Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In philosophy, Plato's epistemology is a theory of knowledge developed by the Greek philosopher Plato and his followers. Platonic epistemology holds that knowledge of Platonic Ideas is innate, so that learning is the development of ideas buried deep in the soul, often under the midwife-like guidance of an interrogator.
[p] With this conflict, Socrates decides that true judgement and knowledge must be different things. After distinguishing between knowledge and true judgement, Theaetetus recalls being told that true judgement 'with an account (logos) equates to knowledge. [q] Things without an account are 'unknowable', while things with an account are 'knowable'.
Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality. Super-ordinate to matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind. [14]
Plato writes that the Form (or Idea) of the Good is the origin of knowledge although it is not knowledge itself, and from the Good, things that are just and true, gain their usefulness and value. Humans are compelled to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully without philosophical reasoning.
Plato also identified problems with the justified true belief definition in the Theaetetus, concluding that justification (or an "account") would require knowledge of difference, meaning that the definition of knowledge is circular. [63] [64]
The paraphrased saying, though widely attributed to Plato's Socrates in both ancient and modern times, actually occurs nowhere in Plato's works in precisely the form "I know I know nothing." [7] Two prominent Plato scholars have recently argued that the claim should not be attributed to Plato's Socrates. [8]
In Plato's Theaetetus, Socrates considers a number of theories as to what knowledge is, first excluding merely true belief as an adequate account. For example, an ill person with no medical training, but with a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that he will recover from his illness quickly.
While the body's perceptual faculties are deceptive, Plato also argues that the falsehoods that they communicate to the soul can be used to trigger or prompt recollection. [3] Secondly, Plato clarifies that genuine knowledge, as opposed to mere true belief , is distinguished by its content. One can know only eternal truths since they are the ...