Reflection Paper #13

Idealism is the theory that reality is based on absolute truths and not materialism. You are taught to have big dreams and goals. Plato continued his development of idealism when he opened up his own school which he named “The Academy”. Plato taught the following things; he taught that the truth is in all things; he believed that everyone should go in search of the truth because it is perfect and forever and that the hunt for the truth is the mission of every philosopher. In Plato’s theory of form he argued that the things that change are unreal and can’t be the object of true knowledge. His idea was that good was the source of all the true knowledge. His teachings were to embrace ideas and to reject matter because you would not be able to progress toward the good because when you accept matter and reject ideas thing became unstable. This is done by having an open mind and refusing selfish desire. In order to achieve this you need to have a grip on the subject matter at hand and critical focus. He thought since there are universal truths in math equations that the same concept goes in every other field like politics, religion and education. Truth equals honesty therefore being the best policy and this we are taught at home and it’s bought into our schools. As for his views on reminisce Plato thought that if the world around us can’t be the source of our knowledge of the ideas, then how can we learn of them. He thought that each person needed to have a soul and which has access to good because of a prior experience. He believed that people were born without knowledge and those that became knowledgeable had the duty to help out and give of themselves in order to teach. Our teachers are bound by an ethical code to teach students and basically are tracked because of the FCAT testing we have in Florida.