Introduction to Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Introduction to Philosophy - Essay Example The next part in Plato’s model is ‘belief’. At that part, reality or ‘truth’ is made based on one’s superstition, views of reality, and actual objects. Belief is an emotional state that becomes a part of an individual because of the powerful influences of culture, religion, or any widely believed aspect of the period. Beliefs that are based on religion are impossible to challenge because knowledge is strongly tied by the influences of religion. A person’s belief in heaven and hell and the presence of saints are some examples of knowledge at this part. The third stage is ‘scientific knowledge’. This stage is shown by mathematical formula, research, and empirical data. Some examples are medicine, law of inertia, gravity, and so on. The top part of knowledge is ‘reasoning’, defined as the rational combination of all forms of knowledge. The vertical line from the lowest stage to the highest one shows that there is a certain extent of knowledge gain at every stage, but as the line moves from the bottom kinds of truth to the top, there is a related movement from the lowest level of reality to the highest. The line is broken up into two very different parts. The higher and bigger part is a symbol for the intelligible area and the lower, smaller part is a symbol for the visible part. This unbalanced separation represents the lower level of truth as located in the visible part in comparison to the higher reality in the intelligible domain. As shown in the earlier diagram, the lowest kind of knowledge is ‘eikasia’ (imagination). Imagination is the shallowest kind of brain work where the mind deals with impression or the least level of truth. Obviously, imagining may refer to the act outside plain appearances of objects to their inner truth. However, Plato defines imagining as the senses view of appearances i n which such appearances are understood as the truth. On the other hand,