Assessing Plato (AO2)

Part (b) work + Head to Head

What does the specification say?

Aim High Mantra

We must always aim for the highest possible standard of work, because if we aim for

perfection and miss we will not fall too far short of excellence.

Alternatively if we aim for average and miss…then we’re in trouble!

Fulfilling the Aim High MantraAiming high means the following:

• I will always give you more information than you could possibly hope to fit into 15 minutes of writing.

• You will have a full range of critical material (ranging from simple to very challenging ideas).

• DON’T PANIC: I will expect everyone to understand the easy stuff but I do not expect everyone to understand the most difficult stuff.

• You will find your natural level at this stage…BUT… make sure you revisit this work once you are more comfortable with your philosophy.

What we need for part (b) answers

We need practise at evaluating the ideas that we discuss for AO1 - part (a). You need plenty of part (b) fuel to stoke your critical fires with (as with everything I will ask you to take notes). You can expect to be walked through the AO2 stuff hand in hand with me (ASK IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!). You can expect to peer assess someone’s work (this helps you to understand at which standard you are writing and what you need to do to improve your part (b) critical evaluation sections). Above all you need to trust me and believe that you are good philosophers (because a lot of you will find this hard at first – but by the time you have done this 7 or 8 times you will all have found your critical level).

Critical Assessment of Plato’s ideas

The specification states that:

Candidates should be able to discuss criticallythe validity of the points being made in Plato’s

Analogy of the Cave.

&Candidates should be able to discuss critically

the validity of Plato’s World of Forms.

What criticisms or support for either:

the analogy of the cave or

the World of Forms

can you think of?

Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave – Plato’s view

Plato essentially wants to convince you that the physical world around us is an illusion

The analogy (at face value) seems convincing

After all, how well do we know the universe? (as we shall see with the world of quantum physics!)

It may be that there really is more to life than physical appearances (beauty is only skin deep)

Plato certainly believed that the ‘passions’ or emotion clouded our rational minds – so becoming fixated on things of physical beauty might lead us to a warped experience of true reality

Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave – Basic problems with Plato

Plato wasn’t speaking in the general terms discussed above. He LITERALLY meant that the entire visible world was an illusion and that the World of Forms (WoF) was the only true reality we should seek.

In one very real sense the analogy can only be valid if the WoF is real. Without the WoF the analogy breaks down (remember this as there are far more criticisms of the WoF).

Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave – Would the prisoner return to the

cave? Plato also assumes that someone who discovered the Form of the Good (like the released prisoner) would never want to return to their old ways – is this necessarily true? It could be argued that Plato underestimates the pull from emotions, desires, drives, lusts or physical pleasure I know what the right thing to do is but have failed to do it on a number of occasions (I can be very selfish – Aristotle identified that people suffer from a weakness of will – desire is too strong for some people to combat!) – So can we really say that the released prisoner would definitely not wish to return to the cave? It seems doubtful and if so the analogy breaks down…

Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave – Gloomy Cave Vs Physical delights Plato paints a gloomy reality in the analogy. Remember that the cave is meant to represent the physical realm, do you think that a gloomy cave is a fair representation of the physical world?

Plato appears to underestimate the physical world around us. It is far more beautiful than Plato makes out.

Plato believed that all matter was inherently evil as it was subject to change – he would argue that you are being duped by the physical realm and that you should train yourself to look beyond the realm of experience.

Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave – Buddhist Support

Buddhism agrees in principle with Plato’s assessment of reality. The Buddhists believe that life is ‘dukkha’ or ‘suffering’. This suffering, according to the Buddha, comes about through human desire to hold on to the physical realm.

Buddhism agrees with Plato that physical reality is in a constant state of change. True reality exists beyond the physical realm.

Evaluating the Analogy of the Cave – Physical Vs Spiritual difference

Plato’s analogy tries to explain that there is a spiritual/meta-physical realm beyond the physical (cave = physical realm – outside = WoF). However, there is an obvious problem with his analogy – Plato fails to make the distinction between the visible world and the WoF because the analogy contains physical objects. The Sun is a physical object, the fire in the cave is merely a smaller version of the Sun. This does not provide an accurate explanation of the relationship with the physical and the meta-physical

Evaluating the World of Forms

Evaluating the World of Forms – Plato’s understanding

Plato is going to argue that through the use of reason or our mind we can recall what our soul remembers from the WoF.

We recognise beauty, truth or justice because we have seen this before.

Again, at face value this seems plausible.

The task of the philosopher is to seek out true reality by training himself not to see the ‘shadows’ of the physical world around him.

