Greek Culture and Its Hellenistic Diffusion 47from any object perceived by the senses. Because the
senses are deceptive, understanding can be achieved
only through the knowledge of forms. When extended
to such universal qualities as justice or beauty, the the-
ory of forms becomes the basis for absolute standards
that can be applied to human conduct, both public and
private. To Plato, the relativism of the Sophists was an
illusion (see document 3.2).
Platonic Idealism (also known as Realism, because
it affirms the reality of ideas) was one pole of the epis-
temological debate that would occupy Western philos-
ophy for centuries. Subjectivism in its various forms
was the other. Because the argument dealt with what
was real and what was knowable, the position of
philosophers on epistemology influenced and in some
cases determined their view of everything else.
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was the most famous of
Plato’s pupils. After studying at Plato’s Academy until
Plato’s death, Aristotle served as tutor to the future con-
queror Alexander the Great. In 336 B.C.Aristotle estab-
lished his own school at Athens called the Lyceum. His
followers were known in later years as the Peripatetics
after the covered walkway or peripatosunder which they
met. Most of the enormous body of work attributed to
him appears to be derived from lecture notes and other
materials collected by the Peripatetics in the course of
their studies.
Though he accepted Plato’s theory of forms, Aris-
totle rejected the notion that they were wholly separate
from empirical reality. He relied heavily upon observa-
tion, especially in his scientific work. His basic view-
point, however, remained, like Plato’s, teleological.
Both thinkers believed that things could be understood
only in relation to their end or purpose. To Aristotle,
for example, actions must be judged in terms of the re-
sult they produce, an ethical principle that in medieval
times would form the basis of natural law. In politics,
this led him to an impassioned defense of the polis as
the best form of social organization. Although these
contributions to ethics and politics were enormously
important, Aristotle’s greatest influence lay elsewhere.
Logic, or the process by which statements are
formed and relate to one another, was central to Greek
discourse. Aristotle was the first to analyze this process
and, in so doing, codified a logical method that domi-
nated formal thought until the twentieth century. Its
basis is the syllogism, an argument that in its simplest
form says that if all A is B and all C is A, then all C
must be B. Aristotle went far beyond this, and his six
treatises on logic, known collectively as the Organon,
describe many types of syllogisms, the formation and
DOCUMENT 3.2
Plato: The Parable of the Cave
The parable of the cave appears in The Republicby Plato.
It describes in graphic terms the difference between sense per-
ceptions and reality, which can only be perceived through
thought. The cave is a metaphor for the world of sense impres-
sions in which nothing is as it appears, and to Plato all people
are prisoners within it. The author is speaking to his friend
Glaucon.“Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean
cavern with a long entrance open to the light on
its entire width. Conceive of them as having their
legs and necks fettered from childhood, so that
they remain in the same spot, able to look forward
only, and prevented by the fetters from turning
their heads. Picture further the light from a fire
burning higher up and at a distance behind them,
and between the fire and the prisoners and above
them a road along which a low wall has been built,
as the exhibitors of puppet-shows have partitions
before the men themselves above which they show
the puppets.” “All that I see,” he said. “See also,
then, men carrying past the wall implements of all
kinds that rise above the wall, and human images
and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone
and wood and every material, some of these bear-
ers presumably speaking and others silent.” “A
strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange
prisoners.” “Like to us,” I said: “for, to begin with,
tell me do you think that these men would have
seen anything of themselves or of one another ex-
cept the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of
the cave that fronted them?” “How could they,” he
said, “if they were compelled to hold their heads
unmoved through life.” “And again, would not the
same be true of the objects carried past them?” ...
“Then in every way such prisoners would deem re-
ality to be nothing else than the shadows of artifi-
cial objects.”
Plato. The Republic,trans. Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1963.