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Strengths of Plato's Epistemology

15

Im halfway through an essay entitled "Plato's Epistemology is incoherent" and I have to be able to argue both for and against. I have managed to write about 2 pages (handwritten) of criticisms of his theory, however Im finding it difficult to think of any strengths.
Can anyone help me out please?

Also - Would people be willing to read through my completed essay once Ive done it? Im doing OCR AS Religious Studies if that helps.

Thanks alot,

deej2

Reply 1

Calvin

14

What are we meaning by Plato's epistemology? He has several quite inconsistent views apparent in his work. Do you mean his JTB account of knowledge from the Meno or his later stuff or all of it taken as one?
I've got an essay on belief and knowledge too this week so I'm reading about Plato's epistemology now :smile:

Reply 2

Daragh

OP

15

Calvin

What are we meaning by Plato's epistemology? He has several quite inconsistent views apparent in his work. Do you mean his JTB account of knowledge from the Meno or his later stuff or all of it taken as one?
I've got an essay on belief and knowledge too this week so I'm reading about Plato's epistemology now :smile:

Plato's epistemology in The Republic. Theory of the forms, allegory of the cave.

Reply 3

Calvin

14

deej2

Plato's epistemology in The Republic. Theory of the forms, allegory of the cave.

Surely metaphysics? But ok, so can we defend the theory of the forms? Natural Intuition that things of a particular class share something in common- all chairs seem to have some common feature that makes them chairs but nothing seems to be constant except for that fact so we argue for a form of a chair.

Lovers of physical beauty have a love of something which always changes. The appearance of the thing they love changes and its beauty waxes and wains. Thus they have only short term true belief or just opinion in Plato's view. To have knowledge one must know of the beauty itself which doesn't change and so thus we have knowledge not being of the physical world but of the form of beauty itself. The same then is supposed to be true of good and so forth.

Plato's philosophical views here being based in his wider metaphysics which he owed to Heraclitus that the physical world is always changing and so wanted a stable aspect of the world to allow us to evaluate and understand. If everything is changing I can't possibly know anything (given Socrates' views on definition), thus there must be something that stays the same and as it isn't matter it must be something immaterial and so we get the forms. So the entire theory came about as a result of resolving conflicts between other ideas he got from Heraclitus and Socrates.

Generally in Plato there are very few explicit arguments for things like the forms. Most really sophisticated philosophy is a case of adopting something out of necessity to explain some other thing rather than actively being able to answer for it independently. That's the case here I think. If you really want you might look up Hericlitus' views on Flux and Socrates' views on definition to find some kind of argument for the Forms but I don't think you'll find much over and above the intuitions I've pointed to.

Another example you might consider is his demonstration in the Meno of a boy able to find mathematical truths without observation of the world. The boy can work out truth just by considering and being asked questions. Plato claims it is an example of recollection via acquintance with the ultimate truths in a past life, but it could be seen more generally as an example of the sort of knowledge plato is after- knowledge by contemplation rather than observation. For Plato then the idea is that all real knowledge is a priori and possibly even that all the things we regard as knowledge are possible to know a priori. It's ropey, but he's not looking for a single knockdown argument so much as an intuitive or at least consistent metaphysics and epistemology.

Yeek, like I say, not many really decent straightforward argument anywhere in Plato really, so that's the best I can do, is it any help?

Reply 4

Daragh

OP

15

Its alot of help, thanks.

Reply 5

fr browne

11

Thankyou, also if you could help with weakneses, Ive got Verification, Infinite Regresion and Materialism so far.

Reply 6

Calvin

14

fr_browne

Thankyou, also if you could help with weakneses, Ive got Verification, Infinite Regresion and Materialism so far.

Well any other plausible theory of classification. Wittgenstein's Family resemblance theory of how classes work for instance. Games have no one thing in common that makes them all games but rather have certain resemblances ot each other. X has something in common with Y which has something in common with Z but X has nothing in common with Z. So we can account for games being a class without needing a metaphysical form they all share in common.
That's the killer for me. If we don't need Plato's forms and we don't hold his views on Flux and definition then there isn't much argument for his forms.

Reply 7

fr browne

11

Thankyou, exactly many of the points we have to make are simple laws of the universe and i does seem like we're clutching at straws most of the time.