Evaluating the World of Forms – Basic Problems

THERE IS NO PROOF OF THE WORLD OF FORMS! We only have Plato’s theory and (as we have seen) a flawed analogy to explain the WoF. Popper: Believed that Plato sought permanence in the WoF as a way of dealing with the uncertainty of life. Plato couldn’t accept that TRUE REALITY can change – someone like Popper would ask ‘Why can’t true reality change?’. If Popper is right then there is no need to posit the existence of another realm to find the truth.

Evaluating the World of Forms – Aristotle

Aristotle had several criticisms of Plato, particularly the Form of the Good.He suggested that Good comes in so many varieties that there cannot be one Form of it; Goodness of a person is different from the Goodness of a shovel. A person may be a Good person but a bad shovel.In essence Aristotle was looking at purpose as the definition of whether something was good, in other words something was good in relation to something else – a good knife is one that cuts, a bad one doesn’t fulfil its purpose as something that cuts.

Evaluating the World of Forms – Aristotle

Aristotle also suggested that something does not have to be eternal to be pure. Something white does not become more white if it is eternal – eternity and whiteness are different qualities (meaning that the realness of something does not depend on it remaining unchanged as Plato tried to suggest).

The Forms have no real practical use. They cannot be applied in the physical world.

Aristotle’s Third Man Argument

Form of Man(1)

Copy of the Form of Man(2)

Or is it the copy of the copy of the copy of the Form of Man(4)

Copy of the Copy of the Form of Man(3)

WoF

Physical Reality

The copy of the copy of the copy of the copy of the Form of Man(5) ad infinitum

(1)

(2)(3)

(4)

(5)

ad in

finitu

m

Evaluating the World of Forms – Aristotle’s Third Man Argument

Aristotle put forward a very famous criticism known as the third man argument (caution – very tough idea!). Suppose that an individual man is a copy of the Form of Man (but every object in the physical realm has a copy in the WoF!). Therefore there must be a Copy of the Copy of the Form of Man (a copy of the one that exists in the physical realm).Is the man in the physical world a copy of the Form of Man or a copy of the copy of the copy of the Form of Man?This paradox appears to render the Theory of Forms as meaningless (look at the diagram to help you understand).

Evaluating the World of Forms – Negative Forms?

Plato insists that everything that exists in the physical realm is a pale reflection of something in the WoF.

He is not clear on what exists in there.

Does this mean that the WoF contains negative forms such as the Form of Disease, Violence, Cancer, Death or even Evil? If we accept that the physical realm is a poor reflection of the WoF then these negative concepts would be ‘perfect’ in their negativity.

Evaluating the World of Forms – Negative Forms – Augustine’s

ComebackSt. Augustine argued that evils or negative things do not really exists at all. They have no true substance as they are simply privations of goodness – the absence of Good.

For Augustine blindness was the absence of sight, darkness the absence of light and evil the absence of good.

This appears to be a strong criticism of the negative Forms idea as Plato can argue that only positive things have any Form in the WoF.

Evaluating the World of Forms – Specific Forms?

Even if we accept Augustine’s understanding of negative simply being the absence of good things the WoF is still confusing…

Are we to believe that there is a perfect Form of the Laptop, Telescope, iPod and Deodorant?

However: it is highly unlikely that Plato was interested in the Forms of physical things. A more sophisticated reading of Plato might suggest that he believed that everything in the physical realm was made up of a series of concepts – Beauty, Symmetry and Sturdiness

Griswold believes that Plato was not serious when he mentioned the Form of a Bed in the Republic, he sees it more as an example of Plato’s sense of humour…

Evaluating the World of Forms – Are the Forms all in the mind?

Dawkins believes that ideas or concepts are passed on genetically from generation to generation. He calls these ideas ‘memes’. Could this account for our apparent recognition of ‘Forms’ such as Beauty, Truth, Justice or Symmetry? More over Jordan, Lockyer and Tate argue that because of the radical difference between the physical and spiritual it is difficult to see how we could ever gain ‘knowledge’ of the WoF. It seems impossible to understand the Form of Justice without placing it in a physical concept. The ideas or concepts are far too conceptual for us to grasp entirely. In a very real sense the Forms don’t exist unless placed in a physical context.

Evaluating the World of Forms – Are the Forms all in the mind?

Let us suppose that we could ‘know’ these concepts in the WoF.

How could we hope to emulate these ideas in our everyday lives? The Forms would be so far removed from the reality that we experience that it would become impossible to put this ‘knowledge’ of the Good into practise. Our behaviour involves physical actions that the concepts are completely devoid of…

Possible support for Plato from Rationalism

Evaluating the World of Forms – Support for Rationalism (Descartes) Descartes was also a rationalist. He could be used to support Plato because he agreed that we have concepts that exist in the mind first and then help us construct reality.

