About
● Upper-class Athenian philosopher
● Student and critic of Socrates
Allegory of the Cave
● Humans chained in a dark cave can only see shadows of the figures from the world
outside, cast by people behind them with the help of puppets and a fire
● They assume these are the true forms of the figures, because they have not
experienced the real world – they should emerge from the cave and see the truth
Theory of the Forms
● The real world is not the ever-changing world of appearances, but a supernatural
world containing eternal and perfect Forms (Ideas) of everything, which are the
ultimate realities grounding true knowledge
● Knowledge about real world entities does not come from the observation of
imperfect natural objections, but universals in the supernatural, supersensory realm
● Humans who are content with sensory experiences of the world are mistaking
appearance for reality, trapping their souls
Innate Knowledge
● We are born possessing all knowledge
● Anamnesis: we use our reason to recollect knowledge (this is learning)
● Plato believed in a theory of reincarnation, arguing that our immortal souls belong
to the World of Forms, and have seen and known all Forms, but this true
knowledge is forgotten once souls are born into bodies
Rationalist Philosophy
● Plato criticized empiricism, according to which knowledge is perception and we
only know something is true once we have experienced it
● It leads to relativism, because each individual’s subjective experiences are unique,
and objective truth will never be attained
● The world of the senses is constantly flowing, meaning that genuine knowledge
will be impossible to attain, and everyone will be skeptical
, ● Plato argued that truth should reflect how the world really is, not how each person
subjectively experiences it
○ Episteme: true knowledge
○ Doxa: knowledge resulting from the use of the senses
Knowledge as Justified True Belief
● Beliefs must correspond to real facts, and must be held because there is good
logical reasoning behind them
Political Philosophy
● Philosopher-kings should rule
● Rulers should be intelligent enough to have a fixed rule of life, but not so much
that they no longer care about material matters in the real world
● Rulers should not desire ruling
● Rulers should have virtue and knowledge
● The purpose of the state is to ensure citizens serve the state for the common good
- Plato – Republic
Cave (world of sight), fire from sun, way of knowledge out of cave
Idea of good is the author of good and right, but last and most difficult thing to be seen
The philosopher attains higher knowledge, beyond the need for politics or law, which
contain images and shadows
“We say that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to be
turned round towards the light.”
Intelligence is an indestructible virtue of divine character
Those who have ascended must be forced back in to rule over the ignorant (even though
they would not wish to)
- Plato – Meno
What is virtue? Can it be taught?
Wisdom drought – no one can know that they know something
“There is no learning, only recollection”
We may think we know things, but discourse can make us realize that we do not – and
this is to our benefit
True opinions exist within the soul, and questioning is what stirs them back up to the
conscious surface
If truth is always in the soul, then the soul is immortal
- Tutorial notes
The Meno paradox: how can one gain knowledge without already knowing something?
-> how did we ever begin knowing?
,Socrates: the soul is immortal
It has existed long before the material world was created, and it has knowledge of ideas
in itself
Knowledge is memory
Plato: before we were born, we existed in a realm of gods where our soul was shown all
the ideas, the essence of the good and the beautiful
Mathematics is a science that does not use observation, we consider it to produce true and
incontestable knowledge while it is based on thinking
We can apply it to observation, but do not learn it from experience
Understanding the solution to a mathematical question feels almost like recollecting,
remembering, rather than learning a new fact
In the cave metaphor, the fire is our sun. The sun is the idea of the good
Aristotle:
- Lecture notes
Plato - Parmenides – criticizing his own theory of Forms
The “third man” argument:
Instances are like their Forms - so the Ideas are like their instances - the result is an
infinite likeness regress
Are Forms one or many? How could a bunch of imperfect things partake into the
unchangeable perfect thing?
How about imperfection actually? Is there an idea of ugliness? Isn't imperfection nothing
but the absence of partaking in perfection?
How does the world change if Forms are unchangeable? And if they change, how could
they be perfect and eternal?
Mostly, Ideas do not exist in our world - and in our world, our knowledge comes from
things relating to each other – so we cannot know Forms
, Aristotle and the peripatetic axiom
We gain knowledge by using our senses
We are born with an empty mind, and experience is what builds our knowledge
Knowledge is in understanding a thing’s causes: its formal cause (shape, design), material
cause (what it’s made from), efficient cause (what made It into what it is) or its final
cause (its purpose or telos)
But we can only observe instances, not general principles or causes - to get to those we
must use induction (from concrete to abstract)
Problems with induction, how do we ever guarantee truth?
We don’t know if a general principle is contingent or actually true, so our knowledge is
always preliminary
The solution: we have intuition, insight, that helps us distinguish contingences
(Careful, this does not resolve disputes or give a way to correct mistakes)
Aristotle was not an empiricist: he didn't think we gain all of our knowledge through the
senses
Lessons applied to today:
Knowledge: a belief that is both true and justified
The scientific method is a way of justifying our beliefs
Plato and Aristotle thought not in differences, but in communalities: how things are
similar to others, we look for essential characteristics
Generalization: we go from the particular to the general (either through Aristotle’s
induction or Plato’s dialectics/the contemplation of ideas)
Max Weber
● German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist (1864-1920)
● One of the founders of modern sociology
● - Tutorial notes
● Weber - Ideal-types aren't real things, rather constructs made by social scientist to
make sense of data
● Under broad terms, we group many different things to understand them
● Importance of presuppositions - we must have some sort of conception of what a
thing is to study it
● Different points of view characterize how we study reality
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