Plato's Philosophical Ideology of Soul Over Body
Being one of Socrates’ disciples, Plato adopted his philosophy and style of debate, and focused his studies toward the question of virtue and the formation of a noble character. According to Aristotle, Plato developed the foundations of his metaphysics and epistemology by studying the doctrines of Cratylus, and the work of Pythagoras and Parmenides. When Plato met Socrates, however, he had met his definitive teacher.
Under the influence of Socrates’ philosophical ideology, Plato was trying to find a solution to the problem that although there is underlying stability in the world (sun comes up every morning), it is constantly changing (you never step into the same river twice). An old theory about this is problem is that we gain all knowledge from our senses empirically. But Plato disagreed with this and described that because the world is constantly changing, our senses cannot be trusted. So, he was actually advocating that we do not learn new things, we remember them or in other words, knowledge is intrinsic. Plato believed that the world is divided into two parts i.e. Reality and Appearance. So, since in reality, everything is in a state of instability, perceived knowledge is not true knowledge but is just a set of opinions, which are subjective to the speaker. However, since the World of Ideas is eternal and immutable, that is where knowledge lays i.e. the truth will never change there. Thus the World of Ideas becomes more real than the World of Appearance. Plato said that in the world, we have an idea of what beauty is – we have an innate knowledge of True Beauty or the Form of Beauty. In the world we have examples of imperfect, reflected beauty e.g. flowers yet we have never seen True Beauty. We are able to recognize or recollect the Form of Beauty in flowers. According to Plato, our souls must have known the Forms (e.g. Beauty, Justice, Tiger) before we were born, which means that they are immortal and so pre-exist and post-exist our bodies. Plato believed
Under the influence of Socrates’ philosophical ideology, Plato was trying to find a solution to the problem that although there is underlying stability in the world (sun comes up every morning), it is constantly changing (you never step into the same river twice). An old theory about this is problem is that we gain all knowledge from our senses empirically. But Plato disagreed with this and described that because the world is constantly changing, our senses cannot be trusted. So, he was actually advocating that we do not learn new things, we remember them or in other words, knowledge is intrinsic. Plato believed that the world is divided into two parts i.e. Reality and Appearance. So, since in reality, everything is in a state of instability, perceived knowledge is not true knowledge but is just a set of opinions, which are subjective to the speaker. However, since the World of Ideas is eternal and immutable, that is where knowledge lays i.e. the truth will never change there. Thus the World of Ideas becomes more real than the World of Appearance. Plato said that in the world, we have an idea of what beauty is – we have an innate knowledge of True Beauty or the Form of Beauty. In the world we have examples of imperfect, reflected beauty e.g. flowers yet we have never seen True Beauty. We are able to recognize or recollect the Form of Beauty in flowers. According to Plato, our souls must have known the Forms (e.g. Beauty, Justice, Tiger) before we were born, which means that they are immortal and so pre-exist and post-exist our bodies. Plato believed