Plato 's View On Epistemology

Plato is a philosopher; however, in “Plato’s Republic,” Plato’s view on philosophers within society is rather unorthodox compared with others who study philosophy. This is due to Plato’s views of individuals each having different skills they are naturally good at; he states that only true philosophers will be fit to rule. All others who attempt to rule will create terrible consequences for a city. The people shun philosophers because they are lovers of knowledge and are perceived to be different from them. The majority of people in a city are not lovers of knowledge but rather lovers of beauty.

Plato’s Theaetetus starts off with Euclid of Megara by speaking with his friend Terpsion about a dialogue he has between Socrates and Theaetetus. He says, that the dialogue was from when Theaetetus was young. Euclid of Megara’s conversation with Terpsion acts as the structure for the dialogue itself. The other participants of the dialogue are Socrates, Theodorus, and Theaetetus. The question that the participants are asking is “what is knowledge?” Theaetetus gives four definitions to the question “what is knowledge?” The first being that knowledge is arts and sciences, the second being knowledge is sense-perception, the third that knowledge is true judgment, and the fourth being knowledge is true judgment with an account. But Socrates was

Plato is remembered as one of the worlds best known philosophers who along with his writings are widely studied. Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and later went on to be the teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writings such as “The Republic”, “Apology” and “Symposium” reveal a great amount of insight on what was central to his worldview. He was a true philosopher as he was constantly searching for wisdom and believed questioning every aspect of life would lead him to the knowledge he sought. He was disgusted with the common occurrence of Greeks not thinking for themselves but simply accepting the popular opinion also known as doxa. Plato believed that we ought to search for and meditate on the ideal versions of beauty, justice, wisdom, and other concepts which he referred to as the forms. His hostility towards doxa, theory of the forms, and perspective on reality were the central ideas that shaped Plato’s worldview and led him to be the great philosopher who is still revered today.

In Book VII of the Republic, Plato intimates that someone “returning from a mode of existence which involves greater lucidity” (63-4) would “much prefer, as Homer describes it, ‘being a slave labouring for someone else – someone without property’ […] than share [the] beliefs and [the] life” of ignorant “people who [have, by virtue of being (born) astute, managed to accrue a great deal of] status and power” for themselves despite the sizeable odds stacked against them (62).

Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Questioned if you are completely able to see from the outside looking in? Philosopher Plato, presents his view of reality through an allegory to explain the concept, and how we gain knowledge of our reality. Two other philosophers that I will mention both touch base with their description of reality and how it relates to Plato’s conception. All three of these philosophers believe knowledge is attainable through acts of realization and simple knowledge, and each philosopher presents his/her main point of reality through different ways of attaining it. I will further mention the relevance of Plato’s theory in today’s world and why I believe it to be valuable.

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the viability of certain aspects (the sex lottery) of Plato's Republic, book V. It is college level 'A' paper.

In Plato's Apology, the Oracle at Delphi told Socrates that he was the wisest man (21a-b). Shocked by the statement and disbelieving it, he wanted to find out if it was true. He asked everyone who claimed to have knowledge, and tried to understand the basis of that knowledge. He discovered that nobody actually knew what they thought they knew. Socrates' fundamental moral belief was that nobody would choose to do wrong, if only they knew it was wrong. This is because the wrong harms the person who chooses it, and nobody would choose to harm themselves. Combining these two observations, the unexamined life is one in which people live with the belief that they have knowledge, and then act on this false knowledge in ways that harm themselves (and

Plato was a philosopher who was born in Athens (470-390 BCE), and was also a student of Socrates. He felt that intelligence and one’s perception belonged to completely independent realms or realities. He believed that general concepts of knowledge were predestined, or placed in the soul before birth even occurred in living things. Plato believed that the cosmos was intelligible, and the the universe was mathematically understandable. He believes that mathematical objects could be seen as perfect forms. Forms, a doctoral of Plato, can be understood as an everyday object or idea, which does not, exists in the everyday realm, but merely is existent in the hypothetical realm or reality.

“If the truth of all things always existed in the soul, then the soul is immortal” (The Philosophical Journey 89). This states that since the soul has all knowledge integrated, one recollects this knowledge through situations in an individual’s life and use one’s reasoning. With the dialogues of the Meno and Phaedo, Plato discusses the ideas of recollection and immortality of the soul in general. As well, the Republic, through the three different situations shown, Plato shows the ideas of the forms and what is real and what is not.

The Gettier Problem is a widely acknowledged philosophical question, named in honour of Edmund Gettier who discovered it in 1963, which questions whether a piece of information that someone believes for invalid reasons, but by mere happenstance is correct, counts as knowledge. Before the Gettier paper was published, it was widely believed that the Tripartite Theory of Knowledge- which states that Justified True Belief equaled knowledge- was fact. This means that with three conditions, one could know something. Firstly, if you believe something, secondly, if you have justification for believing, and thirdly, that your belief is in fact true. If all three of these conditions were met, then this amounted to knowledge. However, with the publication of Gettier’s paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”, he attempted to prove, with the aid of a number of problems, that it was not sufficient to have only these three conditions in order for a belief to become knowledge.

The story of two sisters, Melissa and Melinda, is one of deep philosophical analysis. The harsh scenario is of the two sisters’ brother, Matthew, who is involved in a horrific accident that essentially leaves him brain dead and only alive through a complex network of life support systems. According to Matthew’s last will and testament, he states specifically that if something of this sort ever happens to him, both sisters must mutually agree upon the ultimate decision of whether or not to proverbially “pull the plug.” This is a massive decision that will take great deliberation upon both parties to inevitably come to common terms with one another. Essentially, both sisters have their own aspect of what they should do regarding

One consistency in both texts of the Meno (Meno 99c) and Republic (Republic 472d) is that people who use true belief cannot show or explain how their belief is the truth. I believe this is one of the largest distinctions between knowledge and true belief. Knowledge is

universal truths and pass it on to those who cannot see it. To Plato the above is his

Plato argued that true knowledge was not obtained through the knowledge of the physical world around us, but from these unchanging ideas. Plato’s theory of knowledge is well explained through his discussion of the Divided Line; a line divided into two unequal parts. One section represents the visible order and the other intelligible order, relating to opinion and knowledge, respectively. The stages of cognition flow upwards: imagining, belief, thinking, and intelligence. The visible, changing world of opinion begins with the awareness of images through perception. Awareness of images can include

A perpetual conflict emanating throughout all mankind questions the significance of knowledge to human nature, regarding knowledge’s definition, acquisition, branches, and value. Major role models in the foundation of philosophy - specifically, in this essay, Plato and Aristotle - obsess over the significance of knowledge and its importance to and relationship with the development of human beings and their mindsets. Although Plato’s view on knowledge describes the internal predisposed essence of all Forms and the need for a superior being to extract them from the student, Aristotle’s outlook resides as more reliable and realistic due to his beliefs in the premise of knowledge in the sensation and perception, with continuing development in memory, experience, art and science, and, ultimately, true wisdom.