Platonic Idealism

Information about Platonic Idealism


Part of a series on Platonism
Platonic idealism
Platonic realism
Middle Platonism
Neoplatonism

Platonic epistemology
Socratic method
Socratic dialogue
Theory of forms
Platonic doctrine of recollection
Individuals
Plato
Socrates
Discussions of Plato's works

Metaphor of the sun
Analogy of the divided line
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Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. That truth, Plato argued, is the abstraction. He believed that ideas were more real than things. He developed a vision of two worlds: a world of unchanging ideas and a world of changing physical objects.

For example, a particular tree, with a branch or two missing, possibly alive, possibly dead, and with the initials of two lovers carved into its bark, is distinct from the abstract form of Tree-ness. A Tree is the ideal that each of us holds that allows us to identify the imperfect reflections of trees all around us.

Plato gives the divided line as an outline of this theory. At the top of the line, the form of the Good is found, directing everything underneath.

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; at the beginning, this school had a 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 usually divided into three periods:

Plato's students used the hypomnemata as the foundation to his philosophic approach to knowledge. The hypomnemata constituted a material memory of things read, heard, or thought, thus offering these as an accumulated treasure for rereading and later meditation. For the Neoplatonist they also formed a raw material for the writing of more systematic treatises in which were given arguments and means by which to struggle against some defect (such as anger, envy, gossip, flattery) or to overcome some difficult circumstance (a mourning, an exile, downfall, disgrace).

Platonism is considered to be, in mathematics departments the world over, the predominant philosophy of mathematics, especially regarding the foundations of mathematics.

One statement of this philosophy is the thesis that mathematics is not created but discovered. A lucid statement of this is found in an essay written by the British mathematician G. H. Hardy in defense of pure mathematics.

The absence in this thesis of clear distinction between mathematical and nonmathematical "creation" leaves open the inference that it applies to allegedly creative endeavors in art, music, and literature.

It is unknown if Plato's ideas of idealism have some earlier origin, but Plato held Pythagoras in high regard, and Pythagoras as well as his followers in the movement known as Pythagoreanism claimed the world was literally built up from numbers, an abstract, absolute form.

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Platonism

Platonic idealism
Platonic realism
Middle Platonism
Neoplatonism

Platonic epistemology
Socratic method
Socratic dialogue
Theory of forms
Platonic doctrine of recollection
Individuals
Plato
Socrates

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Part of a series on
Platonism

Platonic idealism
Platonic realism
Middle Platonism
Neoplatonism

Platonic epistemology
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PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on.
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SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of education. The second phase of the programme covers the period January 1 2000 to December 31 2006. It draws on the experiences of the first phase (1995-1999) building on the successful aspects of the programme,
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truth extends from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular.^[1] The term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree.
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Abstraction is the process of generalization by reducing the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, typically in order to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose.
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In metaphysics, a universal is a type, a property, or a relation. The noun universal contrasts with individual, while the adjective universal contrasts with particular or sometimes with concrete.
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Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).
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The History of Athens is one of the longest of any city in Europe and in the world. Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 3,000 years becoming the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BC; its cultural achievements during the 5th century BC laid the
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academy (Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia
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Hypomnema (Greek. υπομνημα, plural υπομνηματα, hypomnemata), also spelled hupomnema
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Knowledge is defined (Oxford English Dictionary) variously as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or
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Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics.

Recurrent themes include:

* What are the sources of mathematical subject matter?

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Foundations of mathematics is a term sometimes used for certain fields of mathematics, such as mathematical logic, axiomatic set theory, proof theory, model theory, and recursion theory.
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Godfrey Harold Hardy FRS (February 7, 1877 – December 1, 1947) was a prominent English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis.
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This article is about the philosophical notion of idealism. Idealism is also a term in international relations theory and in Christian eschatology.

For the Digitalism album, see .

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Pythagoras of Samos (Greek: Πυθαγόρας; between 580 and 572 BC–between 500 and 490 BC) was an Ionian (Greek) philosopher^[1]
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Pythagoreanism is a term used for the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were much influenced by mathematics and probably a main inspirational source for Plato and platonism.
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Platonic Idealism

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