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Platonic realism is a philosophical term usually used to refer to the idea of realism regarding the existence of universals after the Greek philosopher Plato who lived between c. 427–c. 347 BC, student of Socrates, and the teacher of Aristotle. Confusingly, this stance is also called Platonic idealism. Image File history File links Plato-raphael. ...
Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ...
Middle Platonism refers to the development of certain philosophical doctrines associated with Plato during the first and second centuries A.D. One of the outstanding thinkers of Middle Platonism was Philo Judeaus (Philo the Jew) who synthesized Platos philosophy with Jewish scripture largely through allegorical interpretation of the latter. ...
Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. ...
Platonic epistemology is the belief that knowledge is innate, the development (often under the midwife-like guidance of an interrogator) of ideas buried deep in the soul. ...
Socratic Method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate) is a dialectic method of inquiry, largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. ...
Socratic dialogue (Greek ΣωκÏατικός λόγος or ΣωκÏατικός διάλογος), is a prose literary form developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BCE, preserved today in the dialogues of Plato and the Socratic works of Xenophon - either dramatic or narrative - in which characters discuss moral and philosophical problems. ...
Theory of Forms typically refers to Platos belief that the material world as it seems to us is not the real world, but only a shadow of the real world. ...
The Platonic doctrine of recollection is the idea that we are born possessing all knowledge and our realization of that knowledge is contingent on our discovery of it. ...
PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ...
This page is about the ancient Greek philosopher. ...
Plato, in The Republic (507b-509c), uses the sun as a metaphor for the source of illumination, arguably intellectual illumination, which he held to be The Form of the Good, which is sometimes interpreted as Platos notion of God. ...
Plato, in The Republic Book 6 (509D–513E), uses the literary device of a divided line to teach his basic views about four levels of existence (especially the intelligible world of the forms, universals, and the visible world we see around us) and the corresponding ways we come to know...
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The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ...
Contemporary philosophical realism, also referred to as metaphysical realism, is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. ...
In metaphysics, a universal is a type, a property, or a relation. ...
A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ...
PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ...
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This page is about the ancient Greek philosopher. ...
Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ...
Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ...
Plato's own articulation of the realism regarding the existence of universals is expounded in his The Republic and elsewhere, notably in the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Meno, and the Parmenides. PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ...
Contemporary philosophical realism, also referred to as metaphysical realism, is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. ...
Universal has several meanings: For the concept of a universal in metaphysics, see Universal (metaphysics). ...
The Republic (Greek: ) is an influential work of philosophy and political theory by the Greek philosopher Plato, written in approximately 360 BC. It is written in the format of a Socratic dialogue. ...
It has been suggested that Phaidon be merged into this article or section. ...
The Phaedrus, written by Plato, is a dialogue between Platos main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. ...
Meno is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. ...
Parmenides is one of the dialogues of Plato. ...
Universals
In Platonic realism, universals do not exist in the way that ordinary physical objects exist, but were originally thought to have a sort of ghostly or heavenly mode of existence. However, more modern versions of the theory do not apply such potentially misleading descriptions to universals. Instead, such versions maintain that it is meaningless (or a category mistake) to apply the categories of space and time to universals. Universals (used as a noun) are either properties, relations, or types, but not classes. ...
A category mistake is a semantic or ontological error by which a property (or some category of being) is incorrectly ascribed to a particular ontological type or token in a proposition and therefore is meaningless or nonsense. ...
Regardless of their description, Platonic realism holds that universals do exist in a broad, abstract sense, although not at any spatial or temporal distance from people's bodies. Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sensory contact with universals, but in order to conceive of universals, one must be able to conceive of these abstract forms. Most modern Platonists avoid the possible ambiguity by never claiming that universals exist, but "merely" that they are.
Theories of universals Theories of universals, including Platonic realism, are challenged to satisfy the certain constraints on theories of universals. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...
Of those constraints, Platonic realism strongly satisfies one, in that it is a theory of what general terms refer to. Forms are ideal in supplying meaning to referents for general terms. That is, to understand terms such as applehood and redness, Platonic realism says that they refer to forms. Indeed, Platonism gets much of its plausibility because mentioning redness, for example, seems to be referring to something that is apart from space and time, but which has lots of specific instances.
