Philosophy Notes: AS/A1 Religious Studies (OCR)

Ancient philosophical influences

Plato:
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave:
 The word is in a constant state of flux and change
 Prisoners chained in an underground cave since birth – fire burning behind them
which casts shadows for the prisoners to look at
o The prisoner’s conception of reality is the shadows and they believe that
is what life is
 The prisoners play games with the puppets they see – try to predict which
puppet will come next –
o They give each other honours if they can predict them correctly
 One of the prisoners gets loose (yes it sounds dodgy but that’s how it is) sees
the fire and the puppets – they are the greater reality
 Walks out of the cave – sun burns his eyes but he sees the world for the very
first time – didn’t know what true reality was
o Shadows were imitations of the greater reality
 Prisoner pities those still stuck in the cave – tries to explain to them what was
above the cave but the prisoners did not believe him
Meaning of the Cave:
 Cave is the world of empiricism
o Reality that we see is a shadow of something greater
 Honours that the prisoners give each other – they give power to those who
master empiricism
o For Plato, knowledge and reason supersedes all empirical knowledge
 Prisoner who escapes is the philosopher
o Seeks a higher knowledge of truth and reason (a priori)
o He knows that everything seen in the cave is not what reality is
 Prisoner does what the philosopher should do – enlighten others and try to get
them to see the true reality
 Can’t comprehend philosophical truths – would rather not change their lives by
knowing the truth – Socrates (Plato’s teacher) was killed for this
World of Appearances and Forms:
 Material world is perceived through senses (a posteriori)
o We believe this to be our only reality – how can we understand universal
truth
 Our world is the World of Appearances and is subject to change – we perceive
shadows of a greater reality beyond space and time
o This is the Realm of the Forms
 Our reality of appearances is lesser than the forms – a Form is an abstract
quality – it is the “ideal” form of anything material in our world
o A form is a pure eternal and unchanging entity
 The reason why two different dogs are still dogs is because there is a Form
which is specifically ‘doggyness’
o Dogs we see are imperfect representations or shadows of the perfect form
of a Dog
Hierarchy of Reality:
 At the bottom is the shadows of the material world
 Next up is the material world
 Then it is lower forms
o Forms of material beings such as a chair or a dog

,  Then there are higher forms – Truth, Beauty and Justice – they are universal –
perfect version of beauty exists in the realm of the Forms
o Anytime we perceive something as beautiful it is the shadow of the form
of beauty
 Top of the hierarchy – the Form of the Forms – it’s the Form of the Good
o Every other form derives from the Form of the Good

Evaluation of Plato’s philosophy:
 There is a Form of Beauty
o There is a dim reflection of this in our world
o Dim reflection comes from our prior existence in the World of the Forms
 The world we live in is a pale imitation of the real world
o Our world is always changing
o We use our senses to understand our world
 For Plato the real world is outside the world we live in
o Real World is unchanging and eternal
o Real World is a world of ideas
o The perfect forms are in the Real World
 They are fixed truths – they are absolute
 The form of something is its essence
o This is why beauty is hard to define – abstract concept
o The particulars of something leads to its form
 Most things in life conform to a form
o Exception is numbers and evil – they are absolute
 Aristotle believed that knowledge comes from life experience rather than forms
(a posteriori)
o Questioned whether there was really an absolute standard of goodness
o Ideas of Relativism
 Ideal forms don’t make sense
o Beauty isn’t in anything without something beautiful
 Are there ideal forms for things that haven’t been invented?
 Soul/Body Dualism can be disagreed with according to modern materialistic
arguments
o Richard Dawkins – ‘The Selfish Gene’ – “bytes and bytes and bytes of
information”
Ideal forms:
 Ideal forms have the presence of good in them
o Goodness itself is the most important form (Form of the Forms)
 For Plato, knowledge of the Good is the highest form of knowledge a human is
capable of
Plato and Christianity:
 Similarities
o Life on Earth is imitative of life in another world (Heaven/World of the
Forms)
o Innate understanding of what is good and evil – rationality
o The essence of something relates to the concept of the soul – Forms the
identity of beings
 Differences
o Plato argues for previous existence in World of the Forms
o God is sentient – the Form of Good is merely an idea
o Contrasting ideas on the nature of evil (Link to Problem of Evil)
 Christianity says sin comes from free will
 Plato says evil comes from an imperfection of the Forms

, Strengths:
 Offers an explanation as to why we all recognise the same essential elements
o Absolutist philosophy
 Explains why there are imperfections in the world
 Encourages regular questioning of reality
o Urges us not to accept things at face value such as The Cave
 Thinking concentrates on Forms of qualities
o Means there is an intuitive knowledge of what ‘goodness’ is
o Although it fails when pushed to logical extremes – is there any reason to
do so?
 The physical world inhabited by the body is inferior to the World of the Forms
o Led to ideas that strayed from Plato’s
o People should punish their bodies for spiritual progress and live simple
lives
 This was not Plato’s position
o He saw physical pleasures as unimportant compared to philosophy,
however shouldn’t be totally restricted
Criticisms of the Forms:
 Doesn’t prove his ‘real world’ of the forms actually exists
o No scientific evidence this – no way to access the Forms
o Aristotle focuses on our existence as it makes more sense to understand
how the world works
 What stops infinite regression
o The form of a form of a form…
 Highly relativist
o The opinion of Good is relative – one person may say good is one thing
and another may say the complete opposite
o No shared concept of Good – anything ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is merely an
expression of emotion towards something
o Cannot be one Form of Good because goodness relates to specific actions
or situations
 Aristotle and Ayer – goodness cannot be encapsulated into one umbrella form
o Ayer – there is no such thing as good
 We’ve never experienced the world of the Forms – how can we call something
beautiful if we have no knowledge of these absolute qualities
o Plato said the soul has experience with the world of the Forms and has an
innate understanding
 Relies on the truth of Dualism (difference between body/mind)
 Is there a perfect form of bad things – is there a ‘Form of dog poo’ that is perfect
o How can evil derive from the Form of Good
 Not enough sufficient evidence of forms
o Not much to understand about the Forms as there are so many variations
on material things – i.e a rose with 7 petals
 Forms often fail when pushed to logical extremes (COUNTER: why would you do
that in the first place anyway)
 Julia Annas - using only a priori knowledge restricts the range of Plato’s
argument and can often create unnecessary confusion
 Completely disregards the senses, but humans have used them for thousands of
years
o Rationality doesn’t fully help us to make sense of the world we live
 The physical world isn’t truly real
o It is real – we can use our sense to discern this