Encyclopedia > Platonic theories of universals

  Article Content

Platonism

Redirected from Platonic theories of universals

Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantial reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. That truth, Plato argues, is the abstraction. A particular tree, with a branch or two missing, possibly alive, possibly dead, and initials of two lovers carved into its bark, is distinct from the concept of a Tree. A Tree is the ideal that each of us holds that allows us to identify the imperfect reflections of trees all around us.

Some people construe "Platonism" to mean the proposition that universals exist independently of particulars (a universal is anything that can be predicated of a particular).

Platonism is an ancient school of philosophy, founded by Plato; this school had an actual, physical existence at a site just outside the walls of Athens called the Academy as well as the intellectual unity of a shared approach to philosophizing.

Platonism is generally divided into three periods:

  1. Early Platonism
  2. Middle Platonism
  3. Neo-Platonism

See Also idealism, Gnosticism



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Battle Creek, Michigan

... T.C. Boyle novel The Road to Wellville[?] and the movie of the same name. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 53,364. Geography According to the ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 23.9 ms