The Philosophers

Yesterday's class marked the beginning of our look at the ancient Greek philosophers. We introduced Socrates, Plato & Aristotle, but our primary focus will be on Plato. The basis for our discussion was his Allegory of the Cave which is found in Plato's Republic. I took a few 'prisoners' myself in our darkened 'cave' of a classroom to illustrate the basis of the story. The point being that Plato views the material world as a mere shadow of what is really real--the immaterial spiritual world. This is the realm of ideas or Forms as Plato describes it. Next time we will dig a little deeper into the Theory of the Forms and see how Plato's ideas still influence the world today. (Click on the picture to read a short explanation of the cave allegory.)