What Is Plato Ultimate Reality Essays

Plato believes that True Knowledge comes from knowing the four values, and using them to achieve Ultimate Reality.Plato says that facts (sight, touch, smell etc) assist in Forms, for example, we look at things to see if they are good.Plato believes Forms cannot be taught, only valued, and utilized.This suggests that Plato is unsure of Forms himself, or at least how to explain them.Plato uses the ‘Analogy of the Cave’ to explain his Theory.

Plato is saying that humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our cave.According to Plato, in the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and with great difficultly is the essential Form of Goodness.According to Plato, there is no real injustice in compelling philosophers to watch over and care for other citizens.According to Plato, this is what he feels to be true but only Heaven truly knows whether it is true.According to Plato, individuals who have reached this state are often reluctant to manage the affairs of men.

Plato was a Greek Philosopher, who was a student of Socrates.Plato suggests that in this world, the sun gives both life to being as without light, we and the plants and animals would not grow and flourish, and provides light by which these things can be seen.Plato believed that everything exists in its true, perfect form outside of the cave in the world of the forms.The sun is the ultimate good and Plato gives the name of good the demiurge.He comes to see a deeper reality, a reality marked by reason.

Towards Plato 's view of art, Plato believes that art is no more than a representation,a reflection in a mirror of what is reality.Through the carpenters work of bringing that ideal to life, it is therefore, one step removed from the ideal into the reality.Furthermore, Plato disagrees with poetry for the fact that it teaches immoral lessons and for its falsehood.Using the example of a chair, Plato states that God 's idea of a chair is genuine and the truth.By being mislead, it would go back to Plato 's argument in which that poetry will impair the faculty of reasons, encourage the inferior part of soul to wish of baser impulses.

For Plato, the ultimate aspiration for a creature, and most certainly for a human being, was to pierce the surface of our reality, and acquire ‘true knowledge’, that is knowledge of the Forms and in particular, the Form of the Good.In his lifetime, Plato took a rather elitist attitude towards democracy, believing that it gave power to the majority, whether their ideas and actions be good or bad.Plato felt that only the philosopher, who spent his time gaining true knowledge in reflection and contemplation of the Forms, could really distinguish what is wrong from what is right, and act accordingly.Plato’s god was called the Demiurge, and Plato believed that he created our universe and our reality from matter, which already existed in a cha...

His valuable contributions are following: 1) According to Wimsalt and Brooks: In Ion, Plato has drawn our attention to two principles (1) being able to compose poetry is not the same as to give rational of it; (2) Poetry is not concerned with making scenic statements.But Plato fails to understand that art also give something more which is absent in the actual.R.A Scott-James is quite right when he says: “To him we owe the first statement of the mimetic or imitation character of art.” 3) Plato also right in saying that the only aim of the poet is to please the people, though his disapproved and denounce of the poet on this account is not fair.(iv) Response to Philosophical Point of View :- Plato stated that poetry is away from reality and...

Descartes contemplates how our senses occasionally mislead us whereas The Matrix describes a continual sensual overhaul which is controlling our mind and ultimate realities while our bodies lay dormant.This is actually a deviation from the Plato and Descartes readings in that computers were not mentioned or available at the time of those writings.In contrast, the Plato reading describes and expresses a feeling of joy that would be experienced after emerging from the controlled reality.The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction and, in my opinion, The Matrix and the thoughts contemplated by Plato and Descartes are just stories that will never be reality.In conclusion, through the viewing of The Matrix and the reading of both Plato and D...

The perfect state run by philosopher kings may never truly be achievable, but Plato makes the argument that a society always working towards the Good, and being run accordingly will be the best society possible.While his intentions were to create a state “so arranged that the exercise of the power of government will be carried out as public office and not exploited as a chance to advance one’s own interests” (Gadamer, 1986), Plato fails to realize his ideal of complete honesty within the public office is naive.Unlike Aristotle, primary concerned with practical philosophy, Plato was a theorist.Plato believed an ideal state was one in which some would never have the potential to reach the status of a philosopher king.Plato equates the Form...