The difference is that Descartes believed that these ideas existed solely in the mind and not in an independent reality elsewhere (like the WoF).

Evaluating the World of Forms – Support for Rationalism (Kant)

Kant was also a rationalist. He believed that there was, in essence, two realities – 1) the world of sense experience (phenomenal world) and 2) the world as it is without observation (noumenal world).

He believed that our ideas of the world came from the way that we perceive or interpret the universe around us (what he called the phenomenal world).

He argues that the noumenal world can never be known as the very fact that we observe it through our five senses means that we change its nature though our perception (Rather like rose-tinted spectacles).

WARNING – This is one of the most difficult concepts that you will study at AS – if you don’t understand it straight away, give it time! Here is a visual representation to help you…

Noumenal object

Phenomenal object

Real / Absolute

Unknowable

Understanding

Perception / experience

This can only ever be an interpretation of the REAL or ABSOLUTE because of our

experience or perception

Thing in itself

Therefore need to check experience or perception using REASON to see that

it is correct (synthetic)

Knowable through reason alone (apriori)

If Kant is correct, then in one sense he is agreeing with Plato

– Kant is also saying that empiricism cannot give us

accurate information about the world around us because we

can never ‘sense’ the world as it REALLY is.

The Empirical Evidence Against

Plato

Evaluating the World of Forms – Empiricists’ Challenge

Someone like Hume, Locke or Dawkins would argue that Plato’s ideas about the physical world are counterintuitive.

This means that it flies in the face of common sense to say that the world around us is an illusion – it seems so real!

In fact the physical realm has empirical evidence to back up its existence.

Dawkins would argue that any talk of the ‘transcendent’ (a world beyond the physical) is meaningless as there is no evidence to support such a claim – for Dawkins real knowledge comes through empirical/scientific testing of the universe around us.

Evaluating the World of Forms – The Quantum Physics Spanner

Unfortunately for the empiricists like Hume, Locke and Dawkins there is one MAJOR hurdle… that of quantum physics (profoundly difficult idea alert!!!).

Since the discovery of the quantum world (a world that deals with the exceptionally small – far, far smaller than the humble atom) our understanding of the physical world has taken a turn for the VERY bizarre.

In brief, the laws that govern the world of big objects (from atoms upwards) DO NOT apply to the quantum world.

It may be that what we think we see is not a truly accurate picture of the world – this is certainly backed up by Einstein’s theory of general relativity!

Evaluating the World of Forms – The Quantum Physics Spanner

In short what quantum physics does is send a shockwave of doubt through the empirical universe. We can no longer be sure that our experiences of the world we observe around us are accurate

This links nicely with Kant’s ideas on phenomenal world and the world that exists without anything experiencing it (noumenal world)

Evaluating the World of Forms – The Language Problems (tough idea!)

Kotarbinski has suggested that Plato is guilty of making a mistake about language – the mistake of reification. Words exist in our language that do not exist in an objective sense like ‘nothing’ or ‘infinity’ Kotarbinski has argued that Plato has made the mistake of thinking that words like Justice or Good or Love really exist independently. They only ‘exist’ in as much as a person is loving or just or good but he is quick to suggest that we cannot say that these things ‘exist’ in any absolute sense. In this view Plato’s ideas are fundamentally flawed as he is searching for concepts that do not exist independently from human language.

Putting the theory into practise

By the end of next lesson you will have completed a silent debate

activity, attempted a part (b) question in timed exam conditions

and peer assessed someone’s work.

Why should we think like Cassius clay when we are writing at part

(b)?

Main Points to consider in your AO2 Evaluation

Plato

Aristotle’s criticisms (Third Man)

Rationalist views (Descartes + Kant)

Empiricist views (Dawkins)

Problems with the Analogy itself

Problems with the World of Forms

Quantum Physics (the world is not as it seems to be!)

‘Plato’s theory of Forms is of little use in understanding the

physical world’. Discuss

Aim High Mantra (Recap)

We must always aim for the highest possible standard of work, because if we aim for

perfection and miss we will not fall too far short of excellence.

Alternatively if we aim for average and miss…then we’re in trouble!

Fulfilling the Aim High Mantra

Aiming high means the following:

• I will always give you more information than you could possibly hope to fit into 15 minutes of writing because you need a range of criticisms to answer different questions.

• You will have a full range of critical material (ranging from simple to very challenging ideas) – you may find that you don’t use some because they are not relevant to the question set!

• DON’T PANIC: I will expect everyone to understand the easy stuff but I do not expect everyone to understand the most difficult stuff.

• You will find your natural level at this stage…BUT… make sure you revisit this work once you are more comfortable with your philosophy.

