Plato believed that the realm of reality is divided up into two different areas, the world of senses and the world of ideas (forms). He believed these two worlds must co-exist to maintain equilibrium in the world, but in doing so, he also believes that we can only trust what we “know” due to reason and that we must discredit things we perceive with our senses (Plato 475-513).
The Natural Philosophers
To understand where Plato’s views and opinions concerning the forms came from, you must first understand the views and opinions of Natural Philosophers. Among the natural philosophers were Heraclitus, Parmenides and Empedocles, these philosophers were considered “Natural Philosophers” because they were mostly concerned with the natural world and it’s workings. Heraclitus and Parmenides were, in essence, complete opposites.
To Parmenides, reason made it clear that nothing could change and to Heraclitus, sense perception made it just as clear that nature was in a constant state of change (Cohen 25). This was a large belief conflict, which is where Empedocles comes into play.
He was the mediator between the two. Empedocles believed that both philosphers were correct in their individual establishments, but also completely incorrect in those same establishments. He believed Parmenides was correct in assuming nothing changes, simply because a bottle cannot turn into an elephant. Empedocles also concurred with Heraclitus in that we must trust our senses and believe in what we see. Though, what we see happens to be that nature changes, meaning we must trust our sensory perception. So, Empedocles concluded that Parmenides and Heraclitus were wrong for one reason and that if we were to reject the idea of a basic substance, things would make more sense (Cohen 47-48).
Enter Plato
These philosophers were the predecessors to Plato and his thoughts. He took these arguments and derived his own perceptions of reality, it is due to “Natural Philosophy” that Plato chose to not put trust into the senses.
The first of Plato’s two areas of thought is the world of the senses. When referring to the world of the sense we refer to an area of life in which we can only have partial knowledge by means of using our five senses. This world is believed to be the world of our sensory perceptions (Gaarder 87-88).In this sensory world, “everything flows” and because everything flows, nothing is immutable.
The other area that Plato has divided reality into is the world of ideas (forms). We can have true knowledge of the world of ideas by using what we call reason. This is not a world where things can be perceived; this is a world where things are known (Plato's Republic 526-529). The true philosopher must ignore his senses to find truth.
According to Plato, we can only have estimated notions of things we recognize with our senses, but we can have true knowledge of things we understand through reason. 1 + 1 will always equal 2, we know this through reason (Plato's Republic 525e). We have notions that all people will walk on two legs, even if people are born with a defect. So, our perceptions are not always correct.
Works Cited
Cohen, Mark, Patricia Curd and C.D.C. Reeve. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000.
Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie’s World: A Novel About The History of Philosophy. New York:
Berkley Books, 1996.
Plato's Republic
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Other Helpful Links
Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Relativism
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