But when philosophers attempt to project them as possessing a reality independent of the objects experienced, they become metaphysically significant and need to be accounted for. As long as they are treated as something the mind abstracts from day to day experience of common objects, they do not pose any specific philosophical perplexities. In ordinary language, the universals consist of what is the common element in the many particular objects that bear the same name. The problem of universals has always posed problems to philosophers. The objects of this world are mere copies of these abstract universal essences. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras abstract essences of things. The universals alone are real and they are 1Īspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Everything that exists in the empirical world is therefore unreal, as they are all particular concrete objects. The individual cats in this universe are unreal, but the essence of cat or cattiness is real and imperishable. This can be elaborated with a simple example. 104) In his philosophical theory, Plato had advocated an uncompromising idealism which asserted that the experiential world (empirical reality) is fundamentally unreal and is a mere appearance and ultimate reality is constitutive of abstract universal essences of things. I say this for two reasons: first, that Aristotle himself is an outcome of Plato second, that Christian theology and philosophy, at any rate until the thirteenth century, was much more Platonic than Aristotelian. Bertrand Russell in his A History of Western Philosophy observes: Plato and Aristotle were the most influential of all philosophers, ancient, medieval, or modern and of the two, it was Plato who had the greater effect upon subsequent ages. In terms of influence, both these thinkers have stimulated generations of thinkers across continents. An equally important thinker of this age was his own disciple Aristotle, who incidentally was his greatest critic as well. He belonged to a period in Greek philosophy, which had witnessed the emergence of many novel ideas, to which he too had actively contributed. He then became the disciple of Socrates, who remained till the end, as a source of great intellectual inspiration in his life. With the latter he studied the philosophy of Parmenides, whose conception of permanent, unchangeable and imperishable substance.
He was educated by Cratylus, who was a disciple of Heraclitus and Euclides of Megara. Plato’s Idealism: An overview Plato, arguably the greatest metaphysician of European philosophy, was born in Athens in a noble family in about 427 BC. This chapter will discuss the following topics. This chapter will introduce the important features of the idealistic philosophy of the ancient Greek thinker, Plato, who was a disciple of Socrates and the teacher of another celebrated philosopher, Aristotle. Plato’s Idealism Key words: Idealism, theory of ideas, eternal essences, parable of the cave.
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