Plato, whose real name was Aristocles (they called him “Plato” (platys) because of the width of his men or of his forehead), was born in Athens probably in 427 BC. Of aristocratic origin, Diogenes Laertius refers that his stripe dates back to Solon, which in turn descended from Neleo and Neptune. By paternal line, among his ancestors was King Codrus (also descendant of Neptune). Indeed, the Athenian aristocracy affirmed its superiority in the hereditary character of areté (virtue), while its genealogy reached the gods themselves.
[ ref: Plato]] lived in the Athens of the 4th century BC and upon his thought exerted remarkable influence philosophers such as [Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagorasand Socrates, of whom he was his most memorable disciple.
In fact, there is no single Platonic theory since different stages can be differentiated through the evolution of his philosophical thought, especially as far as his theory of ideas is concerned. However, we will try to briefly explain the gnoseological theory of Plato according to how it is developed in the Republic.
Plato states that there are two ways of knowledge:
- Sensitive knowledge
- Rational knowledge
Through the senses we make contact with the sensitive entities that belong to our space-time. But it is through reason that we can access other types of entities that do not belong to space and time, these are ideal entities or ideas.
Sensitive entities are multiple, that is, there are many variants of each and they approach in a more or less imperfect way to their ideal corponent, which on the contrary is unique.
According to [ref: Platon]] each of these universal ideas forms an 'archetype', that is, a universal model of the forms existing on the plane of sensitive reality. These ideal entities possess an existence in a world that he calls “intelligible world” or “world of “ideas”. This concept is, in fact, the central nucleus of the Platonic system: there are two simultaneous worlds, one made up of objects that we can perceive sensorially and a second world made of ideal objects that we can only access through reason. While sensitive entities are multiple, temporal and mutable; ideas are unique, eternal and immutable. It could be said that the sensitive world is what he described [Heraclitus, while the world of ideas, is what Parmenidesimagined.
The term 'idealism' is quite common to refer to platonic and neoplatonic ideas. However, from the perspective of universal theory, Platonian-inspired philosophers are in rigor, 'realistic' therefore ideas possess a 'real' existence.
Plato used the term 'idea' to designate the form of an 'eternal' and 'immutable' reality. And in this sense, the idea is the ideal 'show' of one thing. Thus, he will often conceive that ideas are models of things or also things themselves in their state of perfection. Therefore the idea cannot be appreciably apprehended but its visibility depends on the inner gaze. Consequently, Plato inra reducing ideas to mathematical objects and certain qualities such as goodness and beauty. Later, Aristotle will deny that ideas could have an existence independent of sensitive reality.
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