Plato (nicknamed for his nose which was broad)



Plato

Metaphor of the Cave

We are chained in a dark cave lit only by a fire. The shadows flickering on the wall are all we see. We think this is reality; we have no idea that there is a whole world outside the cave.

The world outside the cave represents the world of forms, the only real world.

• We discover the real world through the mind.

The cave represents our physical world.

• We know the physical world (a world that merely shadows the real one) through the senses.

The Forms or ‘types’

Background:

Plato 428-348 BCE

Presocratics:

(Socrates was Plato’s teacher)

Thales: Everything is water!

Heraclitus: Fire best describes the way the world is constantly changing.

You can’t step in the same river twice.

Diogenes: You can’t even step in the same river once.

Plato:

1. If everything is constantly changing, then communication never works.

2. Communication does sometimes work.

C: Therefore something must not change; something is stable.

Physical objects can’t be real, because they are constantly changing.

We communicate by referring to the definition of objects. The definition doesn’t change.

For example, the definition of ‘chair’ doesn’t change or we could never communicate about chairs.

For Plato, a good definition captures the essence of a thing (e.g. whatever it is that makes a chair a chair).

Plato’s theory of Forms explains the relationship between unchanging essences and the

constantly changing physical world.

Examples:

• There is only one thing (type, form) called justice, but there are many instances (examples or particulars) of it.

• There are many beautiful things: beautiful flowers, beautiful music, etc. None of these can be beauty itself, because beauty is something common to many things (not just one flower or one song). The essence of beauty is what all the beautiful things have in common. For Plato, essence = the form. Therefore, there is only one form of beauty and it never changes.

Forms can only be perceived by the intellect, since all that our sense detect is the changing, physical world.

Type-token distinction: the contrast between a category and a member of that category.

A type:

Plato would say that a type is a form and a token is something that demonstrates that form.

For example, Beauty in itself is a type or a form.

A token exemplifies a type. It possesses that property that characterizes that type.

For example, a beautiful painting demonstrates the form (type) of beauty. The painting exemplifies beauty but is not beauty itself.

Part of Plato’s grand project is to understand the essence of types like beauty, justice, and goodness.

• He aims to discover that property which characterizes a type.

• This is how philosophers come to know the forms.

• Plato ranks the forms according to their participation in the form of the Good.

Book 10

Socrates and Glaucon

A single name constitutes a single type (form) p.14.

For example, there is the type, ‘bed.’

A craftsman considers what the ideal bed is (the type) and then tries to approximate it, to create a particular thing (token) that people would consider a bed.

An artist also tries to approximate or create, but she copies the particular things. She looks around and creates a likeness of what she sees. For example, an artist might paint a representation of a bed.

This painting would not actually be a bed, but would merely look like one. It is as if the painter went around with a mirror reflecting the physical world. Since the physical world is just a reflection of the world of forms, her product is a reflection of a reflection, a copy of a copy.

The artist leads us away from reality:

1. A painter copies the token bed created by the craftsman.

2. The craftsman creates a token that tries to resemble (copies) the form (ideal, type) of ‘bed.’

• The painter’s object is twice removed from the real, ideal world. The artist makes a copy of a copy.

• Thus, the painter represents a resemblance of the form of ‘bed.’ She does not consider the forms, but what she sees in front of her.

• Notice that this is an activity of the senses rather than the mind.

C: The artist leads us away from reality.

Plato also considers the tragic playwrights ‘representers.’

1. One knows the essence (goodness, fineness, rightness) of anything by familiarity with its function.

• For example, a pipe-player knows the most about pipes.

2. The knowledgeable person tells the manufacturer how to make the thing about which they have the most knowledge.

• The pipe-player tells the pipe-maker how to make the pipe.

3. The poet doesn’t belong to either of the groups above.

C: The poet has no knowledge of function nor of manufacturing.

The art of representation invokes emotion rather than reason.

1. Some object look both bent and straight depending on when and how we look at them.

2. Painting takes advantage of this visual trickery (in perspective drawing for example).

3. Our rational mind allows us to figure out the truth about things.

• Example:

Measurement is a tool of the rational mind.

If we want to know how long something really is, we measure. If we just go by the appearance we’re likely to be wrong about the length.

4. It must be some other part of the mind that is susceptible to trickery.

C: Representation does not cater to the rational mind.

Representational poetry also invokes emotion

1. Representational poetry represents people doing things.

2. Poetry also represents the feelings (happiness, distress) the characters have about these events.

3. Our rational mind does not lead us to focus on events. Rather it leads us to detach ourselves so that we can think clearly.

• Mourning example p.24

4. Poetry focuses more on feeling than detachment.

C: Poetry is at odds with the rational mind.

We identify with the characters when we read poetry.

• This is morally suspect, since it puts the soul at odds with itself. (Plato worried that we become the character as we read along.)

• We feel the feelings of the character, which teaches us to indulge our emotions.

• We enjoy the spectacle of the kind of person we would deplore in real life.

Plato’s ghost as it haunts contemporary aesthetics:

• Platonism: all art is morally suspect.

• Utopianism: all art is uplifting

• Autonomism: artistic and moral realms are separate.

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