Plato

Question 1

What is Plato’s Real World called?

Answer 1

The World of the Forms

Question 2

What does Plato call the material world?

Answer 2

The World of Appearances

Question 3

How many worlds does Plato think exist?

Answer 3

Two

Question 4

How does Plato think true knowledge is gained?

Answer 4

By reason, not the senses

Question 5

Who should be leaders, according to Plato?

Answer 5

Philosophers

Question 6

What does Plato call the best leaders of society?

Answer 6

Philosopher Kings

Question 7

Who was Plato’s teacher?

Answer 7

Socrates

Question 8

Who was Plato’s student?

Answer 8

Aristotle

Question 9

What is Plato’s most famous analogy called?

Answer 9

The Analogy of the Cave

Question 10

What do the shadows represent in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 10

The objects in the material world, experienced by the senses

Question 11

Who do the prisoners represent in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 11

Empiricists, people in the material world who rely on their senses and experiences for truth/knowledge

Question 12

Who does the escaped prisoner represent in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 12

The Philosopher, discovering true knowledge through reason.

Question 13

What does the sun represent in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 13

The Form of the Good

Question 14

What is the Form of the Good?

Answer 14

The highest of all the forms in the World of the Forms

Question 15

What does the cave represent in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 15

The World of Appearances

Question 16

What does the world outside the cave represent in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 16

The World of the Forms

Question 17

Why are the prisoners chained in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 17

Because they are restricted by their senses and fooled into believing this world is all there is.

Question 18

Why is the journey out of the cave so difficult for the freed prisoner?

Answer 18

Because learning to rely on reason rather than the senses/experience is difficult; philosophical enlightenment takes effort!

Question 19

List all the key words used to describe the Forms

Answer 19

Ideal, concept, eternal, perfect, unchanging

Question 20

What words does Plato use to describe the objects in the material world?

Answer 20

particular, phenomena

Question 21

How do objects in the material world, relate to the Real World?

Answer 21

They are poor, imperfect and changing reflections of the Form; they participate in the Form.

Question 22

How does Plato think we know about the Forms?

Answer 22

By recollecting / remembering (anamnesis) from when our souls were in the World of the Forms

Question 23

What sort of concepts is Plato most concerned with when he talks about Forms?

Answer 23

Forms of justice, beauty and equality

Question 24

What is behind the prisoners in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 24

A fire

Question 25

What is cast on the wall in front of the chained prisoners in Plato’s analogy?

Answer 25

Shadows of objects carried by people on a walkway in front of the fire

Question 26

What happens when the freed prisoner returns to the cave?

Answer 26

He can’t see well and the other prisoners threaten to kill anyone who tries to free them.

Question 27

At the end of the analogy, whose death may be alluded to?

Answer 27

Socrates

Question 28

What did A.N. Whitehead say about Plato?

Answer 28

“All Western philosophy is footnotes to Plato”

Question 29

What does Whitehead’s quote mean?

Answer 29

That Plato is very important to Western Philosophy and much of it follows in the tradition of Plato’s rationalism.

Question 30

What is Aristotle’s argument against Plato’s Forms called?

Answer 30

The Third Man Argument

Question 31

What is the study of knowledge, or how we know, called?

Answer 31

Epistemology

Question 32

What are the three ways of understanding how true knowledge is gained?

Answer 32

Empiricism, Rationalism and Revelation

Question 33

Give an example of the senses deceiving us

Answer 33

A straight stick looks bent in a glass of water