Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Alfred North Whitehead—a prominent mathematician and philosophical figure of the twentieth century, once said: “All western philosophy is comprised of footnotes to Plato.” Indeed, Plato has such grandly significant influence that many of his notions still exist until today. One of his works—The Republic: Book VII, has become a classic read that anyone who is familiar with philosophy is familiar with. The book, well known as “Allegory of the Cave,” articulates the fact that humans do not experience true reality: we experience a constructed version of it, which we describe as “paradigm,” through the senses, understanding, cultures and beliefs, etc. Plato postulates that these illusory images of surrounding world we perceive are rather replicates, …show more content…
In essence, the Form is an abstract property of things and matters that exists far and beyond material world—a transcendent world. If one takes a property of an object, isolates it by itself, he or she is looking at a Form. For example, a tree has many properties such as height, colours or shapes. If one only considers its colour green and ignores the rest, he or she is contemplating the ultimate Form of green. Plato contends that this property of the tree subsists in a different module of the world, effectively making it independent from and responsible for the tree—that is, the tree is not a required condition for the existence of the colour green, but rather the other way around. Another aspect of the Forms we need to note is that they are the epitomes upon which our surroundings are modelled. That is, the greenness of the tree or things that are green are imperfect, simplified imitations of flawless Form of green. This recognition grants the Forms the absolute status of Truth and Realness. In other words, Forms account for the origins of material objects—of how they seem and why they are the way we see them. Furthermore, this concept of the Forms make them pure and separate, meaning the Forms remain individual apart from one another: greenness cannot mix with roundness. Nonetheless, they are also intricately …show more content…
Aristotle—one of Plato’s most brilliant students, criticises the existence of Forms. He uses logic and observations to assert that there are more Forms than things. In other words, a “thing” is comprised of many different properties, and therefore many different Forms. For example, a tree can have Forms of green, of leaf, of stem, of roughness and fruits, of lenticels and petioles. There also exists properties that do not make up physical appearance such as beauty and justice. Furthermore, some Forms are more general than the other, which make them both patterns and imitations: is Animal a Form of human? Or is it a copy of Living Form? In essence, Aristotle reckons the introduction of Forms is rather unnecessary and based upon no rational sense. Unlike his teacher, Aristotle pioneers and promotes empirical investigation—using palpable observations to support findings and