2008-2-PHI130.Week03
Week 3: Plato's Doctrine of Forms
Readings
Plato, Republic, Section VII
Plato, Republic, Section VII, 514-521, p.376-383; Section X, 596-598, p.468-471. In The dialogues of Plato, vol.II, trans. by B. Jowett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964).
Plato, Timaeus
Plato, Timaeus, trans. D. Lee (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977), p.72-79
The many faces of science
L. Stevenson and H. Byerly, The many faces of science (Westview Press, 1995), p.52-63.
Ideal cities
R. Eaton, Ideal cities (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001), p.196-204.
Lecture Notes
Book X: The three beds
While Socrates put philosophy on its way, Plato is the first real philosopher in the sense that he endeavours a systematic coverage of all aspects of reality. He offers and explanation for all the different spheres of reality with political, moral, scientific, and aesthetic implications.
We will look at two of the most famous aspects of his thinking:
- His theory of ideas
- His theory of love
Plato's doctrine of forms, or doctrine of ideas, asks a metaphysical question about what is real and how we can know it. He endeavours to answer this by trying to look beyond what is available to the senses to find the ultimate level of reality. Once defined he then seeks to determine how we can know about this ultimate level of reality.