In class, Rebecca compared poetry in Plato's time to pornography in our time. But I think a more accurate comparison would be to "The Jersey Shore". Plato resents poets and writers because they portray characters who imitate all of the bad aspects of the soul. The people portrayed in plays were tragic, dramatic, impulsive, irrational, and in the end, entertaining to watch. The characters would arouse empathy, excitement, anger, and other "false" emotions from the audience, which annoyed Plato because they were far from the "truth" that he is so preoccupied with.
Now take a look at Snooki. She is a combination of all the things Plato hated about poetry. She is irrational, dramatic, and unintelligent. She is usually naked, drunk, yelling, under arrest, or a combination of all the above. And this is what our society finds entertaining. Now who can blame Plato for condemning artists? Has anyone ever seen a person in real life who looks or acts like Snooki? Probably not. She is a long way from the truth, or ironically reality, just like the characters Plato despised. In comparison, the poems and plays that Plato talks about seem tame and harmless. But if you've ever rolled your eyes and scoffed at "The Jersey Shore", then in some aspects you think the same way Plato did.
Scintillating discussions of art and philosophy, by Rebecca Blocksome's Western Thought I class at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
What do we know?
We are slaves in a cave. We are caught in a reality of unknowingness, tied up in darkness, unable to see or hear or even speak. We have to imagine the world around us, fill in the details after we are informed about false truths. The cave of which Plato speaks is a very accurate metaphor. I've been noticing how many puppeteers exist and just how many of the puppets shadows I see. I feel that, in large part, I view myself as seeing the world in the light of the sun, but in truth it's far more likely that I'm viewing false forms in the light of the fire, just like so many other people. So what is it that we really know now? It seems many people are truly satisfied being slaves and having a puppeteer control their information as long as they never have to look at the sun to realize what they've been looking at is wrong. No one really wants to progress it seems, or are just starting to see the light of the sun and are missing the cave so they move back into the mind set of the cave. Why is it that forms of truth are so startling to us? It's an issue of comfort it seems, existing in a state of comfortable unknowing is far more appealing than the initial disorientation of seeing light and seeing truth for the first time. The only ones who believe ignorance is bliss are the people who haven't fully excepted the true forms as true good.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Theory of Forms - Plato
I find it really interesting to think about "what it means to be". Something is only that somthing because we say it is, a chair is a chair because we say its a chair, but why can't my goldfish be considered a chair? This is because if I considered my goldfish a chair I'd be considered insane.
"what is true substance?" leads to the idea of forms by Plato
It says that Plato believed in one creator that created only one form of everything and that everything else with the same "idea" or "form" is a copy. He believed that the orignal ideas that only excist in the mind of the creator were perfect and every form that excisted on this world was a copy and is imperfect. With this being said "intellectual truth" is different the "physical truth". He says that we all have the knowledge to know what a perfect idea is yet we can could never create the idea. He gives the example that we all know what a perfect circle looks like yet an artist can never duplicate a perfect circle, this is because it is only intellectual truth, not physical truth.
This means NO ONE is orginal, we are all copies of the orginal idea of the man and woman, none of us our perfect, which i think everyone already knew. We are all copies of eachother on an imperfect world.
Plato shares that somthing is equal to another thing because it shares the same form. A Stone is equal to another stone because it is participating in the same form, or corresponding with the orginal idea of the stone. Another example, we consider the dogs coat to be soft but we also consider a blanket to be soft, this is because they both participate in the orginal idea of "softness" I find this to be sooo true, I really agree with this concept, why do we connect these to vague ideas to be in the same category? a dogs coat and a blanket are two completely different forms but we consider them both to be soft? We consider these forms to soft because of perception, we are able to judge the forms to be soft because of our experience through the senses. The fact that we can argue somthing to be soft or smooth shows that their cannot be a perfect form of softness.
This post only consist of the basic theory of forms. Their are so many possibilties within this theory and arguments with other philosophers that i obviously cannot post everything in one night, but the concept in general really interests me and i'm wondering if any philosopher ever thought if a form can switch with another form, if a goldfish wants to become another a form like a table, could it? Do we only have the knowledge to think of the fish as a fish? Is a goldfish even gold? what makes a gold fish a goldfish other then the orginal idea of a goldfish? If these ideas that are only in the mind of our creator that are the basis of our entire universe were some how destroyed would our world go into complete chaos because we do not have the knowledge of any forms?
"what is true substance?" leads to the idea of forms by Plato
It says that Plato believed in one creator that created only one form of everything and that everything else with the same "idea" or "form" is a copy. He believed that the orignal ideas that only excist in the mind of the creator were perfect and every form that excisted on this world was a copy and is imperfect. With this being said "intellectual truth" is different the "physical truth". He says that we all have the knowledge to know what a perfect idea is yet we can could never create the idea. He gives the example that we all know what a perfect circle looks like yet an artist can never duplicate a perfect circle, this is because it is only intellectual truth, not physical truth.
This means NO ONE is orginal, we are all copies of the orginal idea of the man and woman, none of us our perfect, which i think everyone already knew. We are all copies of eachother on an imperfect world.
Plato shares that somthing is equal to another thing because it shares the same form. A Stone is equal to another stone because it is participating in the same form, or corresponding with the orginal idea of the stone. Another example, we consider the dogs coat to be soft but we also consider a blanket to be soft, this is because they both participate in the orginal idea of "softness" I find this to be sooo true, I really agree with this concept, why do we connect these to vague ideas to be in the same category? a dogs coat and a blanket are two completely different forms but we consider them both to be soft? We consider these forms to soft because of perception, we are able to judge the forms to be soft because of our experience through the senses. The fact that we can argue somthing to be soft or smooth shows that their cannot be a perfect form of softness.
This post only consist of the basic theory of forms. Their are so many possibilties within this theory and arguments with other philosophers that i obviously cannot post everything in one night, but the concept in general really interests me and i'm wondering if any philosopher ever thought if a form can switch with another form, if a goldfish wants to become another a form like a table, could it? Do we only have the knowledge to think of the fish as a fish? Is a goldfish even gold? what makes a gold fish a goldfish other then the orginal idea of a goldfish? If these ideas that are only in the mind of our creator that are the basis of our entire universe were some how destroyed would our world go into complete chaos because we do not have the knowledge of any forms?
Monday, February 7, 2011
Did Plato believe in unicorns?
According to Platos idea of forms, everything that can be seen is nothing but an illusion, a cheap representation of the abstract idea of the category that thing falls into. For example, the category of horses. If the idea of horses, or the form of horses, is independent from actual physical horses, couldn't the form of horses exist without any physical manifestation of horses. Even though there are no physical manifestations of unicorns, couldn't the form of a unicorn still exist? After all, everyone has a concept of what a unicorn is. Isn't it possible for imagined objects an creatures to exist as forms?
I think Plato would disagree, under the principle that imagined things originate in the mind. But I would argue that it's impossible for forms to exist independently from our minds as Plato believed. If their was no one to understand or comprehend the idea of forms, would they still exist?
I think Plato would disagree, under the principle that imagined things originate in the mind. But I would argue that it's impossible for forms to exist independently from our minds as Plato believed. If their was no one to understand or comprehend the idea of forms, would they still exist?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Understanding good and evil
After reading the story of the cave I took from it that there are two ways of interpreting reality that is visually and intellectually, and to truly understand the greatest good in life one must endure the greatest evils and that those who know the greatest good and can give that up to endure those great evils can become enlightened.