Plato was an inside/out philosopher as opposed to Aristotle’s outside/in thinking.These different approaches to metaphysics lead to the issue of Aristotle’s imminent reality versus Plato’s dualistic, transient reality.This simply means that Plato developed his ideas from within and applied them to the outside world.Plato believed that everything real takes on a form but doesn’t embody that form.two important thinkers of metaphysics are Plato and Aristotle.

This leads to the question of “did Plato actually know himself where he was going with his arguments, or did he make them up as he went along?Plato says the prisoners only perceive shadows, which means the lowest level of knowledge illusion.In the Sun, Plato explores the idea of the Sun being the ultimate Form in detail, but in the Cave, the sun itself is forgotten, and is seen more as a goal, or object, than as a metaphor for knowledge.Although Plato has given us a clear picture of what his idea of knowledge and opinion is, and how the Form of Good fits into it, he has left many questions unanswered and a lot of gaps which need filling.A solution would be though that in the Divided Line, mathematical ideas are implied rather than stated...

Plato says the prisoners only perceive shadows, which means the lowest level of knowledge illusion.Plato believed that there were four different states of the mind, and four different states of reality, both progressing from a lower level (illusion / images and shadows) to a higher level (intelligence / Forms).A solution would be though that in the Divided Line, mathematical ideas are implied rather than stated: Plato may not even have mentioned the idea of mathematical ideas.Although Plato has given us a clear picture of what his idea of knowledge and opinion is, and how the Form of Good fits into it, he has left many questions unanswered and a lot of gaps which need filling.This leads to the question of “did Plato actually know himself...

Plato suggests that the world we live in is a world of appearances although the real world is a world of ideas that he calls forms.Although a triangle can be used to as an example to explain the forms, Plato applied the idea of the Forms to concepts, among others, beauty, good and truth.Among other things, Plato is known for his exploration metaphysics and the theory of knowledge, many of his ideas influencing the mind frame of Western society.Plato summed up that goodness is the highest form of reality.The influence that Plato has had throughout the history of philosophy has been significant.

But, Plato and Aristotle are completely different individuals, so the causes of their happiness are, at the same time, completely different.Thus Plato believes that education of a human being should begin when the child is ready to love another.Human happiness is the foremost concern for both Plato and Aristotle in their works of literature.Plato sees happiness as being close to godliness.Plato believes that love is the midpoint between reality and perfection, mortality and immortality.

”1 Plato was also passionate about music and its importance in education.In 387 BC Plato founded what is credited as the first European university, The Academy, in Athens, Greece.Plato was a believer in the importance of ethics and true self-introspection.As the result of an early failure, Plato came to the conclusion that political action would not stop violence and greed, which is what changed his philosophic approach.Plato even felt that his works and dialogues should be used more as supplementary aids and that no one should rely solely on what they read in a book or dialogue.

Plato advocates that the world of forms is different from world of appearances.Plato says that, the world of forms can be characterized as ‘changeless’ , ‘eternal’ and ‘real’ whereas physical world undergoes many changes and decay.Plato was born in Athens on 428 BC.He raised basic questions and problems of western thought, goodness and virtue, truth and knowledge, body and soul, ideal political state, and use of Literature and Arts were some of the pre dominant topics of interest to Plato.In my opinion Plato puts an argument that intellectual truth is truer than physical truth.

Some philosophers believe that “Plato believes humans can’t really know the whole truth”.So in opposition to some philosophers I would argue that Plato did believe that humans could know the whole truth.Therefore, Plato could have been saying that those people who decide to ignore, or have not considered there being a different world other than the physical, can’t really know the whole truth.However, it is also arguable that Plato did teach that knowledge is innate within us.Plato described the world of reason to contain true goodness, the Form of good.

