"Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil" - Plato

The Allegory/Analogy of The Cave:

Hello again. As I mentioned before this post is going to be about the 'story' Plato used to make his theory of The Forms more relatable and understandable.
Story time with Stacie oooo yeahhhh...

Deep in a cave some parishioners are chained in a way which they can only see the cave wall in front of them. A little way behind the prisoners is a fire and behind the fire are puppeteers. The movements of these puppets are cast on the cave wall in front of the prisoners. As these shadows are all the prisoners have ever known (as they have never been able to turn around and see the puppeteers) they believe the shadows to be real and the reality of life, every movement and sound the puppets made the prisoners would see no other explanation than it coming from/being controlled by the shadows themselves.

One day one of the prisoners is unchained and dragged up and out of the cave against his own will. When he gets to the outside of the cave he is blinded by light, it takes his eyes a long time to adjust to this new and dazzling light but once it does then the prisoner for the first time sees reality. He comes to the realisation that everything he had thought he'd known from the shadows in the cave were false pretenses of some other explanation. 

The escaped prisoners admires the sun and sees it for its true purpose as the source of everything else his eyes can see, the prisoners now understands that the sun is the cause and sustainer of life and without it nothing would exist including himself.

The prisoners never wants to go back into the cave but feels it is his moral duty to educate the other prisoners of the truths of the world through his experiences outside the cave. When he re-enters the cave he is blinded by the darkness once again. When he returns and tells the other prisoners what he has learnt they call him stupid and a lier they say that he is a fool and that they wish they could kill him. The passion of the still chained prisoners to kill the escaped prisoner because of their disbelief and denial of what he was trying to tell them they persevered and do in the end manage to kill the escaped prisoner.

The End

There are key points in this story that link to Plato's Duelist World and Forms theory:

• The cave - this represents the world of appearance inside the cave we are constantly deluded by shadows and images of purer things.
• The shadows - the shadows represent the imitations of the forms that we see and experience with our manipulating senses in the world of appearances 
• The chained prisoners - represent society who are tricked into believing something that isn't reality
• The puppeteers - represent people of power such a the government who believe they know the truth and enforce this upon everyone else even though their idea of reality is wrong.
• The escaped prisoner - represents a philosopher who is asking questions about what is around them to the point where they are able to see the pure forms for what they are. Many versions of this analogy claim that Plato wrote the escaped philosopher based on his teacher Socrates who was a huge influence on Plato and his theories. This is demonstrated further when the escaped philosopher is killed as this shows the anger that Plato had towards the people of power who executed Socrates for trying to get people to think about what they see and experiences rather than just excepting it.
• The accent - this represents that it is hard to find knowledge and wisdom 
• The drag - because the prisoner is forced out of the cave this shows that we are very reluctant to except new views and change out mindset
• The outside of the cave - this represents the world of the forms the pure, knowledgeable world where only a few will be able to enter 
• The adjustment - this shows how hard it is to enter the real world and except it
• The sun - is the form of the good as it is the cause of life and every other form and is completely breathtaking
• The moral duty - philosophers see that is it their duty to educate and get people to think rather than accept 
• The return - the escaped prisoner is blinded again when they enter the cave this shows that the world of appearances clouds out judgement and hides reality from us
• The chained prisoners - represent society refusing to allow people to help to see the truth 
• The death - shows the extreme lengths people will go to defend what they know

"Ballet is purifying, every movement physically honed and essential, with no superfluity or excess" - Jennifer Homans

Yeah, yeah, I know I said the next post would be about The Analogy of the Cave blah blah blah.

Last night (11.02.14) I went to see Swan Lake by Moscow City Ballet with my Mum. It was a really random impulse thing on Saturday night when we brought the tickets. But we have both wanted to see a proper ballet performance for a long time. I feel like it is one of those things that you should experience at least once and what better time to experience it than when Swan Lake comes to your local theater.

When I was a lot younger I did ballet (as well as tap, modern, gymnastics and trampolining... oooh I was so energetic what has happened) I was your typical, except slightly chubbier little 5 year old in a pink tutu wanting to become a ballerina. However it is only now that I have grown up that I appreciate the undeniable  talent of ballerinas, their elegance, grace, control and intensity truly intrigues me and makes me realize I would have never made it as a ballerina.

The self control of these ballerinas is remarkable having to stay still in such odd positions for so long, having to hide their panting breaths behind smiles and the constant spinning without ever being phased by it. They must be very passionate and enthusiastic for what they do otherwise I have no idea how they get through the training to be as brilliant as they are.

Also I have never seen such muscular thighs and bums in my life!

No but in all seriousness it was fantastic the only way you will really understand is if you get the chance to go yourself. I find it amazing how such an intense and complex story can be portrayed wholly through dance and with a fantastic orchestra. I am so unbelievably thankful that I got to go. I highly recommend to anyone that has thought about going to the ballet to just go and do it, it is well worth it.

