Plato's Two World Theory

In his theory, Plato sees the physical earthly world as being ‘full of unevenness, imperfections, and impurities’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay). He observes ‘Physical objects are constantly changing (in flux, to use the Heraclitean term)’ (http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/intro/plato_two_worlds.html) and therefore ‘They are transient and ephemeral’ (ibid). He goes further, with his famous Cave Allegory, to explain that ‘what we see on earth are mimics of the real thing, only with a lot of imperfections’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay), in other words, ‘In real life all that is seen is an illusion (smoke) of the real thing’ (ibid). From this view point, Plato presents his two world theory, in which, ’there are two separate worlds or realms’ (http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/intro/plato_two_worlds.html), namely the visible world of ordinary physical objects and the intelligible world of the Forms. Needless to say, in his Cave Allegory, the former is described as prisoners’ world in the cave whilst the latter as the real world out of the cave. In this theory, there are Forms in the intelligible world that ‘are unchanging and eternal’ (ibid), unlike physical objects we see in our visible world. Furthermore, Plato argues that the visible world ‘is a kind of shadow or reflection of the world of the Forms’ (ibid), ‘Physical objects (in the visible world) are less real than the Forms (in the intelligible world). Physical objects get what reality they have by their participation in the Forms’ (ibid), in other words, what he calls Forms ‘are what really exists’ (ibid).

Now, there arises a question whether the so-called intelligible world is accessible from our visible world or not. On this point, Plato gives the metaphor of the Divided line, another metaphor – along with the Cave Allegory – in his work The Republic and explains as it follows: ‘The intelligible world consists of the things above the (main) line’ (ibid), namely images and Forms, whilst ‘The visible world consists of the things below the (main) line’ (ibid), namely physical objects that are shadows or reflections of the Forms. Nonetheless, in practice, it is yet unclear what does it mean above/below the divided line and though Plato postulates in case where ‘once the humans rose above (the divided line from) their physical environment, they would understand the Forms which were present in the invisible world’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay), nevertheless, this still holds a room to be answered, as it is argued ‘Whether he meant this would occur after death or during life remains a mystery’ (ibid).

Cave Allegory

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/