Reply 8

Calvin

14

Having talked to my director of studies about this a bit...
It seems there are actually two argument in favour of Plato's forms (which might perhaps be seen as identifying two different theories of forms)

The first is: One over many. What is it that that natural class 'bees' have in common. Must be some form of bee-ness.
The objection to thatI can see is Wittgensteins account of Games.

The second argument is about things like 'smallness' (relational things)
Something can have both largeness and not largeness. For instance, a person is smaller than an elephant but larger than a mouse. So a person has both largeness and smallness. But if that's the case how can we ever have knowledge of smallness (and beauty, justice, etc etc)? Well that must be because our knowledge is not of these particular instanciations of largeness, but because our knowledge is of pure 'smallness' itself something eternal and unchanging- ie. the forms!

So the two arguments there. They might be seen to lead to two theories of forms because on is about categories like: is a girl. Whilst the other is about relational predicates like: is large.

Perhaps we can combine them. Not entirely clear.

I think I can see a pretty good come back to the second argument too but I think I'll leave that to the reader.

(Should probably reference my Dos for this- Dominic Scott, Philosophy Fellow, Clare College, Cambridge)

Reply 9

Zarathustra

2

Calvin

(Should probably reference my Dos for this- Dominic Scott, Philosophy Fellow, Clare College, Cambridge)

Your DoS is Dr Scott?! :eek:

I'm in his 1A Meno lectures - What. A. Dude. :cool:

Seriously, I think he's legendary. And he has an amazing suit jacket, too.

Ok, I'll stop spamming now. Promise.

ZarathustraX

Reply 10

Calvin

14

Zarathustra

Your DoS is Dr Scott?! :eek:

I'm in his 1A Meno lectures - What. A. Dude. :cool:

Seriously, I think he's legendary. And he has an amazing suit jacket, too.

Ok, I'll stop spamming now. Promise.

ZarathustraX

hehe, isn't he just.. :cool:

And his IB lectures are so so amazingly good. Has he given you the test yet?

Spoiler

Reply 11

Reema

14

Calvin

hehe, isn't he just.. :cool:

And his IB lectures are so so amazingly good. Has he given you the test yet?

Spoiler

Oii...let me in on the secret :wink:

!!
I've been worrying about "the test" for a while now...good god.

PS Dominic Scott rocks. But none better than my DoS...Arif Ahmed :cool:

.

Reply 12

Calvin

14

Oh a formal challenge huh?
It's a DOS off!

if only... we should invent that.

Reply 13

Reema

14

Calvin

Oh a formal challenge huh?
It's a DOS off!

if only... we should invent that.

see facebook.

you know you *want* to join the AAA society....really.
More so than the Dominic Scott one :biggrin:

...

Reply 14

Zarathustra

2

Reema

see facebook.

you know you *want* to join the AAA society....really.
More so than the Dominic Scott one :biggrin:

...

Oh God, you've not made a third?? :eek:

Zarathustra.

Reply 15

Calvin

14

Arif Society? Pah! I've made my bed and I'm going to l... *reconsiders phrasing* I'm staying where I am. Clare Philosophy party time next week. The advantages of doing a subject with only a couple of people in each year. A £300 social budget stretches to a much better meal :biggrin:

I don't even know why there is a Blackburn society... :rolleyes:

Reply 16

Reema

14

Zarathustra

Oh God, you've not made a third?? :eek:

Zarathustra.

Well, if one, and if two, then why not three? He deserves to be appreciated, dammit!

As for Blackburn society - me either. I don't even know why I'm in it except I was invited and felt it would slight my inviter if I rejected it...

xx Reema.

Reply 17

Calvin

14

I was invited and felt it would slight my inviter if I rejected it...

Is that a pity plea for people to join the Arif society? :p:

Reply 18

Reema

14

Yes it is! Only Arif > Scott > Blackburn.

You know it's the truth Tom, really you do...

Reply 19

Calvin

14

You're probably right... but just in case, just for the hell of it, lets see what the statistics have to say huh?

...Oh look, MY DoS has more Group members than YOUR DoS (mostly thanks to ema but hey...)
and MY DoS wins awards for his lecturing... YOUR DoS hasn't even got a cream cake. Awwwwwwwww... :p:

Strengths of Plato's Epistemology

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