What is real? This question has baffled philosophers and scientists alike for years, and has even lead to the formation of its own branch of philosophy known as metaphysics. Philosophers such as Buddha, have provided their own insight as to what is real. Various beliefs in metaphysics such as idealism attempt to provide resolution to this question. Virtual reality, in the sense of computer-generated reality, only complicates the issue. Ontology, a branch of metaphysics, also concerns itself with what is actually real. Pre-Socratic philosophers struggled to understand ultimate reality. Plato and Aristotle hypothesized about what they believed to be ultimately real, providing conflicting results. In Asia, Buddhists were attempting to provide …show more content…
The common phrase “It’s just a question of mind over matter” imitates his belief that reason controls reality. Ingrained in our culture is the idea that our bodies are inferior to our minds, and cannot be completely trusted. Only logic and reason can edge us to the truth. This provides us with the notion that we have superiority to those with lesser intellect. This allows us to live almost singularly in our heads, neglecting our bodies until they require attention. The primary implication of Plato’s view is that our proper home is not in the imperfect world, rather in another world where things exist in a perfect …show more content…
This is the theory that essentially all reality can be described as matter in motion. This ontology rejects all other theories, saying that matter alone administers ample explanation for reality. Understanding the universes physical processes is of the upmost importance, while intelligence and purpose should be looked at in lesser detail. Materialism attained its greatest expression through the scientific method. In this time, everything was governed in regard to the laws of classical physics. Every occurrence had a determined cause, and all motion was plainly resolved. No incident was free nor random, thus giving way to the epithet “clockwork universe.” For centuries materialism was the philosophical view that most closely aligned with the scientific understanding of reality. Over the course of history, physicists continued to make discovery’s providing scientific explanations for occurrences that previously had none. For a period of time it seemed as though nearly all incidents described by religion or philosophy would be replaced in materialistic terms. It wasn’t until the discover of quantum mechanics and the relativity theory, that the concept of materialism began losing
One of the main points of Plato’s philosophy was that he believed that people should not so easily trust their senses. In “The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato argues that what we perceive of the world through our sense does not give us the entire picture of what is really there. He states that what we can see is only shadows of what is true, but since we are born believing what we see, we don’t know that there is anything missing at all. Plato believed that in the “knowable realm”, the form of the good, the ultimate truth, is the last thing that we can see, which requires more effort that simply perceiving it. This ultimate truth can only be found through being able to not only perceive, but to be dragged out of the cave, or to be able to think. He likely believed this because through education, he felt that there was an ordering occurring in the mind that allowed for thoughts to become more focused, and clearer. As these thoughts became clearer, s...
For this reason, Plato believes that we must separate the soul based on how it
Therefore, many of the philosophers disagreed with each other and came up with very different answers for the same concepts. Plato also did not know the answers to all of the questions that arose in the pre-Socratic era. Plato decided to look back on the pre-Socratics era in particular at the philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides. He agreed with Heraclitus who believed our world is constantly changing and with Parmenides who believed that the real world is not the same as the world of our experience. Plato chose to look at materialism and also his theory of Forms in a two-world setting in order to attempt to answer the questions of the universe. The two worlds Plato is talking about are: a world that is in constant flux (the world we live in) and a world that is ever-changing (the real world, otherwise known as Forms). Plato’s Forms distinguishes things that are real from things in our mind that we perceive as real. Plato also made the argument that reality is different than our worldly experience. Plato believed that material objects can imitate the forms because they have order, however, Aristotle’s disagreed. However, Aristotle thought that Plato’s concept of “participation” didn’t make sense. Aristotle believed that the world we live in is our reality and he argued that Plato’s idea of forms
Plato found freedom in the world of intellect. Let's take a look at his quote:
I believe that it is all real in some way or the other the physical world is of course real, we feel pain, happiness, love how else we would feel those if it was not real. The spiritual world is real in a different way by that way we cannot see. Here is an example at my old house I would be home alone and every so often I would hear noises upstairs like foot steps to this day I could not tell you what the noise was.
How do we explain the world around us? How can we get to the truth? Plato and Aristotle began the quest to find the answers thousands of years ago. Amazingly, all of philosophy since that time can be described as only a rehashing of the original argument between Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle's doctrines contrast in the concepts of reality, knowledge at birth, and the mechanism to find the truth.
Thus, according to the theory of materialism all things consist of material and everything that is considered a phenomena is a result of material interactions, with no involvement of spirit or consciousness. Materialism is a type of monism, but still stands as its own thing.
