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Paper #102604 :: Platonic Forms & The Knowledge of All Things
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An overview of Aristotle's arguments against the Platonic theory of forms.

Written in 2006; 751 words; 2 sources; MLA; $ 26.95

Paper Summary:

This paper describes Aristotle's arguments against the ability of the Platonic theory of forms to adequately explain our knowledge of things.
The author explains that, in his arguments against Plato's theory of forms, Aristotle asserts that Plato's conception of the forms as the cause of our knowledge of all things is incomplete in its ability to explain the causes of the material world and our knowledge of it. If all knowledge was caused by the forms themselves, it follows that it would be impossible to acquire knowledge, for it would already be known.

From the Paper:

"Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, argues against the ability of the Platonic theory of Forms to adequately explain our knowledge of things, through its inability to describe the causal nature of the sensible world and prohibition of an ability to acquire knowledge. Aristotle prefaces his argument by refuting the view that the Forms are able to explain the being of things, essentially noting that they have no relation to the causes evident in the sensible world. Immobile Forms cannot explain motion; Forms without substance cannot be the substance of the material. Having established their inadequate relationship to the being of things, Aristotle then addresses the manner in which the Forms cannot either cause our knowledge of things. This end is achieved through four arguments, where if the Forms stand as the cause of our knowledge of all things, we would already have an a priori knowledge of all things and their material composition, which could not have been forgotten and was accessible to our sensory perception.
"Aristotle's first argument against the Forms as a cause of the knowledge of things is that it is impossible to have a prior knowledge of things, though this is exactly what the Forms would be. As Aquinas explains in his commentary, "...if the Ideas [Forms] are the cause of our knowledge, men must have a knowledge of all things, because the Ideas are the intelligible structures of all knowable things". If such were the case, man would already possess the very knowledge he sought to acquire; and it is apparent that men do acquire knowledge, as Aristotle demonstrates in his tracing of the history of philosophy as a development of the knowledge of causes. Knowledge may be said to generate from things already known, from particular to universal or vice-versa, but the knowledge itself is not already known. If knowledge of all things was based upon the Forms, man would already know everything and as such would never acquire knowledge."

Tags: cause theory relationship

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