Never has a title of a lecture been so relevant to me!

Philosophy is a subject that I had only slightly touched on at high school – having studied Higher Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies I had a very, very basic understanding of Philosophy. So going into our philosophy lectures was like starting with a blank canvas, which didn’t really bother me. However, I don’t think my mind was made for such deep thinking. I really liked John’s lecture styles and the laughs he gave us, but I have never been so confused! The big questions of philosophy literally blew my mind and I struggled to comprehend the meaning of it all. So, when John emailed us the TDT I may have panicked slightly – how can I commentate on something that I don’t understand? I decided the best thing to do was to look over the slides of the lecture I found most interesting and re-read the notes I had taken during that lecture. Still confused, I watched a video ( thanks to Emma!!!)  that explained it again in a slightly different way and I think I have grasped it now. So bare with me whilst I (attempt) to commentate on Plato’s Theory of the Forms:

I found the lecture Remembering, Forgetting and Getting Confused very interesting. I had never thought about the reason how I know a chair was a chair or an apple was an apple – it seemed like a natural thing that I have always known. It was Plato and his Theory of the Forms that made me think. Firstly, Plato believed that there are two worlds: the material world ( the world we live in) and the real world. The material world is constantly changing and we rely on our senses to understand what is going on, whereas in the real world (which is outside the one we live in) is unchanging, eternal and is a world of ideas. In the real world there are perfect forms of the things that we know on earth – on earth they are just a poor imitation.

So if we take apples, for example (John used chairs but for some reason I found apples – used in the video- easier to understand). All apples share an underlying apple-ness – for Plato this would be regarded as the true form of the apple. There is one true form of apples and that one form, forms the many. The form of an apple is unchanging and eternal but apples themselves are simply appearances of true form, that’s why they change and become imperfect (I.e. they rot.) In the material world there is no such thing as a perfect apple just imperfect reflections of the form of apples. Us human beings can recognise the form of apples as we are born with a dim recollection of them from prior existence in the real world. We can recognise apples because we recognise the apple-ness ( the eternal, unchanging form). This is the same for chairs.

Plato also believed that there is an inner part of us – known as the soul – that doesn’t change and is eternal. Before it was “tied” down with a body it was connected with the real world of the forms. This is the reason we understand forms because we have been in contact with them through our soul in the world of the forms. This is why when we see objects we know what they are in the physical world.

I though this was very interesting as it explains why we, in a sense, automatically know what objects are. I think this might be part of the reason we often have moments where we recognise something but don’t know where from – possibly because we have seen the true form of it in the real world. I think this is a difficult topic because it opens up lots of different questions, such as: Is there such thing as a soul? Are actions like coughing and sneezing “remembered” and undertaken automatically due to our genetic composition? Do we only know what an apple is or what a chair is because of people around us – being taught from our parents what things are from an early age and following the actions of other people (for example seeing people sit on chairs so we do that too because it seems as if it is the “normal” thing to do)? Are we influenced to do things and think things from those around us?

Philosophy isn’t really any less confusing for me but I just don’t think my mind can handle the big, open questions it presents.