The Fundamental Reality

A detailed Summary of The Fundamental Reality

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

Throughout time, man has taken for granted, that his reality and things that have appeared true, are real. At one point man has ventured to challenge those things asking, what is reality? What is real? What is truth or something that is true? We can first try to define reality by the following: Re-al-ity n 1:The quality or fact of being real. We then ask ourselves, what is a fact? Fact n 1: A thing that has actually happened or is really true. Well then what is truth? Truth n 1: An established fact. It appears that we are contradicted with a boundless cycle of definitions, making it difficult to obtain a legitimate definition. Therefore, I will attempt to define the fundamental reality by criticizing some ideologies and supporting others. These ideologies include some of the two most disputed and upheld theories of; Plato's theory of perfect forms and Aristotle's theory of substance.

At the base of the tremendous philosophical contribution that Plato made to Western thought, was his theory about the "Perfect Forms". To Plato's way of thinking, the "reality" that we see directly around us is merely a shadowy reflection of a "higher reality;" one

Being thus ever-changing or "impermanent, these "particulars" are not truly real. Then what is real he thought? Nothing on earth.  But there is a realm of such reality which exists beyond our earthly domain in the realm of the gods, in the realm of heaven.  This is the unseen world of the " Perfect Forms." An example of Plato's forms is roundness. We could say that a cd was round. Thus, we know what roundness is, but we never have experienced anything that is truly round. We have never seen a perfectly round circle. Mathematical equations for a circle, only represent a series of spaceless points. The cd partakes in the form of roundness, and is a flawed copy. Even if all things that we were to call round were to blink out of existence, there would still always be the form of round. This theory I conclude to be a valid one. Although not perfect, I believe it helps get at reality the most accurately for these reasons. First, we already agree that the more objective a concept is the more real the thing it represents. We show that we believe this using objectivity to distinguish appearance and reality. Therefore the first premise is that the more objective you get, the more real you get. Thus, forms are more objective than material objects and therefore forms are more real than material objects. Second, the example of greatness can be used to support Plato's theories. Imagine you see a number of great objects, and when you look at them there seems to you to be one and the same idea (or nature) in them all; hence you conceive of greatness as one. If you then go on and allow your mind to embrace in one view the idea of greatness and of great things which are not the idea, and compare them, will not another greatness arise, which will appear to be the source of all these? Then another idea of greatness comes into view over and above absolute greatness, and the individuals that partake of it; and then another, over and above all these, by virtue of which they will all be great, and each idea instead of being one will be infinitely multiplied. This shows that there will be an infinite

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Approximate Word count = 1409
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Science