Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The top section of Plato's Line
In the line analogy (509d-511e), Plato uses subdivisions of a line to describe different ways in which humans examine "objects". Explain what categorizes types of examinations which fall into the top subdivision of the line and explain why philosophy is one of these types of examinations.
2 comments:
For starters, the question is horribly vague. The "top subdivision of the line" is not a very helpful statement; perhaps it'd be better if you were a bit more specific, say, the "subdivision of the intelligible which pertains to investigations from hypotheses," which is what I will assume you meant.
First, the explanation. The statement is that this form of understanding involves using a hypothesis as opposed to a principle to figure things out. The way this works is that you know how one or more similar situations turned out, and so can build a theory on how this situation will turn out. The other subcategory of the intelligible is based on first principles, meaning that you know how the situation would normally turn out and will therefore guess accordingly.
Philosophy is an understanding based on hypotheses because there are no facts involved in philosophical questions; they are all based on ideas. One can't make an argument about what the definition of truth entails if there is no solid definition of truth. Truth is a variable. All human concepts are variables, specifically because they are human concepts, and humans as a species are a variable; No two people are alike, so logically no two definitions of truth will be alike.
-Louis
The top is the section of "objects" from the Intelligible things. These are like The truth of a thought of your own knowledge. To trust your own knowledge and question how things work is A true love of knowledge. A true thing is a true form of something therefore it is a true meaning of philosophy. It a true thought so it had the form of a "object" or true Intelligible thing. It only becomes a Image of the intelligible thing when it is Said to someone.
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