ETHICAL TEACHINGS OF PLATO

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Plato, student of Socrates, also has mystery surrounding him. His birth day is estimated to fall between 428 BC and 423 BC. He’s known for being the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. My favorite of Plato’s contributions to philosophy, and the one I’m going to focus on, is the Theory of Forms. This theory was created to solve two problems, one of ethics and one of permanence and change. The ethical problem is: how can humans live a fulfilling life in an ever changing world if everything that they hold close to them can be easily taken away? The problem dealing with permanence and change is: How can the world appear to be both permanent and changing? The world we perceive through senses seems to be always changing–which is a pretty clear observation. The world that we perceive through the mind, seems to be permanent and unchanging. Which world perceived is more real? Why are we seen two different worlds?

To find a solution to these problems, Plato split the world into two: the material, or physical, realm and the transcendent, or mental, realm of forms. We have access to the realm of forms through the mind, allowing us access to an unchanging world. This particular world is invulnerable to the pains and changes of the material world. By detaching our souls from the material world and our bodies and developing our ability to concern ourselves with the forms, Plato believes this will lead to us finding a value which is not open to change. This solves the ethical problem. Splitting existence up into two realms also leads us to a solution to the problem of permanence and change. Our mind perceives a different world, with different objects, than our senses do. It is the material world, perceived through the senses, that is changing. It is the realm of forms, perceived through the mind, which is permanent.

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