‘there Is A Reality Beyond What We Can See.’ Assess This View.

There are two primary approaches to address the concept of what is real, rationalism and empiricism. Plato was a rationalist, meaning he relied upon reason as a means to discern truth. He argued that our senses are unreliable as a source to understand the world. Plato noticed how our senses regularly deceive us. Aristotle himself noted that by staring into a waterfall and then looking at a rock, the rock appears to move when, in reality, it does not. Similarly, the world we perceive is always changing, in a constant state of flux. Heraclitus introduced this idea when he commented No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. However, Plato did recognise that there were eternal truths, such as mathematical truths, which do not change. This led him to the belief that behind the sensory world exists an eternal and unchanging reality: the realm of forms. Our sensory world consists of particulars which exist because they participate in the forms. For example, there are many apples in this world but one form of the apple in the realm of forms from which they all take their existence. Our changing reality that we perceive, then, comes from the more true reality of the forms.

This idea he sets out in his cave analogy. In the cave, prisoners, chained up and forced to observe the cave wall, believe that shadows cast by objects moved along a walkway are the true reality. This concept is articulated in the popular modern adaptation of this idea, the Matrix, where Morpheus refers to the Matrix as the world that has been pulled over your eyes . Plato suggests that we are ignorant and need to be informed and enlightened by the philosopher who has escaped the shackles of this sensory deception through reason. Plato was a dualist who believed that the soul was trapped within the body and that bodily desire keeps the mind ignorant to truth. He famously likened this to a charioteer, the mind, pulled in two directions by different horses, the body and the soul.

One support we can offer for Plato s theory of forms is the recollection argument. We see that a sunset is beautiful but we also recognise beauty in great pieces of music or a newborn child. These particulars are entirely qualitatively distinct except for their beauty. As such, beauty has no specific criteria. How then, do we know that these particulars are beautiful? Plato argues that the only explanation is that we have innate knowledge of beauty from a time when our soul existed in the realm of forms and recognise it when we see particulars that participate in the form of beauty.

Another support is found in the imperfection argument. We can imagine a perfect circle but we have never experienced one& it is impossible for a perfect circle to exist in reality. Similarly, we know that any particular is at best imperfectly beautiful. Plato suggests that since we know particulars to be imperfect, we must have experience of the perfect state, or the form. Since this cannot be found in the sensory world, again, Plato explains that this innate knowledge comes from the soul and the realm of forms.

However, there are problems with the theory. The middle finger argument articulates that particulars in this world exist partly in relation to others. We can happily accept that an apple is essentially that, an apple, and relate this back to its participation in the form of an apple. On the other hand an apple is only large in comparison to a smaller object, like a grape. It is also small in comparison to a larger object, like a watermelon. This apple cannot be essentially both large and small, nor can it take its existence from two contradictory forms at once. Plato does suggest that there are not forms of large or small but then we start to unravel the link between reality as it is and the existence of the forms.

An argument proposed by Aristotle was the third man argument. Even Plato proposed this himself, though not satisfactorily responding to it. The argument suggests that since chairs a, b and c all share a commonality, there must exist a form of the chair, f, to explain this. However, now a, b, c and f all share a commonality, and as such there must exist an additional form, and so on. This leads to an infinite number of forms if we apply Plato s logic stringently.

Thirdly, the forms also exist in an overly static worldview. Plato s world was one without evolution, where a group of objects could be said to have a permanent essence. But since organisms themselves are constantly changing, how can there be a form for the human or the ape when each generation is distinct to the last. At what point did humans become humans and stop being apes? Could we draw a line or are there a multitude of forms?

Lastly, Plato seems to describe a gloomy world of limited existence when he sets out the cave analogy. In reality, our world does not appear very similar. Of course Plato argues that we are simply ignorant or the truth but it is hard to accept when our observations of this world lead us more and more to exciting discoveries about the nature and fabric of the universe.

Aristotle proposed an alternative explanation for existence. He accepts that the world is changing but does not leap to the belief in a separate reality. He proposed that reality was perceived and understood by our senses, he was an empiricist, and that reality was explained by an ongoing movement from potentiality to actuality. We perceive an actual world around us but that this actuality is also a potential something else. A child is an actual child but a potential adult. Aristotle explains that the movement from potential to actual is caused by four causes: material, efficient, formal and final. A chair is a chair because of the wood and glue, its material. It is also a chair because of the process of creating it, its efficient cause. The form of the chair, Aristotle argues, is not something distinct from the object but a part of it, namely its characteristics: four legs, a seat, a back. We recognise other chairs not because of innate knowledge but because we see similar characteristics. Finally, the final cause is its purpose, or telos, a chair exists because somebody needs to be seated.

Aristotle paints a picture of a real world that is in flux but that this motion is a normal feature of reality. In doing so, he undermines any need for an alternative reality. He much better explains how the form of the human has evolved over time and does not need to explain how an immaterial world is connected to a physical one.

However, Aristotle s worldview is also problematic. His view is teleocentric, he places undue importance in purpose, or telos. We might question whether a stone has any purpose. He goes so far as to suggest that all motion is caused by the telos of the universe, the Prime Mover, but most would argue that the universe has no purpose, nor does it appear to moving towards one. He also relies on a belief in an eternal universe to explain the Prime Mover, one which contradicts modern scientific models.

In conclusion, the debate seems to hinge on the issue of change. Plato rejects the sensory world because of it and Aristotle embraces it. For the Platonist, empiricists are simply deluded, chained-up prisoners of their senses, but then this claim can be made of anyone who disagrees, so isn t especially helpful. One might argue that Plato is too quick to deny that reality can exist in flux, alongside unchanging truths, indeed Aristotle talks of different kinds of substance. Plato s cynicism around sense data forces him to invent a world of which he can provide no evidence and his justifications of the forms seem adequately explained by Aristotle s notion of the form as part of a physical object. Although Aristotle is hampered by his own logical leaps, he seems to make less serious jumps than Plato. Hume later raises the issue that rationalists are prone to invent much more than they can evidence, and as such, I favour the empiricist.