Forms One type of universal defined by Plato is the form or idea. Although some versions of Platonic realism regard Plato's forms as ideas in the mind of God, most take forms not to be mental entities at all, but rather archetypes (original models) of which particular objects, properties, and relations are copies. Due to the potential confusion of the term idea, philosophers usually use the terms form, Platonic form, or universal. Theory of Forms typically refers to Platos belief that the material world as it seems to us is not the real world, but only a shadow of the real world. ...
This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...
An archetype is a generic, idealized model of a person, object, or concept from which similar instances are derived, copied, patterned, or emulated. ...
Particulars In Platonic realism, forms are related to particulars (instances of objects and properties) in that a particular is regarded as a copy of its form. For example, a particular apple is said to be a copy of the form of Applehood and the apple's redness is a copy of the form of Redness. Participation is another relationship between forms and particulars. Particulars are said to participate in the forms, and the forms are said to inhere in the particulars. Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. ...
According to Plato, there are some forms that are not instantiated at all, but, he contends, that does not imply that the forms could not be instantiated. Forms are capable of being instantiated by many different particulars, which would result in the form's having many copies, or inhering many particulars.
Criticism Two main criticisms with Platonic realism relate to inherence and difficulty of creating concepts without sense-perception. Despite its criticisms, though, realism has strong defenders. Its popularity through the ages is cyclic.
Criticism of inherence Critics claim that the terms instantiation and copy are not further defined and that participation and inherence are similarly mysterious and unenlightening. They question what it means to say that the form of applehood inheres a particular apple or that the apple is a copy of the form of applehood. To the critic, it seems that the forms, not being spatial, cannot have a shape, so it cannot be that the apple is the same shape as the form. Likewise, the critic claims it is unclear what it means to say that an apple participates in applehood.
Arguments refuting the inherence criticism, however, claim that a form of something spatial can lack a concrete (spatial) location and yet have in abstracto spatial qualities. An apple, then, can have the same shape as its form. Such arguments typically claim that the relationship between a particular and its form is very intelligible and easily grasped; that people unproblematically apply Platonic theory in everyday life; and that the inherence criticism is only created by the artificial demand to explain the normal understanding of inherence as if it were highly problematical. That is, the supporting argument claims that the criticism is with the mere illusion of a problem and thus could render suspect any philosophical concept.
Criticism of concepts without sense-perception A criticism of forms relates to the origin of concepts without the benefit of sense-perception. For example, to think of redness in general, according to Plato, is to think of the form of redness. Critics, however, question how one can have the concept of a form existing in a special realm of the universe, apart from space and time, since such a concept cannot come from sense-perception. Although one can see an apple and its redness, the critic argues, those things merely participate in, or are copies of, the forms. Thus, they claim, to conceive of a particular apple and its redness is not to conceive of applehood or redness-in-general, so they question the source of the concept.
Plato's doctrine of recollection, however, addresses such criticism by saying that souls are born with the concepts of the forms, and just have to be reminded of those concepts from back before birth, when the souls were in close contact with the forms in the Platonic heaven. Plato is thus known as one of the very first rationalists, believing as he did that humans are born with a fund of a priori knowledge, to which they have access through a process of reason or intellection — a process that critics find to be rather mysterious. The Platonic doctrine of recollection is the idea that we are born possessing all knowledge and our realization of that knowledge is contingent on our discovery of it. ...
In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification (Lacey 286). ...
The terms a priori and a posteriori are used in philosophy to distinguish between two different types of propositional knowledge. ...
A more modern response to this criticism of concepts without sense-perception is the claim that the universality of its qualities is an unavoidable given because one only experiences an object by means of general concepts. So, since the critic already grasps the relation between the abstract and the concrete, he is invited to stop thinking that it implies a contradiction. The response reconciles Platonism with empiricism by contending that an abstract (and thus not real) object is real and knowable by its instantiation. Since the critic has, after all, naturally understood the abstract, the response suggests merely to abandon prejudice and accept it.
See also // Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. ...
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. ...
A common dictionary definition of truth is agreement with fact or reality.[1] There is no single definition of truth about which the majority of philosophers agree. ...
Sojourner Truth A truth theory or a theory of truth is a conceptual framework that underlies a particular conception of truth, such as those used in art, ethics, logic, mathematics, philosophy, the sciences, or any discussion that either mentions or makes use of a notion of truth. ...
Universals (used as a noun) are either properties, relations, or types, but not classes. ...
Links is the plural form of link. ...
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