"Claims to have knowledge of a world beyond sense experience are doomed to fail." Discuss in relation to Plato's theory of the Forms.

The statement that claims to have knowledge of a world beyond sense experience are doomed to fail is a strict empiricist position. In order to assess this I will begin by establishing the empiricist position and then consider criticisms of this, including Plato’s theory of the Forms.

The strict empiricist thesis argues all substantive knowledge is gained a posteriori, through our experience. In Hume’s conception our ideas are copies of sense impressions, for example we may feel a cold sensation from snow and this imparts on us the idea of cold in the form of a copy of the original sense impression. Hume did concede there were analytic truths but argued these were hollow for they tell us nothing new, they provide no synthetic knowledge about the nature of reality. This is because the truth of an analytic claim is already contained within the definition so, strictly, we discover nothing new.

Plato’s position was in stark contrast to this and would nowadays be considered a rationalist thesis; that is he emphasised the importance of reason. In his allegory of the cave Plato argued that the world of sense experience is illusory. In the allegory we are asked to imagine a line of prisoners chained to face a wall. Behind them there is a fire and objects beyond the cave cast shadows onto the wall. The prisoners only ever see shadows of the true object. Here our sense experience is represented by the shadows. To appreciate the true nature of reality, Plato argues we must leave the cave or the sensible world and look upon the objects beyond the cave, or the Forms as Plato would have it. In Plato’s thesis the Forms are objects expressing their essence perfectly. If we consider beauty, there are many beautiful things we see but never beauty itself. Plato claims there is a Form of beauty which these particular things participate in to derive their beauty. The Forms are self predicating meaning the Form of beauty is itself beautiful.

Plato argues that we can have knowledge of the Forms because we can have certainty about them; they are unchanging, perfect objects. We do not come to know them through experience, rather we gain knowledge of the Forms though mathematical and dialectic reasoning. Overarching the whole of Plato’s theory is the Form of the Good. This may be understood as the Form of the Forms and, as espoused in the simile of the Sun, gives the light through which we may acquire knowledge of the Forms. Through all this Plato would argue we can only have knowledge of a world beyond sense experience for it is only this world that provides the unchanging certainty required by Plato.

We may consider now the coherency of the idea of the Forms. In Aristotle’s third man argument we may consider a group of small things, A, B and C. These all share the property of smallness so there must be a Form of smallness, U. However the Form of smallness, U is also small. Thus there is a new totality of small things, A, B, C and U. Again, these are all small so there must be another Form, Z and so on ad infinatum. This reductio ad absurdum clearly demonstrates that in pushing Plato’s theory of the Forms to its logical conclusion we are led to absurdity and thus recognise the initial premises to be logically fallacious. This argument may be made even more powerful by pointing out Plato’s own argument fails by the very dialectic he so admires.

While the theory of the Forms is logically incoherent we may consider another claim made by Plato in the simile of the divided line. In the knowledge category Plato placed mathematical reasoning alongside his higher category of noesis which involved knowledge of the Forms. While the Forms are logically flawed as an idea due to the generation of an infinite regress there may still be a possibility that mathematical truths give synthetic a priori knowledge. While Hume would argue mathematical truths are analytic this seems to be an unfair assertion. If we consider the move from flat Euclidean geometry to Riemannian geometry, this is not just a matter of definitions. Rather we learn something about the nature of space, namely that it is curved, and so realise that substantive knowledge can be gained beyond the sensible world.

In conclusion, having established the strict empiricist position we were able to consider Plato’s theory of the Forms. By Plato’s reckoning we could have knowledge of the Forms due to their perfect and unchanging nature. The sensible world on the other hand was viewed as being in an illusory state of flux. However, by Aristotle’s third man argument the idea of the Forms was shown to be logically absurd and so we rejected the idea. Mathematical truths were then considered and it was realised they could provide substantive knowledge and so the initial empiricist claim was refuted by counter example. Thus we must conclude the statement that claims to have knowledge of a world beyond sense experience are doomed to fail is false.

Questions about Plato

Could we argue that Plato's conception of the Form of the Good is incoherant and thus leaves his theory untenable on the basis we cannot be sure what the theory actually posits?

Plato seems to claim we can have objective knowledge of the Forms, is this actually possible?

Knowledge and Opinion

This diagram may be used to help understand Plato's divison of knowledge and opinion put forward through the simile of the divided line. Plato argues that the world can be divided into the sensible realm, i.e. that which we perceive through our senses, and the intelligible realm, i.e. that which we discover through the powers of our intellect.  Our epsistemic states are related to these realms such that opinion is said to relate to the sensible realm and knowledge to the intelligible. In the simile of the divided line we may imagine these epistemic states existing on a line where knowledge is one half and opinion the other. The division, as can be seen in the diagram goes further whereby opinion is divided into belief and illusion and knowledge is divided into intelligence and mathematical reasoning.

We may now consider the epistemic state of opinion. Opinion is the lower epistemic state in that it lacks the certainty of knowledge and relates to the inferior, illusory world of the senses. Illusion, a further sub division of opinion, is by Plato's reckoning the lowest form of epistemic state with our thoughts in this area being subject to regular change and a particular lack of clarity. In this Plato not only refers to the illusory ideas we gather through our basic sense perception but also to the uninformed views we may gather through mere blind acceptance. Examples would include the acceptance of dogma or ideas from media etc without question. The other division of opinion is belief. This is a higher epistemic state and includes our moral reasonings and the natural sciences. While these are considered more highly than illusion because they involve clear and direct study of the world they are still lower than knowledge because Plato claims they take the illusory sensory world to represent the true nature of reality.

