The Theory Of Ideas by Plato

The Theory Of Ideas by Plato

The Theory of Ideas raises the existence of two worlds: the intelligible world and the sensitive world.

The intelligible world is eternal, unconceived, immobile and, therefore, it is a world in which nothing changes. Here it is where there is the "eidos", which is what determines the ideas, the real being or knowledge ( episteme ). In the intelligible world the ideas represent the essences of the objects of knowledge. Those ideas exist indepently of the subject that thinks them and of the objects of which they are essence so, the ideas are unique, eternal and immutable.

However, the sensitive world is submitted to change, here it is where we find the things that are susceptible to opinion ( doxa ). Therefore, this one will not be permanent, not fix, not dtermining and in consequence it will never have validity for the knowledge, that is, you can never say what they really are. Here, we receive sensations ( aisthesis )  and they are these those who fill the sensitive knowledge. Thanks to the aisthesis we catch the sensitive figure, the images and they allow us, therefore, the capture of something that belongs to the plane of the things.

 

In this way, Plato, with the methesis, explains to us the relation among the sensitive world and the intelligible world. And with the mimesis he tells us that the things of the sensitive world are related to the ideas because they are an imitation of the above mentioned, so that things are a mimesis or imitation of the ideas.