Part (b) pointers…In a part (b) answer you must try to criticise any ideas

that are put forward (to see how useful they are in answering the question)…

This has been referred to as ‘considering more than one point of view…’ by exam boards as opposed to

‘putting more than one point of view ’…

There is a big difference. This is why the ‘Silent Debate’ activity you are going to attempt is so useful

for thinking about answering part (b) questions.

Being able to ASSESS the strength (validity) of a claim or counter-claim is an important part of your part

(b) technique…

Weaving

(b) ‘Plato’s theory of Forms is of little use in understanding the physical world’. Discuss

(10 marks)

Ideas agreeing with the

statement

Ideas disagreeing with

the statement

Weaving at part (b) is incredibly useful. This is when you try to think of ideas that may AGREE with the statement or DISAGREE with it. If you can alternate the views that you’re discussing (agreeing or disagreeing with the statement) you will score much more highly than simply listing

FORs or AGAINSTs.

Team Head to HeadThis activity has been designed so that:

you know the part (b) criticisms for the Plato

you can work on your part (b) criticisms in groups

You can complete a timed part (b) question on Plato.

Team Head to Head - RulesThis is a group activity:

You will spend 10 minutes (MAX) reminding yourself of part (b) criticisms of Plato in your group.

Each team will then be involved in a 4-way head to head.

Only one team member can put forward an argument at any one time. Turns are taken clockwise.

The argument will be judged by the other teams not involved at that time.

You score points based on how well you have argued.

The team with the most points at the end is the winner.

The Details of the DebateThis is a live head to head debate. One team will begin by offering a criticism of the part (b) question being discussed.There is then a 30 second protected conferring window to discuss a possible criticism of the idea. The final 30 seconds is open for a chance to criticise the criticism.Once you have the mascot in hand you must attempt to criticise the criticism. If successful you gain the points if not then the turn moves clockwise to the next team (you can only criticise an idea twice then it moves to the next team).

A Note on Scoring and JudgingDecide on a team name.

Points are awarded for a ‘Good Criticism’ and as well as someone who ‘Criticised the Criticism’.

Two judges need to agree and be able to explain why a criticism was successful to score points.

Good criticisms = 2 points

Criticised the criticism = 3 points

The game will be played over a maximum of 15 minute period.

Some Possible Research Areas

Aristotle’s Third man argument

General problems with the World of Forms theory

Aristotle’s question of whether something has to be unchanging to be pure

St. Augustine’s support for evil not being a Form (privation)

Freud (notion that conscience comes from upbringing and not God)

Dawkins – ‘Memes’ not ‘Forms’

Descartes support for Plato as a rationalist

Hume, Locke and Dawkins – Plato’s world view is counterintuitive

Quantum physics – the world is not what it seems to be

(b) ‘Plato’s theory of Forms is of little use in understanding the physical world’. Discuss

(10 marks)

Recreating an exam style situation

In the AS philosophy (and ethics) exam you will have to think critically on your feet

(think about the boxer analogy – this is our sparring time!!!)

During part (b) you will have to assess the ideas that you have been explaining in

part (a)

You will be placed into groups and will engage in a silent debate to develop your

ability to think critically on your feet

Silent DebateThe rules of the debate are as follows:

Each group needs an A3 sheet with the part (b) practise question titleEach person in the group takes a turn to write a response to the question (using the AO2 work we’ve studied).You can either: begin a new point, or challenge a point that has been made previously. Do not write at the same time as someone else!Consider what has been written before rather than having a pre-prepared point (try to react to what others have said to make it more organic)Make sure that your group covers the main points made by Plato, Aristotle, quantum physics, Augustine etc…

Silent Debate Stimulus

(b) ‘Plato’s theory of Forms is of little use in

understanding the physical world’. Discuss

(10 marks)

Silent debate key points:1. As the name suggests, the debate is

silent.

2. Only one person writes at any given time.

3. You must be reading what others have written so that you can respond.

4. You can begin your own thread at any time.

5. Practise weaving as much as you can.

Complete the silent debate activity

(you have 20 minutes in which to do this)

(b) ‘Plato’s theory of Forms is of little use in

understanding the physical world’. Discuss

(10 marks)

Silent Debate Feedback

Attempt the part (b) question

Plan your answer first then spend 15 minutes writing it… Practise

weaving

(b) ‘Plato’s theory of Forms is of little use in

understanding the physical world’. Discuss

(10 marks)

Look over the levels of response

descriptors

Peer Assessment

Read someone else’s work. Then:

1. Offer two good points about the work you have read.

2. Suggest an area for improvement

3. Sign and date the work

Levels of Response

Indicate which band you think the work is

in.

State the mark they have achieved.

a) Explain Plato’s analogy of the cave. (25)

b) ‘Plato does not value experience enough.’

Discuss. (10)