On the other hand, ideas that fall under the epistemic state of knowledge do not consider our sensory world to be the true reality and do not gather their meaning through examination of it. Rather the knowledge is gained through the exercise of the intellect and as such Plato claims knowledge pertains to the abstract world of the forms. This world is more real than the physical world and contains notions in their most perfect form, thus allowing for the aquisition of knowledge about this realm. The first division, dianoia, relates to our reasoning and the noesis is translated to mean intelligence or full understanding. Dianoia includes such things as mathematical and logical derivations and while this is knowledge Plato considers it to be a lower form of knowledge than noesis due to its reliance on axiomatic structures i.e. the theories are based on basic assumptions that are taken to be self evident. Noesis on the other hand seeks direct knowledge of the forms from first principles, thus doing away with the need for axioms and attaining a purer form of knowledge.

What does Plato's allegory of the cave illustrate?

Plato’s allegory of the cave is primarily an illustration of the process of gaining knowledge. In Plato’s allegory the people are shown to make the step from a world of illusion towards intelligence.

To understand the allegory of the cave we may imagine a group of prisoners chained to face a cave wall. They have lived within this cave all their lives, for us it represents the world of sense experience. Behind these prisoners there is road and a fire. People walk past this fire, casting shadows onto the cave wall. These shadows are all the prisoners ever see. In this we may note that the shadows being perceived by the prisoners represent our own sense perception. The shadows give the prisoners a distorted view of these objects. In the same way Plato argues that our sense experience presents us with a distorted view of the true nature of reality. We are tapped within an illusion.

We may now consider one of the prisoners being set free and turned to face the road. Now the prisoner realises that his previous perception did not represent the true nature of reality. However, extending the allegory of the cave, the prisoner is now faced with a blinding light from the Sun. Having been in a cave his whole life this light is intensely painful and the prisoner must be dragged from the cave towards the true reality. This demonstrates what Plato viewed as the difficult process of acquiring knowledge. The light from the Sun effectively represents our prejudices and predispositions with regard to the nature of reality that must be overcome in order to gain knowledge of the forms (the objects beyond the cave), Plato’s most real and perfect objects. Once the difficult ascent from the cave has been achieved we can truly appreciate reality in its purest form.

In having a grasp now of the true nature of reality and in acquiring knowledge of the forms the prisoner must now make the descent back into the cave. This is because, Plato argued, that in making the ascent the prisoner is now a philosopher and with his knowledge he must help the other prisoners still trapped in the cave to free themselves or live out their lives by the principles of justice. The philosopher must become the philosopher ruler. However, the descent may not be easy. Those still in the cave will not have the knowledge he has and may treat him as a madman, Plato suggested they may even go as far as to kill him. This here represents the ignorant mob that the philosopher must rule. In lacking true understanding they may not understand the bitter medicine being administered by the philosopher ruler and reject what Plato would view as his wise judgement. Further to this, in being freed from the cave the philosopher may not wish to return. In the same way the real philosopher, having acquired knowledge of the forms may consider it undesirable to concern himself with the lives of the unruly mob.

In conclusion, Plato’s allegory of the cave represents the need for us to escape the illusory world of sense experience if we wish to acquire knowledge of the true nature of reality i.e. knowledge of the forms. The allegory of the cave demonstrates to us that this process is not meant to be easy but in doing so we free ourselves from illusion, although this freedom brings responsibility. The philosopher must return to the cave and dispense his wisdom for the benefit of the ignorant masses, a task that may be harder than the ascent from illusion itself.

Using the example of beauty, outline and illustrate Plato's argument for the existence of the Forms.

Plato's argument for the existence of the Forms revolves around the idea of our experiencing of objects and their associated properties. Plato argues that through our senses we experience particular things that we assign certain abstract concepts, their properties. However, we never experience these abstract concepts. Using the example of beauty, we may experience numerous things we would describe as beautiful and yet we never experience beauty. In seeing numerous examples of particular things we would say are beautiful we may note there is something they all share, beauty. Plato then argues that something must exist that is beauty, a universal, a property that can be possessed by more than one thing. This, Plato claims, is the Form of beauty that we never sense directly but is manifested in our experience through various things we describe as beautiful.

Plato aims to give greater grounding to his claim by arguing that the Forms exist independently of these things we experience. We may imagine a situation where we collect together all the beautiful things and destroy them in a great purge. However, this vast devastation would not destroy the concept of beauty itself. Beauty, Plato claims, would still exist as a concept to us and as such it must be some separate thing that possesses independent existence of these beautiful things. This argument applies generally across all the Forms and is used by Plato to establish the view that objects and things participate in the Forms but hold an independent existence from one another.

In conclusion, we may note that there are various abstract concepts that we never sense directly and yet we describe the objects of our perception as possessing properties that are, in effect, derivatives of these abstract concepts. These abstract concepts, via Plato's argument outlined above, possess some independent existence as the Forms with the things we experience participating in them.