Me & my Mum next to the swan before we went in.

"Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself" - Plato

Where to start?

All three of these animals look almost completely different yet we still know that they are all dogs. But what makes us link one dog from another? Most people would say, "well their ears, legs, fur, paws and tails" and I would reply "haven't you just described a cat?" 

There has to be something that makes us associate one dog from another, maybe it is just the way their features are put together or because that is what we have always been told. But maybe not, what if it's more than that, something bigger that we cannot see in itself but helps us link what we see.

Plato:

This is where Plato comes in. Plato is a Greek philosopher student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. He is best known for his book 'The Republic' one of his key theories in this is about The Forms. Plato disregarded posteriori's (knowledge through experience) as he believed that our senses in this world trick us and our bodies demand too much that they distract us from questioning and finding truth

The Worlds:

Plato is a soul duelist, he believed there are two world: 

1. The World of Appearances - this is the world we are in, the world where I have written this blog post and you are (possibly, maybe, if your not bored yet) reading it. This is not the real world, nothing we see or experience here is real. We don't learn in this world but remember what we learnt in The World of the Forms. This is why everyone seems to have an understanding of things such as beauty before they have learnt it, this is called a priori (knowledge before/without experience)
2. The World of the Forms - this is a spiritual and real world, everything there is perfect, unchanging and eternal. In this world exists pure forms. We learn here but not through senses, we are at one with knowledge and understand everything. 

Plato believed we cycle from world to world, but only philosophers can break the chain and live forever in The World of the Forms because they question the world around them instead of accepting what they are told by their senses and by other people. Through separating our mind form our body and questioning Plato believed you could come to see the Forms for what they really are.

Forms:

I mentioned that in The World of the Forms there are pure forms by this I mean there is true and perfect version of everything (we can all imagine a perfect bed or a perfect dinner.) In The World of Experiences what we see are imitations and shadows of true form, they are not perfect like the pure forms. We happily except that what we see is true because it has some truth in it however little it may be, because it is easier for people to believe things that have some truth in them (if your mind has gone to Moriarty trying to get people to believe Sherlock is a fake, in The Reichenbach Fall, by using mostly truth congrats, me and you will get along nicely) 

A pure form is perfect as it fulfill its purpose (in the same way a perfect bed would fulfill its purpose of sending us to sleep)

I just want to sleep here forever!

Referring back to the example of the dogs, we associate all of those breeds of dogs as dogs because they are imitations of the pure form of a perfect dog that fulfills the purpose of a dog. Because all of these breeds have part of the pure forms within them, this is why we can link them together.

However Plato did not often concern himself with material things when he talked about forms. The main forms that Plato emphasized were: truth, beauty and justice, in The World of the Forms the pure forms of these exist and it is because of this that we see them here, but as we know these features are often manipulated and twisted, this is because they are only imitations, not the pure thing (a copy of something is never a good and perfect as the real thing)

Finally Plato also talks about The Form of the Good, this is the greatest and superior form that causes all of the other forms, The Form of the Good has many God like qualities and in many ways was Plato's God.

Coming up...

My next blog post will be on The Allegory/Analogy of The Cave, this is the example Plato used to explain his theory of The Forms.

My Opinion:

I like Plato's theory as it explains how me link things together, how we have awareness of certain things before we are taught/experience them and because it does makes sense that philosophers know more as they ask more questions. However I dislike how far-fetched the idea of another world is, but then what do I know!

Over to you:

I want to know what you think of Plato's theory so far, please let me know in the comments what you like/dislike about the parts of the theory we have discussed in this post.

You have made it to the end, well done.

If there are any parts that you are unclear on or wish to know more about please feel free to ask :)

Thank you so much, see you soon x

"Every man desires to know" -Aristotle

Hi I'm Stacie, so here it is the dreaded first blog post!

The Blog:
This post is purely to introduce myself and this blog. To be honest I don't really know what I'm doing here because I'm not the best at writing stuff like this.

But I am going to try as I really want to have somewhere to express how I feel about particular topics from big philosophical questions to what movie I have enjoyed recently or what book I'm reading, as well as getting your opinions and feedback.

Me:
I am 16 and currently doing my A-levels (Philosophy & Ethics, Law and Biology) and have a passion for philosophy and theology which is what I would like to take on further if possible.

I'm excited to be starting this blog, it is a totally knew thing for me, it's odd though I feel as if I am starting another one of my failed diary attempts... hopefully I will be better at this one.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, if you have any requests as to something you wish for me to talk about please leave a comment, I want this blog to be a discussion/debate so please feel free to give as much input as you would like

Finally, I am still in the process of making my blog look how I want it to, so please bare with me on that one.

Thanks again, Stacie.