Question

Plato was a: A. static monist B. dynamic monist C. metaphysical dualist D. none of the above

Answer 1

Plato was a Greek philosopher who lived in Greece and is considered as the most influential figure who contributed to the development of western philosophy along with Socrates. Plato’s thoughts on metaphysics were heavily influenced by 3 of his predecessors namely Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Socrates. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy. The main objective of metaphysics is to give an answer to the question “what is there”. Dualism theory states that reality can be broadly classified into 2 types such as material and immaterial. The material is the physical part which is visible to our eye and immaterial is the nonphysical part such as the mind. Plato’s theory of forms is considered as the earliest form of dualism theory which states that there is another world which is a world of ideas separated from imperfect physical world which we know through our sense organs. In this world which moderns often call Platonic heaven, there are forms of everything. Plato, however, believed that we can only gain true knowledge through our real knowledge of forms which must be the memory of our initial acquaintance with the forms in heaven. These forms are supposed to be more real than the mere world of matter. Plato sees matter as only shaped by virtue of having some particular form the immaterial world which cannot be grasped, touched and is considered internal, timeless and never changing.

Thus we can conclude that Plato was a Metaphysical dualist.