Platos Theory of Knowledge - Essay Example

Epistemology deals with what knowledge is, how we acquire knowledge, and how we justify what we believe. Plato’s theory of knowledge is generally referred to as “justified true belief.” This epistemological theory basically states that knowledge is gained through an explanation provided for a belief. There are two very important and basic components to this theory. To explain them in more detail, I will state that the theory obviously rests on what a person believes. A person will not put any effort into attempting to explain something that they do not believe. There is no way to gain knowledge without something actually being believed, in other words. However, obviously there is not any way to gain knowledge by merely believing something. A viable explanation has to be provided for these beliefs. As an example, if a person who is sick believes that they will get better, this will simply not do a single thing to help the person get better. The person might get better, or the person might not get better. Simply believing something obviously has no real effect in the tangible world. A person who is sick and taking antibiotics to get better has a justifiable reason to believe that they will get better. First, the person has taken antibiotics before, and they got better after taking the antibiotics. Second, the person feels exactly lie the last time that they were sick, and they are being prescribed the same exact dosage of antibiotic. Since the conditions are identical to the last time, the person has a justifiable reason to believe the use of the antibiotics will make them better. Plato’s theory of reality serves to inform and compliment his theory of knowledge. Plato believed in Truth; he believed that it existed somewhere in the universe regardless of whether or not we are able to ever achieve it. Plato held a dualistic view of reality. First, there is the visual, that which is experienced through a posteriori, which is merely just a reflection of Truth. Second, there are the eternal Forms, which is knowledge that is gained a priori. Consider an example of a tree. Somewhere in the universe there exists in some form the Form of Tree, and it is because that we have knowledge of this form that we are able to recognize a tree when we see one, despite the fact that no two trees look alike. When we see trees, they are merely reflections of the Form of Tree. This can be seen in Plato’s allegory of the cave. The prisoners in the cave are merely viewing shadows of objects and naming them. They are not seeing the objects themselves, and they do not see the original source by which all other objects can be viewed, the sun. The sun is meant to be taken as Truth, and it is the medium that allows us to be able to have any sort knowledge at all in the first place. People do not have to have knowledge of Truth or the Sun for them to exist, but they are merely naming shadows on the walls if they do not know that they exist. Knowledge does not depend upon experience, because what we experience visually is merely a reflection of the true forms. According to Plato, it is in the true Forms that true knowledge exists. The idea of justified true belief has been around in Western thought for so long that at this point it might just seem to be common sense to many people. It is obvious that no knowledge can be gained if either a person does not believe something or by a person merely believing something. We are taught from a young age to be able to think about why we believe certain things that we do believe. However, there have been many issues raised by various philosophers about justified true beliefs. Though it was considered to be a foundation of much of Western thought for centuries, it was reexamined in the 20th century. One criticism that can be made of it is in the idea of any sort of eternal truth. Let us take a tree as an example again. Plato felt that we had knowledge of what a tree was because we had some sort of a priori knowledge of the eternal form of the tree. But what if a person saw a really short tree and called it a bush or some other kind of shrubbery? In the true Form of Tree and Bush, is there supposed to exist an exact cut-off point of where a tree begins and where a Bush begins? If there did, the only reason for this would be a completely arbitrary reason, and how could anything be considered to be a pure, eternal Truth if it was based on any sort of arbitrary reasoning? For Truth to exist in the form that Plato thought of it, one would think that there would have to be some sort of justification and explainable reason for why anything is the way that it is. There then exists a need to explain why a tree is called a tree. Consider the prisoners in the cave. Plato thought that they had no way to establish any sort of truth or knowledge because all they were doing was to name reflections on the wall. Another way of viewing knowledge, reality, and the words we use is to say that instead of words reflecting the forms, we can say that the words the prisoners used constructed their reality. Instead of saying that a tree is called a tree because the word reflects the form, the word constructs what Plato considers the form. There really is no solid reasoning to show why one person would be incorrect if two people looked at the same plant and one person called it a bush and the other person called it a tree. Looking at the analogy this way, the prisoners are the one with the true knowledge because they do not think that there exists some source of absolute truth in the universe. The prisoner who escaped saw the sun, but the prisoner was mistaken in the fact that people could only have knowledge if they knew that the sun existed. The prisoners were naming the shadows, and their act of naming the shadows made the shadows be whatever they called them. One prisoner saw a shadow and called it a tree, and another prisoner called it a bush. They were both right, because there isn’t any solid, non-arbitrary evidence to state why one object should always be considered a tree and the other object always considered a bush. What if the prisoner brought a towel back with him? He would tell the other prisoners that this was a towel, and ti was a towel because you wash your face with it. One of the other prisoners grabbed it from him and placed it over top of himself because he was cold. This prisoner said that the towel was a blanket, and his act of naming it a blanket made the object a blanket. The first prisoner could object all that he wanted, he had no justification for saying that a towel could not also be a blanket. Plato’s forms were unchanging, constant, and they did not allow for this or any other kind of subjectivity. Of course, this kind of reasoning opens up to all other sorts of counter-arguments, but that is the topic of another discussion. Read More