” The will to power is to grow, spread, seize, and become predominant; it not only drives the self but also the reality of the universe.” Thus, much like Plato, Descartes claims that it is this thinking essence, and not the body, and though alone, and not perception, that is the key to true knowledge.” Plato claims that sight, hearing, pain, and pleasure are a distraction to the soul in its search for reality, and that true knowledge can only be achieved with pure thought alone.Plato however differs from the “ordinary religious view” of the creation of the world when he claims that there is a second type of universe other than the physical: eternal universe, that never changes.According to Plato, “the soul reasons best without bodily sen...

Plato speaks of a nine fold hierarchy that spans from the tyrant to the philosopher (Ibid 47).Parmenides is seen to have posed the problem of being and non-being which had bedeviled the Greeks for long, before Plato affected reconciliation through his Theory of Ideas.In conclusion, Plato solves the problem of change by positing the existence of Ideas, which are the transcendental entities having eternal and unchanging existence.By letting the cave dweller out, Plato is suggesting that there is escape from the cage of phenomenal existence, and that man spans the gap between the two realms, experiencing material things on the one hand, but with the latent possibility of knowing the ultimately real too.To illustrate how the condition of man...

The simile of the sun 135-137 The Allegory of the cvae137-139 The divided line A+B= World of Forms (Being, Knowledgeable) C+D= Physical world (Becoming Opinion) Metaphysics | Epistemology(study of knowledge) | Higher Forms(Example: the good) | A: Understanding | Lower Forms(Example: Form human) | B: Reasoning | Sensible Objects (Example: Mother Teresa) | C. Perception | Images(Example: Mother Teresa’s Photograph) | D. Imagination | Simile of the sun Plato compared the absolute form of the good to the sun; the good makes the existence of everything else possible.According to Plato, the just state functions fully; the unjust state is dysfunctional, only when all classes of people are virtuous according to their natures is the state whole, ...

Plato thinks that the working class are not capable of deciding what the common good is for them so they need the Guardians, The guardians represent the laws& so he does not mention laws in his dialogue.The real truth for Plato and the ultimate kind of knowledge.According to Plato the soul is divided in 3 dimensions : .Plato believed in this type pf state.The ideal truth for Plato was: The universal as it is the essence so it is superior to the particular reality/ truth.

To understand the true meaning of a book, Plato states you have to go beyond the empirically given book and mentally contemplate ‘bookness.’ Plato’s point is that it is not possible to understand the meaning of book just by observing different “shadows,” which the prisoner do.Gail Fine, Plato on knowledge and forms: selected essays (Oxford University Press, 2003) .Plato believed that the material world is subject to a constant state of flux making it is impossible to know the truth of reality.Plato, in his theory of Forms believes that in order to truly know something, you have to intelligibly capture the Form of that particular object.Plato intends the chains to depict this.

Again, some non-idealistic readers hold that for Plato the Forms are true realities, but they are not outside of us in a spatial sense like material objects, which some natural scientists call physical bodies.For these interpreters, one might say, the issue that Plato’s allegory addresses is the problem of how one can know what is truly real and good a theme which apparently is opposed to the so called modern question of our knowledge of the external world, However, speaking in the realm of pure abstract theory, even if Plato doesn’t share the specific concerns of modern philosophy, and of George Berkeley, in particular, Plato could still be a chooser idealist.In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the u...

His father died when he was two years old, he left the wife with the responsibility of taking care of the family, Hume’s mother a woman of singular Merit, who, though young and beautiful, devoted herself to the rearing and educating of her Children.Hume’s mother, Katherine Falconer Hume noticed that young David was “unusually wake-minded” — precocious, in her lowland dialect — so when his brother went up to Edinburgh University, David, not yet twelve, joined him.Plato studied history and literature, as well as ancient and modern philosophy, and he also studied some mathematics and contemporary science.Thus, Plato came to believe that a philosophical manner toward life would lead one to being just and, ultimately, happy.Upon meeting Socra...

