Review

Myth

Natural Philosophers Explain nature without recourse to myth and gods

Sophists In human behavior and society, truth is relative there is no absolute right / wrong, good / bad There is truth, right / wrong, good / bad and we can know it through the use of reason.

Socrates

My teacher, Socrates, said there is absolute truth. What I wanna know is What is truth? And where can I find it?

Plato

Truth cannot change.

If something is true it cannot change or it would not be true anymore. If something is true it must be absolute (unchanging), universal (true everywhere), eternal (true for all time). 1+1=2 is this true?

So, where do we look for truth?

In the world everything changes

Can we look at the world to find truth? In the world, everything differs and changes.

Truth cannot change..

we cannot look to the world to find truth

So where do we look?
You go to a bakery and you see 50 identical gingerbread men. How could they be exactly alike? Looking more closely you notice they are not exactly alike, they are all slightly different. Yet, they all have much in common. Why?

 You have a box of lego. You build a horse. You take it apart and put it back in the box. If you want to rebuild the horse you open the box and you put it together again. Why is it that you are able to build the horse again?

Answer
The gingerbread men are all the same because they all come from the same cookie cutter, the same mould. The reason you can rebuild the horse as many times as you want is because you have a picture in your mind of what a horse looks like. Whatever horse you build is made from an idea of a horse, a model, you have in your mind.

Will the real gingerbread man please stand up!?

Which gingerbread man is the perfect gingerbread man? The various ones in front of you or the is the cookie cutter mould the perfect one?

Will the real horse please step forward!?

Which horse is the perfect horse the various shapes, sizes and colors you might build or the idea that you have in your mind.

Truth and perfection is found in the WORLD OF IDEAS

Behind everything in the world is a mould or FORM. The world of FORMS is where unchanging perfection exists. These FORMS are absolute, unchanging, universal, eternal. TRUTH is found in the world of forms in your mind.

Allegory of the Cave

US The world as WE see it just a shadow, a reflection of what is real and true

The world of IDEAS, FORMS