Plato's
Reading both Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" and Maimonides' "On the Limits of Man's Intellect" opened my eyes to different views on how one can recognize true knowledge. I agree with Plato on a couple points, for example when he says that people, if wanting to gain knowledge, they must bring forth an effort and also if one desires to live ethically, it is essential to live beyond the world of your sensory perceptions because they are unreliable and imperfect. I also agree with Plato on the theory of virtue, stating that wisdom has a divine power which may be turned either towards good of toward evil. Reading "on the Limits of Man's Intellect" gave me reasons to disagree with Maimonides. His theory of man not being able to understand a thing because he or she did not discover it and his point on the human brain, where he believes that there is a certain point to which the human mind cannot pass became vague to me. These authors share the view towards the significance of knowledge being life's number one objective, but there are
differences in their thought to which I can agree and disagree. One could ask, well the how do you gain true knowledge? Agreeing with Plato, I would say "[......] that the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort" (Plato 319). A person cannot say the Grand Canyon is beautiful, if he is relying on information that a friend has told him who has been there. The person is basing his knowledge on a belief told by his friend. The friend who seen the Grand Canyon has the true knowledge; although the man is still entitled to understand the beauty and nature of the Grand Canyon. If he is going to speak of the Grand Canyon then he should first visit the place. In Plato's Allegory man is basing what he knows on shadows. To the prisoner "[......] truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images" (Plato 316). Plato uses this appearance verses reality scheme to focus on man's perception of things. For example, if I were to hold an object (let's say a sneaker) behind the prisoner, he would say, "I see a sneaker." He thinks he is talking about a sneaker, but
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Approximate Word count = 761
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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