Philosophy 1020 Lecture : 17. Plato's Forms.docx

• School: Western University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: Philosophy 1020
• Professor: John Thorp

Document Summary

Plato"s forms (november 8, 2011: preliminary matters, the meaning of metaphysics Aristotole called the subject first questions or first philosophy . Study of most basic questions of reality. Overlaps with cosmology, logic, math, theology and psychology: our program for this unit. Time: introductory question: the nature of numbers. Where do elephants exist: africa, zoo etc. Independent in our minds, but not located in physical space. Numbers appear to be real public objects, nonspatial, eternal, and not perceptible but knowable: plato"s forms. Another word, plato"s word, for such public but non- physical, nonspatial object is. Forms cause the existence of physical things and their properties: scope of forms. Plato thought forms were corresponding not just with numbers, but to any general concept at all (ex. You can see an individual instance of yellow, you can think the form of yellow. While you can perceive an individual house, you can think the form of horse: the twice-divided line.