UGFN1000

In Dialogue with Nature

與自然對話
Plato, Republic
David Lindberg, The Beginnings of
Western Science
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 Text 1a: Plato, Republic
Text 1b: David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science

Core Question
What is ‘real’?

Reflection on knowledge

Aristotle – medieval scholars Darwin Carson Kandel

Plato Newton Watson Poincare

Western view
 Text 1a: Republic

• A Socratic dialogue
written by Plato around
380 BC
• Political philosophy,
Justice, Epistemology,
etc.

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Text 1b: The Beginnings of Western Science

• Chapter 2: Introducing Plato’s

world of forms
– Background
– Plato’s two worlds
• Allegory of the cave
– Implications

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 Today…
• The Beginning of Ancient Greek Philosophy
• Plato and his Philosophy
• Plato and Modern Science

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The Beginning of Ancient Greek
Philosophy

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Greek Mythological Thought

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 Greek Mythological Thought

Before 6th century BC:

•Sun and Moon as deities 神
•Natural phenomena as mighty
feats 事蹟 willed by god
•Capricious 任意 , non-
predictable world

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 The Beginning of Ancient Greek Philosophy:
A New Mode of Thought
Early 6th century BC:
•Exclude God in the explanation of Heraclitus 赫拉克利特 (fl.500
BC)
nature
– A new set of answers
•Things behave according to their
natures
•A search for unity behind diversity
and order behind chaos
•An orderly, predictable world

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 The Beginning of Ancient Greek Philosophy:
An Orderly World for Inquiry

• Early Greek Philosophers started a serious and critical

inquiry into the nature of the world
– Composition of the cosmos
– Changes and their causes
– General explanation of earthquakes, eclipses…

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Plato and his Philosophy

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 Plato
[Text 1b: Para. 28-29]

• 428 BC – 348/47 BC
• Classical Greek philosopher
• Mentor: Socrates
• Student: Aristotle
• Socrates + Plato + Aristotle: laid the
foundations of Western philosophy
• Ancient Greek philosophy:
the origin of modern science

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 Plato
[Text 1b: Para. 28-29]

• Plato was born into a distinguished

Athenian family, active in affairs of state
• After the death of Socrates (399 BC), Plato
left Athens and visited Italy and Sicily
• Plato returned to Athens in 388 BC and
founded the Academy

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Plato’s Academy ?
 "Let None But
Geometers Enter Here"
柏拉圖學院

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 Three Important Philosophical Issues
at the Time of Plato
[Text 1b: Para. 35-36]

1. The nature of fundamental reality

2. The problem of change and stability

3. Epistemological 知識論 concerns

(How to reach true knowledge/ true reality?)

How did Plato address these issues?

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 Plato’s Philosophy: Two Worlds
[Text 1b: Para. 32-34]

The forms 理型 are World of Forms/

1)incorporeal 非實體 , intangible 無形 , Intelligible Realm/
and insensible 不被感覺到 Knowable Realm
2)Eternal and absolutely changeless 理型世界
3)Objectively exist
True reality is located only in the world of forms

The corporeal object is an Sensible World/

imperfect replica of the form Material Realm
感官世界
Changes take place
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Plato’s Philosophy: Demiurge 神匠
[Text 1b: Para. 30-31]

• The divine craftsman (the Demiurge) constructed

the cosmos according to an idea or plan (forms)
• Everything in the cosmos are replicas of eternal
ideas or forms
• Always imperfect replicas because of limitations
inherent in the materials

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 A divine craftsman to the cosmos ~
A carpenter to his tables
• From the idea of a table in the carpenter’s mind
to the actual tables
• The carpenter replicates the mental idea in each
table imperfectly
• No two tables are exactly the same

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Form and its imperfect replicas:
Diving as an Analogy

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 Three Important Philosophical Issues
at the Time of Plato
[Text 1b: Para. 35-36]
1. The nature of fundamental reality
True reality – world of forms

2. The problem of change and stability

World of forms – changeless; sensible world – with change

3. Epistemological concerns
(How to reach true knowledge/ true reality?)
By sense experience? By reason?
Find it out yourself!!! [Text 1b, Para. 36-38]

• Aristotle also addressed these three questions (Text 2) 20

How should we acquire knowledge?
What do you think?

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 Plato’s philosophy is hidden in
his “Allegory of the Cave”

Can you connect the “Allegory” with Plato’s two worlds???

Text 1a, Para. 18, Text 1b, Para. 32-34

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An adaptation of the allegory

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Allegory of the Cave and Education
Outside the Cave

Education

Where are you now???

In the Cave
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 Different Levels of Reality
[Text 1a: Para. 11]
Most Outside the Cave
SOCRATES: He would need time to get
adjusted, I suppose, if he is going to real Sun
see the things in the world above. At
first, he would see shadows most
easily, then images of men and other ‘The things

Education
things in water, then the things themselves’
themselves. From these, it would be
easier for him to go on to look at the
things in the sky and the sky itself at
night, gazing at the light of the stars
The statues
and the moon, than during the day,
gazing at the sun and the light of the
sun. Less Shadows
GLAUCON: Of course. real In the Cave
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 Scientific Knowledge:
Approaching the Most Real
Research on Malaria
1898: Human experiment
demonstrated the
transmission
Is it real?

1897: Mosquito transmits

malaria parasites
How did it get into blood?
1888: Several species of
malaria parasites
differentiated
Only 1 type?

1880: Malaria parasite found

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in patients’ blood
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Plato and Modern Science

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 Similarities to Modern Science
[Text 1b: Para. 39]
1. Seeking the Shared Characteristics
When Plato assigned reality to the forms, he was, in fact,
identifying reality with the properties that classes of things
have in common.

• What does Lindberg mean?

The bearer of true reality is not (for example) this dog with the
droopy left ear or that one with the menacing bark, but the
idealized form of a dog shared (imperfectly, to be sure) by every
individual dog—those characteristics by virtue of which we are
able to classify all of them as dogs.
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 Similarities to Modern Science
[Text 1b: Para. 39]
1. Seeking the Shared Characteristics

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 Similarities to Modern Science
2. Idealization
Idealization is a prominent feature of a great deal of modern
science; we develop models or laws that overlook the
incidental in favor of the essential.
Theories development in modern science

Natural laws Mathematical laws

Idealization (Para. 39)

Experimental data Observations

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 Similarities to Modern Science
2. Idealization
Genetic Law

Idealized Ratio
Genetic
3:1 (Different sets
Law
of experiments)

Idealization is a prominent feature of modern 33

science. We develop models and laws.

 Similarities to Modern Science
2. Idealization
Idealization is a prominent feature of a great deal of modern
science; we develop models or laws that overlook the
incidental in favor of the essential.
Theories development in modern science

World of Natural laws Mathematical laws

forms???
Idealization (Para. 39)

Experimental data Observations

Sensible
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 Summary
Greek Mythology

 ??
Greek Philosophy Plato:
An orderly world World of forms Allegory of the Cave
for inquiry

Sense? Reason?
True Reality

3 Philosophical Changes
Questions Sensible world
•Reality
•Change Modern Science
•Epistemology •Seeking shared
characteristics
•Idealization
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 Tutorial Next Week
• Read Texts 1a and 1b before next tutorial
– Reading Guides and Mini-Dictionary
• Bring your textbook and name tag!!!

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 Major references
• Plato, Republic / translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by
C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1992.
• Plato, Republic / translated by C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing, 2004.
• Lindberg, David C., The Beginnings of Western Science.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
• Henry, John, A Short History of Scientific Thought. London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• Wikipedia, “The Republic (Plato),” 16:30, 5 September
2011.
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END

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