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Aesthetics  The philosophical study of art and of value judgments about art and of beauty in general.
Delphi Oracle  An oracle is a shrine where a priest delivers a god's response to a human question, this being the most famous oracle which is said to have pronounced Socrates the wisest of people.
Form  In Plato's philosophy, that which is denoted by a general word (such as "good") that applies to more than a single thing.
Myth of the Cave  Plato uses this vivid allegory to explain his two-realms philosophy. In the Myth of the Cave, a group of prisoners is placed so they can see, on the wall of the cave, only reflections of objects carried back and forth in front of a fire behind them. Because the reflections are all they see, the prisoners assume the reflections to be reality.
Plato  Famous for his Theory of Forms and his two-realm doctrine two separate worlds with two types of knowledge.
Platonic dualism  Two-ism; the doctrine that existing things belong to one or another but not both of two distinct categories of things, usually deemed to be physical and nonphysical or spiritual.
Plato's "dialogues"  Two dozen compositions by Plato, of which the most famous is the Republic.
Skeptic  One who questions or suspends judgment on the possibility of knowledge.
skepticism  The doctrine that true knowledge is uncertain or impossible.
Socrates  Plato's mentor and philosophy's most illustrious practitioner of the Socratic / dialectic method.
Socratic (or dialectic) method  Is a search for the proper definition of a thing, a definition that will not permit refutation under Socratic questioning.
Sophists  Ancient Greek teachers of rhetoric. Through them and Socrates, moral philosophy began.
Theory of Forms  Plato's central metaphysical concept.
Theory of the Divided Line  Is used by Plato to contrast knowledge, on one hand (the upper line), with mere belief or opinion, on the other (the lower part).







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