Plato's Theory of Ideas

Analytical Essay # 116497

Philosophy > Ancient Greek
Philosophy > Epistemology
Philosophy > Metaphysics

This paper analyses Plato's theory of ideas in terms of how it tackles the problem of change

2,113 words () | 2 sources | MLA | 2008 Bangladesh

Paper Summary:

This essay shows how Plato's theory of ideas tackles the problem of change. The writer presents the position of Heraclitus that "everything changes", and then that of Parminides that "nothing changes", and insists that both are true. One is expressing the phenomenal world and the other the noumenal. The writer maintains that Plato's theory effects a sublime negotiation between the two and explains that it describes a hierarchy of existence, with the unchanging Ideas residing at the summit, and the material objects below. The paper goes on to elaborate on the specific condition of man in this scheme. Through reason man contemplates on material objects, and this is a form of recollection of the higher truth which the soul was once privy to. To illustrate the argument the essay relates two anecdotes of Plato: "The Myth of the Cave" (Republic) and the flight of the soul over heaven from Phaedrus.

From the Paper:

"Parmenides is seen to have posed the problem of being and non-being which had bedeviled the Greeks for long, before Plato affected reconciliation through his Theory of Ideas. The points of view of both Heraclitus and Parmenides are valid, he says, because they are speaking of different modes of existence. Heraclitus describes the phenomenal world, whereas Parmenides the transcendental one. Parmenides speaks of the higher truth, of true and unchanging reality. This is the reality of Ideas, and which we do not experience directly. Heraclitus' wisdom is the lesser one, but hardly insignificant. It is the reality of the phenomenal world, and the one which we experience directly. It is the world as framed by time and space, and therefore characterized by perpetual change. Plato's theory concerns the relationship between the two realities."

Sample of Sources Used:

Barnes, Jonathan. The Presocratic Philosophers. London: Routledge, 1982.
Marias, Julian. History of Philosophy. Chelmsford, MA: Courier Dover Publications, 1967.