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Plato: Ideas
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In Book VII, Plato expands on his metaphysical and epistemological ideas by telling the Allegory of the Cave. In this story, the interior of the cave is likened to the realm of becoming and the exterior, daylight landscape is likened to the realm of being, illuminated by the Idea of the Good. All are in chains in the cave except one who somehow breaks the chains and begins the long journey upward to the exterior world. Once one has seen what the world is really like, why would one want to go back to the cave? But ... if one did go back and tell the others about the real world, wouldn't he/she be laughed at and, probably, punished or imprisoned? Thus, if a philosopher is to rule, he will have to do it out of obligation and certainly won't do it out of desire.
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Plato argued for the independent reality of Ideas as the only guarantee of ethical standards and of objective scientific knowledge. In the Republic and the Phaedo he postulates his theory of Forms. Ideas or Forms are the immutable archetypes of all temporal phenomena, and only these Ideas are completely real; the physical world possesses only relative reality. The Forms assure order and intelligence in a world that is in a state of constant flux. They provide the pattern from which the world of sense derives its meaning.
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Plato ... disagreed with the Sophistic view of human nature and society. According to some Sophists, the most basic law of nature was that the strong the weak.1 In this view, this law of nature quite properly overrode any law of human creation (nomos) seeking to protect the weak against the strong. This doctrine is based on the idea that human society is just an extension of the animal world. In fact, irrational animal nature was used by some Sophists as a model for human behavior.2 Irrationality is seen as a dominant element in human nature. An example of this view can be found in Thucydides's account of the Corcyraean revolution (3.84):
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In the Laws, Plato considered the possibility that not only the majority, but all citizens could be incapable of reaching the "form of the good." He ... envisioned a second-best state with rulers ignorant of the "form of the good" but capable of thought. Such a society had absolute and unyielding rulers who eradicated any idea or thing that questioned their authority. Acting as if they possessed wisdom, such leaders established laws that reflected their opinions and their imperfect conception of the good.
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Plato extended his theory beyond the realm of mathematics. Indeed, he was most interested in its application in the field of social ethics. The theory was his way of explaining how the same universal term can refer to so many particular things or events. The word justice, for example, can be applied to hundreds of particular acts because these acts have something in common, namely, their resemblance to, or participation in, the Form “justice.” An individual is human to the extent that he or she resembles or participates in the Form “humanness.” If “humanness” is defined in terms of being a rational animal, then an individual is human to the extent that he or she is rational. A particular act is courageous or cowardly to the extent that it participates in its Form. An object is beautiful to the extent that it participates in the Idea, or Form, of beauty.
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Plato describes these "philosopher kings" as "those who love the sight of truth" (Republic 475c) and supports the idea with the analogy of a captain and his ship or a doctor and his medicine. Sailing and health are not things that everyone is qualified to practice by nature. A large part of the Republic then addresses how the educational system should be set up to produce these philosopher kings.
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