was his student
387: established an academy for teaching
Sets about refuting the Sophist views of Skepticism & Relativism
There is truth about reality and we can know it

3. The Apology The Apology:
A record of the actual speech that Socrates delivers in his own defense at his trial.
Socrates is charged with corrupting the youth of Athens and with not believing in the city’s Gods

4. Is Socrates the wisest of all?
Socrates considers early on just why such charges have been brought against him.
He says that it is a result of his reputation. And what has caused this reputation was this:
Chairephon went to the Oracle at Delphi and asked if anyone was wiser than Socrates. The Oracle said no. (21b-c)
Socrates then went about investigating the claim so he might be able to go to the Oracle and bring a man forward who was wiser than he. (21d)

5. The search for a man wiser than Socrates
Socrates began the search for a man wiser than he:
Socrates found himself wiser than anyone he investigated because although Socrates and such men know nothing worthwhile, other men think they know things when they do not, whereas when Socrates does not know, neither does he think he knows. (21d)
So Socrates is wiser in this small extent…

6. Only God is wise
So Socrates is wisest because he knows he lacks knowledge.
Only God is wise because only God has knowledge of the forms…
Human knowledge is worth little or nothing
So the wisest of men recognizes the limitations of his knowledge
“This man among you mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that wisdom is worthless.” (23b)

7. PLATO ON KNOWLEDGE Plato on Knowledge: Meno 98a:
True beliefs “tend not to stay for long…unless they’re anchored by working out the reason…When true beliefs are anchored, they become pieces of knowledge and are stable.”
Analogy of the blind person navigating the road…

8. Knowledge is anchored true belief
1. To have knowledge you must be able to give an explanation or account for holding on to the belief
2. And to have knowledge the true belief must be able to stand up to Socratic examination
3. Knowledge must also be implanted in us by instruction while mere true belief is implanted in us by persuasion.
Knowledge cannot be overcome by persuasion

9. Examples of knowledge
Plato searches to provide an example of knowledge so as to prove Relativism and skepticism false:
Plato considers Mathematical truths. Says they aren’t relative truths but absolute, such that we recognize their truth.
Example from Meno (80d):
Consider a large square divided into 4 equal squares. Consider one of the smaller squares. Now try to draw a square which is twice its size.

10. The objects of knowledge
So what are the objects of knowledge?
Consider the example from Meno:
the knowledge that the larger square is twice the size of the smaller square
This knowledge isn’t derived from the particular drawing in front of you.
This knowledge is about the ‘square itself’

11. The Square Itself The Square Itself: A public object
Not some particular square
It is the form of all particular squares
So what we can know are the forms themselves

12. The Forms The Forms: Not anything we can perceive Not imaginary
Abstract objects
Shared by and instantiated in sensible things

13. The Forms & the objects of Sense
The forms are more real than any object you see or touch or feel
The Forms:
Are unchangeable
Are Eternal
Things in the sensory world:
How they are regarded depends upon the perspective taken and the comparison in mind
Come into being and pass away
So Things in the sensory world have less reality than the Forms

14. The Metaphysical Argument for the World of Forms
In the Parmenides Plato gives the following Metaphysical argument for the world of forms:
1. Think of 2 large elephants
2. They have a certain character in common, each is large.
3. What they have in common cannot be the same as either elephant
Thus, 4. Largeness is not the same as either elephant.
5. Largeness is not the same as both elephants
Another elephant might be large also
Thus, 6. What the elephants have in common is a reality distinct from them.
7. They share the ‘large itself’.

15. Forms and Objects of Sense
Objects of sense are divided into likenesses and things
Likenesses are copies of things.
Objects of sense have less reality than the forms because:
Objects of sense are merely copies of forms
This bird isn’t a perfect eagle, maybe it’s wing is broken.
It is a copy of the form EAGLE.
But the copy has certain defining characteristics…

16. The forms and the objects of sense
Objects of sense exist only dependently on the forms
The Forms exist independently of the objects of sense.
The forms produce and explain the objects of sense.
The form EAGLE makes a particular bird the eagle it is
Objects of sense participate in the forms.
This particular bird participates in the Form EAGLE

17. Lower and Higher Forms Higher and Lower forms:
The Higher forms explain and produce the lower forms
SQUARE: 4, EQUAL, STRAIGHT, LINE, ANGLE

18. The form of the GOOD The GOOD:
The ultimate explanation of every other thing is the GOOD
To understand why anything is as it is, we must see that it is so because it is good for it to be so.
Responsible for knowledge and truth
Gives the things we know their truth and makes it possible for people to have knowledge
The Starting Point & The Highest Form
The GOOD makes intelligible, gives the reason and causes the reality of everything.

19. The Allegory of the cave
The allegory of the cave represents the various stages of the ascent to wisdom
To love wisdom is to be motivated to turn one’s head away from the shadows…
Imagine a prisoner is set free from his shackles.
He stands up, turns his head and walks toward the firelight.
It hurts him to do this. His eyes can’t adjust right away. So he cannot make out the objects whose shadows he was formerly looking at.
He sees the objects which cast the shadows and he is dumbfounded: what he once thought was reality was only a copy of it.
Now what if he is forced up the steep slope toward the sunlight.
His eyes would be overwhelmed by the suns beams…
Shadows…reflections….actual objects…the heavenly bodies…the sun itself
He’d realize the Sun’s powers…
He’d feel sorry for his former fellow prisoner’s…
What if he went back underground to sit in his old spot, next to the prisoner’s?
Like Socrates

20. The terms of the analogy
The prisoner’s
Like people who gain their understanding of things from the media. They don’t see actual objects of sense, only images of them.
Their legs and necks are tied up. They are forced to look at the shadows.
The shadows on the wall
Likenesses in the world of sense: reflections and shadows of the objects of sense
The low wall
Separates objects of sense from likenesses
People on the other side of the low wall
Those in the world of sense who can look directly at sensible objects, not merely images of them.
The artifacts they carry are like the objects of sense

21. The terms of the analogy continued
The fire
The sun in the world of sense
Lights up the objects of sense so they can be perceived.
The road to the outside world:
The road to the forms and the GOOD
The exit to the outside world
The separation between the world of sense and the world of forms
Climbing out of the exit is like the transition from the world of sense to the world of forms
Objects outside the cave
The lower forms, reflections of the sun
The sun
The GOOD

23. The Allegory & Education
The art of orientation
The capacity for knowledge is present in everyone’s mind
The Slave Boy already had the capacity to understand that the bigger square is twice that of the smaller square. Socrates simply needed to turn him in the right direction. He does this through Socratic examination.
The mind must simply be turned away from the shadows on the wall and towards the sunlight
But turning the mind away from the shadows is not easy as the prisoners are not happy to be told they suffer from an illusion. Hence wisdom is resisted…