Physicalism of the human mind is a doctrine that states that the world is ‘entirely physical’, and can be described in various ways. One way it can be described is that minds, mental properties and mental processes are visibly not physical phenomena. Terms such as “mind,” “thinking,” and “feeling” do not play in the theories of fundamental physics. For example, in this slim sense of “physical,” a lung is not a physical object, inhalation is not a physical property and diffusion is not a physical process; as in the terms “lung,” “inhalation,” and “diffusion” do not have a role in the theories of fundamental physics. Acknowledging that mental phenomena are not physical in this slim sense is not vastly acknowledging. However, certainly there is an open sense of the word “physical” in which a lung, inhalation, and diffusion are certainly physical phenomena. Physicalism of the human mind proclaims that human minds, mental properties and mental processes are physical in this open sense of “physical.” A clear open sense of “physical” is contentious in the philosophy of the mind. A common view is: “An individual item (e.g., object, property-instance, or process) is physical in the broad sense if, and only if, it meets either of two conditions: (1) it’s an item of a kind that can in principle be defined in the distinctive vocabulary of fundamental physics; or (2) it’s a physically realized item of a functional kind.” The first condition is straight forward, but the second condition evidently demands clarification. Accordingly, a “functional” kind of thing is one in which its existence entails in the actuality of “something or other” that encounters a convinced measurement where the structure and functioning of the “something or other” does not matter as long as it encounters the functioning in request. For instance, a lung is a functional kind of object in my sense. Therefore,
If we consider Plato’s ideas abstractions, we shall never grasp his meaning. But if we think of how a great artist sometimes manages to catch the vital meaning of an event on his canvas, we are coming closer to Plato’s theory. Take another example, how many of us have known someone for years when, suddenly, when one day something happens, and we see him for the first time as a “real person.” His personality has become alive and full of meaning in a way, which has nothing to do with his appearance or his attitude. Our two minds seem to look directly at one another. We feel we have a real contact with that person.
In regards to ontology and Metaphysics, there has always been the question of whether or not the nature of reality is fundamentally material or phenomenal, or whether or not mental states emerge from material causes thereby making them causally inert in themselves or whether or not material things are subsets of an underlying phenomenal realm where this has given rise to two branches of philosophy – materialism and non-materialism. Materialism was adopted as philosophy ontologically privileged to exhaustively describe everything that is by Western philosophy starting with an axiom put forth by the Stoics; everything that exists is material where there is nothing that exists that is immaterial. Western Science takes that axiom, along with its implied postulates, for granted, though, now the idea is that there exists nothing that is not physical. This subtle is called physicalism; however, the underlying premise is an inductive argument meaning that it can be disproved via counter-examples to axioms that define what it means for something to be material, so in order to prove non-materialism, one needs to come up with empirical counter-examples where Parapsychology provides empirical counter-examples that support anti-materialism.
Metaphysics comes from the Greek terms μετά, or metá, meaning above beyond or after, and φυσικά, or physiká, meaning physics. So at its roots, Metaphysics is the study of everything that lies above physical reality, and of what relationship those things have with it. However, one question arose repeatedly with almost every major metaphysical thinker, which narrowed the scope of metaphysics' targets. In contemplating that which lies after the corporeal, metaphysical minds began to wonder why things existed at all. After all, if things did not have existence, then there would nothing to consider. So, being and existence, which were before just two metaphysical concepts, became the highest powers presiding over the rest of reality, and the first philosopher to completely delineate these concepts would become equally important. This is how the quest for the cause for being began.
The ideas that Plato instills are both detailed and distinctive, on the other hand he believes that actions do not necessarily justify a person but rather, he states that justness is more of an internal virtue. The idea he is trying to convey is that justness comes from the interpretation of the soul rather than the physical functions. The reasoning behind this is that if the soul remains just, then the resulting actions will reflect just ends. Once the fact that the soul must be just is accepted, the question arises of what qualifies the soul as just will need to be answered.
The first concept to be addressed is determinism. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, determinism is “the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature.” Essentially, it is the philosophy that all events are determined by a fixed set of causes, so that the future is as rigid as the past. Some religious forms of determinism assert that events are decided by the will of a deity. For our purposes, however, we will consider the scientific form of determinism that is based on basic causality. Consider, for example, throwing a die. We might see this as a way to determine a random result (between 1 and 6). But, thrown from a certain height and with a certain velocity, the die will land on a certain edge or corner and roll a certain number of times before it slows down and stops. Because the die is bound by the laws of physics, the outcome of the roll is determined as we roll it, although we may be unable to calculate all the factors involved and predict the outcome.
First, Plato believed that ideas are the realist things in the world. What we see in our daily life is not reality; sense perceptions are only appearances. And appearances are unreliable material copies of the immaterial pure ideas. Thus to him the world of the ideas is reasonable and fixed and holds the truth. While the world of physical appearances is variable and irrational, and it only bears reality to the extent that it succeeds in capturing the idea. To live the best life that you can and to be happy and do good, as a person you have to strive to understand and imitate the ideas as best as you can. So, with this philosophy in mind we can understand why Plato considered art as just a mindless pleasure. He viewed art as just an imitation.
He believes that the soul takes shelter within the body. The three parts are all located in three different areas: reason is in the mind, spirited is in the heart, and desire is in the stomach. Reason is what controls the whole soul (Plato p. 49). The mind tells the body what to do, how to feel, what to say. The mind controls our appetites and decides who to honor according to memories about those people or events. The spirit is in the heart, the heart is what shows us how we feel about others. The stomach is desire as we crave to have certain possessions such as food or other physical materials in life. If what Plato is saying is any truth, than the argument presented that our soul is our life and our body is nothing but what carries our soul, is therefore false and unsupported by this idea of the mind, heart and stomach. Then so, our thought that Plato’s idea that we can make ourselves alive, is fairly reasonable and true. This is because it is more understandable to say that the reason why our souls are what makes us alive is because our souls are physically made of three parts that control the way we live. Our body is now not only what carries life for us, but what allows us to keep it. Our soul is different from the body because it represents life, but it is our body that allows our lives to