Philosophy 101 - Plato

Well, you really opened up Pandora’s box when you started talking about Nietzsche, Carl Jung, and Plato!!! I took a lot of philosophy courses at University, but as you could tell by our conversation I've forgotten most of what I learned. The good news is you've given me a good excuse to revisit these philosophers and maybe I can give you a brief introduction to some of their ideas. As you go on with your education you’ll need to know more about philosophy. For example, it’s hard to understand Camus’s The Stranger without knowing something about Existentialism.

A good philosopher to start with is Plato. He felt like you, in that you prefer talking with someone to gain understanding rather than just reading text. Much of Plato’s philosophy is made know to us through his Dialogues-- question and answer discussions between friends where deeper truth comes to light in the process. You should read some of Plato's dialogues. It's fun to listen to each participant question and clarify previous responses and gradually move toward a better understanding.

Plato was one of the first philosophers to deny the reality of the material world. Plato believed that what we perceive with our senses is only a shadow or copy of reality. True reality can only be known through reason, and through understanding what he called the unchanging Forms or Ideals.

Questions about being, and knowing, and about what is real is a form of philosophy called metaphysics. This branch of philosophy attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g.,existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility.

Here’s a short video about Plato's theory of Forms:


In the Republic, one of Plato's most important Dialogues, there is the famous allegory of The Cave. In this story a group of people are chained in a cave and can only see shadows on the cave wall in front of them. Since this is all they can see, this is their reality. Then one of them is released and brought out of the cave and at first is confused and is in a state of shock. Here's a video about Plato's Cave:

Plato and the Cave


For a more detailed talk about Plato's Cave and his ideas about Forms and human understanding take a look at this video. I think it's a very clear presentation:

Plato's Cave, Divided Line, Forms, Metaphysics,...