Descartes also talks about a great deceiver who is the one obscuring our views of reality.This virtual world allows the human race to perceive a reality around them, a world built with the intention of blinding people from the ultimate reality that what they perceive to be real is an illusion.Whether we are all tied onto a wall restricted by the boundaries of the bonds which hold us there or merely in a state of permanent comatose, one thing is certain that our senses and perception of reality are always in question.It is very interesting to see the connections behind the works of these two philosophers in comparison to a Hollywood presentation of the ultimate question, are we deceived by our perception of reality?Plato in his famous cav...

More emphatically, nonetheless Plato finds that because of their enlightened minds, the philosopher-king has a duty to rule that transcends their personal preference for anonymity.In his allegory it is important to seek what Plato is trying to accomplish through locating his rhetorical devices, his tone, his position and arguments, in order to develop meaning to his allegory.However when one is exposed to the ‘dazzling light’ they begin to see truth through a long, tortuous intellectual journey, discovering a higher realm, true reality and having awareness of goodness.This is an important development to the story because it shows us that what we perceive as real from birth is completely false based on our imperfect interpretations of rea...

On the other hand, the rule of the oligarchy was brutal and selfish, so Plato set out to find an alternative to either form of government.This layer is synonymous with the highest level of citizen; the citizen that lives for the ultimate gain of knowledge: as Plato called them, the Lovers of Wisdom, or Philosophers.Through this allegory, Plato is exemplifying the difference between opinion (the distorted shadows on the wall), and knowledge (the true world outside the cave) .Platonic Epistemology: Plato believed that knowledge is innate, or inborn, and that the development of ideas buried deep in the soul, and may be guided out by teachers.The Analogy of the Cave: In his best-known dialogue, “The Republic”, Plato drew an analogy between h...

Yet when he told the imprisoned public what he saw he was scoffed at and labeled mad; all the prisoners knew and could perceive were shadows on a wall, which are just gross distortions of reality.Yet if someone goes into the light of sun and embraces true reality and then proceeds to tell the others still chained in the cave of the truth, they will laugh at and ridicule the enlightened one, for the only reality they have ever known were some fuzzy shadows on a wall.Plato used the bearers in his parable to symbolize people who control what we see and do, people who hold us back from using our full potential to decide what we want to see for ourselves.Situations will arise probably similar to Darwin’s and this lesson will repeat itself aga...

” Plato believed that the search for truth is one of man’s most important purposes in life, if not the most important.Plato forwards the concept of the Love of Truth, where a person is liberated from the mundane details of existence as he begins to pursue truth for its own sake.Plato, Socrates’ student describes truth, “The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge.This is very evident in Plato’s words, When the mind’s eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and knows them, and its possession of intelligences is evident; but when it is fixed on the twilight world of cha...

.. Popper (1967) is able to acknowledge that “Plato was the discoverer of the Third World (…) all western philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato” (p.122).Since this remained quite vague Plato consequently came up with a clear illustration of the conditions and experiences of human beings and their level of advancement of the intelligent apprehension of the reality.In the Cave of Plato is a deep and steep descent that leads into its fire-lit interior where chained prisoners sit in a long row with a high roadway behind them whereupon other men are constantly portraying images to the prisoners... Plato firstly described the Allegory of the Cave at the opening of his Seventh Book of the Republic (Plato, 2003), this in order to elabora...

Not forgetting the ultimate truth, Plato symbolizes it with the “world above the cave”.Eventually Neo reacts to the world’s reality with acceptance and he believes that he lives in “a world where anything is possible” (The Matrix).In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Plato answers that question with a series of symbols.Even though Plato ended his allegory with the “execution of Socrates” to better convince his audience that any information censorship will lead to no progression, The Matrix revived Neo to depict what could of happened to Socrates if the truth was accepted (which eventually be the general public’s acceptance of the truth).The reality), no positive progression will occur.