Plato vs
Plato vs. MaterialistsPlato vs. Materialists
Plato was concerned with Epistemology. Epistemology deals with the possibilities and limits of human knowledge. It tries to arrive at a knowledge of knowledge itself. It tries to answer such questions as: Is the world as people perceive it the basic reality, or do people perceive only appearances that conceal basic reality? Knowledge may be regarded as having two parts. There is, first of all, what one perceives using the five senses. Next there is the way these perceptions are organized by the mind to form ideas or concepts. The problem of epistemology is based on how philosophers have understood the relationship of the mind to the rest of reality. Plato used his Theory of Forms to link the mind and reality. For the average person, common sense says that there is a real world of perceivable objects. These objects can be analyzed and understood. Philosophers have not let the matter rest there. Plato taught that the real world consisted of universal ideas (forms). The world that people actually see is given form by these ideas and is thus less real because it is always changing, but the ideas (forms) are eternal and unchangeable.
Opponents of Plato, such as materialists, have claimed that the ideas were nothing more than names people have attached to the objects they perceive. Names of individual objects and of classes of objects are merely ways of organizing perceptions into knowledge. People see one animal they decide to call "dog." All similar animals are called "dogs," and a whole category of animals is thereby named without any reference to eternal ideas or forms. Materialists insist that all activities of mind and emotion are based on physical properties. One example of accounting for this is that thought is only the function of a material brain and caused by electrical connections within the brain tissue. Materialism states that all matter is made of atoms, which are limitless in number, and the different appearance of objects are a result of the difference in size and shape of atoms and by the different ways these atoms combine. When the conclusions of nuclear physicists are taken into account, especially their studies on atomic particles, the problem of the reality of the material world and how much can be known about it is confronted with new challenges.
The Republic discusses the nature of justice and the institutions of society. In some ways it is idealistic in that it describes Plato's ideal society. But it also deals with human knowledge, the purpose and composition of education, and the nature of science. The principle of justice is the main theme of The Republic. Plato makes a connection between the principle of justice and his Theory of Forms in The Republic. When talking about the Ideal State, Plato is...
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