Tyler Durden (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tyler_gone) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2010-01-10 11:23 pm
tyler_gone) wrote in fandomhigh2010-01-10 11:23 pm
Entry tags:
Build Your Own Philosophy, Period 2, 1/11/10
The quote on the board today says:
"If that which knows and that which is known always exist, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process of flux, as we were just now supposing." - Plato
Tyler barely glanced at it; he was preoccupied tossing a small red rubber ball at each student as they took a seat. "There. Now everyone has a ball," he said. "The question we're looking at today is if it's really a ball. We're talking about Plato's theory of forms. Plato was Greek and worked during the fourth and fifth centuries BC, and some people will tell you he pretty much came up with Western thought."
"What Plato believed, and I'm simplifying like crazy, is that nothing that we see is really real. Things that are really real are perfect, and permanent, and can never be touched. That's the world of Forms, capital F. What we live in is the world of mimes, which is kind of a Xerox of the world of Forms. The things we see, smell, touch -- they look kind of like the real things, but they can't be perfect, because they change. Look at your toys; they all came out of the same factory, all cost the same amount, but no two are exactly alike. The rubber's a little different, the ink smudged, there's a scratch ... something. But we all know what a ball is because we carry around this ideal image of the Form of a ball in our heads. Not one of you could draw a perfect circle or a perfect straight line if I asked -- no one can -- but we all know what they are."
"What you're doing today is trying to describe something the way it might exist in the World of Forms. The perfect, eternal version. Pair up and pick something off the list. Don't be surprised if one person's perfection doesn't wow someone else."
"I'm here if you need me."
"If that which knows and that which is known always exist, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process of flux, as we were just now supposing." - Plato
Tyler barely glanced at it; he was preoccupied tossing a small red rubber ball at each student as they took a seat. "There. Now everyone has a ball," he said. "The question we're looking at today is if it's really a ball. We're talking about Plato's theory of forms. Plato was Greek and worked during the fourth and fifth centuries BC, and some people will tell you he pretty much came up with Western thought."
"What Plato believed, and I'm simplifying like crazy, is that nothing that we see is really real. Things that are really real are perfect, and permanent, and can never be touched. That's the world of Forms, capital F. What we live in is the world of mimes, which is kind of a Xerox of the world of Forms. The things we see, smell, touch -- they look kind of like the real things, but they can't be perfect, because they change. Look at your toys; they all came out of the same factory, all cost the same amount, but no two are exactly alike. The rubber's a little different, the ink smudged, there's a scratch ... something. But we all know what a ball is because we carry around this ideal image of the Form of a ball in our heads. Not one of you could draw a perfect circle or a perfect straight line if I asked -- no one can -- but we all know what they are."
"What you're doing today is trying to describe something the way it might exist in the World of Forms. The perfect, eternal version. Pair up and pick something off the list. Don't be surprised if one person's perfection doesn't wow someone else."
"I'm here if you need me."
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