Plato also outlines a pedagogic aspect (epiméleia), by the freed prisoner’s desire to return to the other prisoners and enlighten them. The state of ignorance in which we live makes us unsatisfied and leads to a philosophic aspiration for complete knowledge (as described in the Symposium).
Plato´s doctrine not only deals with metaphysics concerning the nature of being and reality (ontology), but also and most importantly theory of knowledge (epistemology).
1.b) The Theory of Forms
In “The Phaedo,” Plato explains his theory of forms and ideas concerning the mortality of the soul. Plato makes a distinction between objects that are real and concepts that exist in our minds. He explains this in his dialogues in terms of the process of education. The soul and body are separate; the soul lives after death and has lived before birth. This leads to the idea of forms and how we acquire the knowledge of these before birth. The only time the soul is separate from the body is in death. Since the soul can only obtain knowledge of forms when it is away from the body, we understand that after death is the only time when the soul can acquire this information. The intellect loses these ideas of forms when it is born unto a physical body. Although forgotten, the soul still holds this knowledge and what is known as learning is actually remembering, or recollecting, the knowledge we lose at birth.
Plato claims that when one refers to an object one refers to the essence of an Ideal Form, whose image we see. These forms are abstract ideas that hold true throughout each soul and are something that the physical body can never know. Since we only have an idea of these forms, we can never experience a true form with our senses. Our senses give us an understanding of the physical world at any given moment, but the physical world is constantly changing, so our senses can never let us experience the world as it truly “is.” Our senses can only let us experience how the world “was” at a particular moment.
Plato believed that forms are in an intelligible world of reality and true knowledge (the world of the “one”) and their images are in a visible world of senses and appearances (the world of the “many”).
2.a) Rationalism
Rationalism, also known as the rationalist movement, is a philosophical doctrine that asserts that the or reality can best be discovered by reason and factual analysis, rather than empirical knowledge or , and religious teaching.
Continental rationalism is an approach to philosophy based on the thesis that human can in principle be the source of all . It originated with and spread during the and centuries, primarily in . In contrast, the contemporary approach known as held that all ideas come to us through experience, and thus that knowledge (with the possible exception of mathematics) is essentially empirical. At issue is the fundamental source of human knowledge, and the proper techniques for verifying what we think we know.
Rationalists typically argued that, starting with intuitively-understood basic principles, like the axioms of , one could derive the rest of knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clearly were and , whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of Rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz thought that, in principle, all knowledge – including scientific knowledge – could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both accepted that in practice this wasn’t possible for human beings except in specific areas such as maths.
Descartes, on the other hand, was closer to , thinking that only knowledge of eternal truths – including the truths of mathematics, and the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the sciences – could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. It would perhaps be most accurate to say that he was a Rationalist with regard to metaphysics, but an Empiricist with regard to the sciences.
started as a Rationalist, but after being exposed to 's works which "awoke [him] from [his] dogmatic slumbers", he attempted to synthesise the Rationalist and Empiricist traditions.
The more modern usage of the term "rationalist" refers to the belief that human behaviour and beliefs should be based on reason — a belief shared by continental rationalists and empiricists alike.
2.b) Empiricism
Empiricism is the doctrine that all human knowledge comes at first from senses. It denies that humans have or that anything is knowable prior to any experience. Empiricism is contrasted with , epitomised by . According to the rationalist, philosophy should be performed via introspection and deductive reasoning.
Classical Empiricism mainly refers to the epistemological works of St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. Aristotle argued that all forms of knowledge come from induction. Aquinas wrote the famous axiom “Nihil in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu” which means “nothing is in the intellect which was not first in the senses”.
2.c) Epistemology
Epistemology is the theory of the origin, nature, methods and limits of knowledge. There are various forms of knowledge, the two main types being propositional knowledge (knowledge that some proposition is either true or false) and procedural knowledge (knowledge of how to perform a task). Tacit knowledge distinguishes the ability to do something from the ability to describe how to do something.
One of the fundamental questions in epistemology is whether there is any non-trivial, a priori knowledge. Generally speaking believe that there is, while believe that all knowledge is ultimately derived from some kind of external experience.
The fields of knowledge most often suggested as having a priori status are and , which deal primarily with abstract, formal objects.
Empiricists have traditionally denied that even these fields could be a priori knowledge. Two common arguments are that these sorts of knowledge can only be derived from experience (as argued), and that they do not constitute "real" knowledge (as argued).
2.d) Dualism
Dualism is the theory that the world is ultimately composed of two basic entities, e.g. mind and matter or subject and object.
In theology, for example a ‘dualist’ is someone who believes that Good and Evil — or God and the Devil — are independent and more or less equal forces in the world. Dualism contrasts with monism, which is the theory that there is only one fundamental kind, category of thing or principle; and, rather less commonly, with pluralism, which is the view that there are many kinds or categories.
In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical — or mind and body or mind and brain — are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. Because common sense tells us that there are physical bodies, and because there is intellectual pressure towards producing a unified view of the world, one could say that materialist monism is the ‘default option’. Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world, and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world.
2.e) Idealism
Idealism is an approach to . The ideal, in these systems, is the realm of mental ideas, or images. It is usually juxtaposed with in which the real is said to have absolute existence prior to and independent of our knowledge. idealists might insist that the only things that really exist are ideas. idealists however, that the only things of which we can be certain are ideas.
proposed an idealist theory as a solution to the . A universal is that which things share in virtue of having some particular property. So for example the wall, the moon and a blank sheet of paper are all white; white is the universal that all white things share. Plato argued that it is universals, , or that are real, not specific individual things. Confusingly, because this idea asserts that these mental entities are real, it is also called .
3. The Analogy of the Charioteer
In the Analogy of the Charioteer Plato creates the image of a charioteer with a two-horse carriage. While one horse is of noble breed and well-behaved, the other, is unruly and rebellious. He uses this metaphor to describe the soul’s partition in three main parts:
The divine part - reason
The noble part - courage
The reluctant part - desire
Plato assigns different virtues to these three components; the soul’s first task is to become wise through reason; therefore reason’s virtue is wisdom. The soul’s second task is to obey reason and it’s virtue is bravery and the third task is to control desire, so it’s virtue is moderation.
Plato places a forth virtue above these three: justice (diakaiosýne).
Justice can only be done when the three virtues fulfill their individual tasks as one.
In the analogy the charioteer represents reason, which should be in control. The fine horse denotes the noble emotions of the spirited part of the soul (courage) and the disorderly horse represents the passions of the desiring part of the soul.
The implications of the analogy are clear: if the charioteer has no horses at all the chariot is never going to move; if you have a two-horse carriage and only one horse is yoked to it, the chariot will go askew immediately, so in order for your wagon to move straight you must have both horses properly harnessed.
