Before our lectures with John, I had never learnt or really thought about philosophy. I found many of the concepts in our lectures extrememly interesting but at the same time very confusing. It has taken me a while to get my head around some of the key concepts.
In one of the lectures we were introduced to Plato’s theory of forms. John used a chair as an example and we discussed what makes a chair, a chair. Upon further reading I have found out that Plato believes we can get answers to the questions “what is virtue? And what is justice?” To answer these questions he came up with the theory of the forms. Plato believes that if you can find the true being of virtue and of true justice, you can find its true form. He implies that all things have a true being. The world we live in is a poor imitation of the real world. Our world is constantly changing and we rely on our senses to understand what is going on. We as humans are in a constant state of flux. Plato is sure the real world is outside the world we live in. The world is unchanging and eternal.
Another concept of Plato’s I cam across what that the world is divided into two worlds, the visible and the intelligible. We can only grasp the intelligible with our minds. Furthermore, the soul does not change, it is eternal. It is connected with the real world of the forms. The world of the forms is the philosophers world. Only the person who investigates and questions learns the truth of the illusion and normal people are ruled by senses cannot see past the illusion. The material world is simply a shadow of the real world of the forms. It is the job of the philosopher to break away from the real world and find the world of the forms.
We were introduced to many other philosophers in John’s lectures such as, Dewey, Gramsci, Greene and Aristotle. Each have different beliefs and views on education. I hope that by further research I can broaden my understanding of their concepts and philosophy as a whole. I feel that these lectures will be extremely valuable when it comes to our VIVAS. I was not looking forward to the philosophy section as I felt totally clueless, however I know feel slightly more at ease and wish to improve my knowledge through further reading and research.
