Hello, my name's Mrs. Rawbone and I'd like to welcome you to today's lesson on Plato, exploring a worldview.

We're going to be thinking about some of the ideas that Plato came up with as he explored what he thought about the world and how he saw it, and whether these ideas are relevant today.

Welcome to today's lesson on "Plato: exploring worldviews." Today, you are going to be able to, by the end of the lesson, explain Plato's theory of the forms and how it shapes our understanding of reality.

I'm really looking forward to working through these challenging ideas with you today.

In today's lesson, we're going to be using five keywords, and they are allegory, forms, Plato, real, reality.

An allegory is a story where characters or events represent deeper ideas or messages.

Forms are ideal concepts that reflect the true nature of things.

Plato was an Ancient Greek philosopher known for his theory of the forms. And real or reality is something that actually exists and is not imagined.

So our lesson today will take two parts.

First of all, we are going to look at Searching for what is real, and then in the second part of the lesson, we will look at Developing a new worldview.

So let's get started with Searching for what is real.

Here, you can see a photograph of a bust of Plato, and he's the philosopher we will be focusing on in today's lesson.

Plato was taught by Socrates and he founded the Academy, which was one of the very first schools for higher education in Athens.

As a philosopher, he was very interested in having deep conversations about life's ultimate questions.

Plato was interested in many ultimate questions.

Here are a few of the examples that he wrote about.

He was interested in what is real? What is justice? What is a good life? And what is the soul? In today's lesson, we're going to be really focusing on his exploration of the question, what is real? Because this made a huge difference to how he saw the world, to his worldview.

"What is real?" is a really important ultimate question.

If we can find out what is real, then we can know what actually exists and we can develop our own worldview.

So our own way of responding to what the world throws at us.

Plato tried to answer this question, and to do it, he used something called the allegory of the cave, which we're going to investigate in the first part of our lesson today.

Plato's theory about what is real and what we can know is a theory that still influences philosophers today and makes a difference to modern-day worldviews.

So remember, an allegory is a story with a meaning, and Plato used the allegory of the cave to explain his worldview.

So here, we have a picture, an artist's representation of this allegory written by Plato.

He uses this story in a book called "The Republic," and part of the point of the story is to explain what is real and therefore explain what his worldview is.

Now the story goes that a group of prisoners are imprisoned in the cave.

We can see them over on the left of the picture behind a brick wall.

They can only look straight ahead at the wall in front of them because they are imprisoned.

So all that they can see are shadows of what is behind them.

And behind them, we might notice people walking along carrying little statues and figurines as various real-life objects such as there's a horse there and what looks like a fox or a dog.

The fire behind the people carrying the objects means that the prisoners can clearly see shadows on the wall in front of them.

So they don't see the actual objects.

They don't see what is actually real.

Instead, they think that the shadows they are seeing are real and these shadows are the whole world.

Take a moment to think what Plato might have been trying to say about what most people see when they look at the world.

Remember, this is an allegory, so it isn't meant to be a true story, but the prisoners do represent most people.

What does Plato think they see? If you can have a conversation with someone, that would be great, or you can talk to me.

Pause the video if you need to give yourself time to do that.

So let's check your understanding on this.

Who do the prisoners represent in the allegory of the cave? Is it A, people who only understand the physical world? So that means the world that they see right in front of them.

Is it B, people who seek knowledge and truth beyond what they see? Or is it C, people who understand everything about reality? Jot down your answer.

Pause the video if you need to and then come back to me.

Well done if you put A.

That's right.

The prisoners represent most people who Plato thought only understand what's right in front of them.

They only understand the physical world, whereas Plato believed that there was more to it than that.

So let's continue with the story.

We now have the example of a prisoner who has escaped, and there are two different images of him in this depiction.

He's freed from his chains.

When he turns around, the first thing he sees is the bright fire that's casting the shadows on the wall of the cave.

And Plato actually writes, "At first, when he is compelled to turn his eyes towards the light, he will suffer sharp pain.

The glare will make him turn away to the shadows which he is able to look at." So you might be able to recognise this yourself.

Sometimes, if someone comes into your room and it's dark and they turn the light on and it takes a while for your eyes to adjust, and in fact what you do is you automatically close your eyes for a while at least until you can get used to it.

And this is what the prisoner does.

He realises there's something beyond the shadows he sees.

He is, at first, blinded by the light of the fire that's casting the shadows and he looks back to the shadows.

But the prisoner continues.

It takes a while, but slowly his eyes adjust, and he begins to see the real objects that are casting the shadows.

So he sees that people are carrying these objects and it's them that are casting the shadow.

The shadow itself isn't real.

He starts to feel braver.

And we can see in the second image of him that he finally steps out of the cave into the bright sunlight.

The glare of the sun is, of course, very bright, even brighter than the glare from the fire and it's too bright for him, but he persists because he's realised there is something more than the shadows that he saw on the cave wall.

He keeps looking and eventually he starts to see that there is a real world filled with bright colours, trees, flowers, animals, et cetera.

He realises that the shadows he saw in the cave were only a reflection of this, a small part of reality reflected on the wall of the cave.

Now he can see what is real.

What do you think Plato was trying to say about what first happens when people come across ultimate knowledge and truth? So the escaped prisoner is like the person who realises there is more to reality than what you see in front of you.

What do you think Plato was trying to say when people first realise this, what happens? If you can have a conversation, that would be great or you can talk to me.

Pause the video if you need to.

That's right, Plato was trying to say that when people look more deeply at what is real, at first, they maybe don't want to see it.

It's difficult to understand, just like the prisoner was at first blinded by the light from the fire and then from the sun when he stepped out of the cave.

So let's check your understanding here.

Who does the escaped prisoner represent in Plato's allegory of the cave? Is he A, people who are content with ignorance? Ignorance means not knowing things.

People who seek knowledge and truth.

Or people who accept what they first see.

Take a moment to jot down your answer and then come back to me.

Pause the video if you need to.

Well done if you put B! The escaped prisoner is like people who are looking for more and for understanding the real truth about life.

People who seek knowledge and truth.

In other words, people who are philosophers.

So looking at the image again, the vibrant life the escaped prisoner now sees really contrasts with the dullness of the cave and his whole worldview changes as the sun lights up what he sees and he begins to see the real objects.

He only saw the dark shadows of them before.

The prisoner realises he has gained a gift.

It's not been an easy journey, but he has gained the gift of knowledge and he is now eager to share this truth with those who are still trapped in the cave, like he used to be.

So the prisoner decides to return.

He wants to help his fellow prisoners see beyond the shadows and understand the real world.

But when he returns to tell them the shadows they have always known are not real, the other prisoners stare at him in disbelief.

They cannot imagine a reality beyond the flickering shapes they see on the wall.

At first, they laugh at him.

They call him crazy for thinking there's anything more than their familiar darkness.

But then the laughter turns to anger.

The prisoners refuse to leave the cave.

In the face of such resistance, the escaped prisoner is tempted to just leave them to it.

But in Plato's story, what he does is he stays on, as one day, he hopes he will be able to help the other prisoners discover the beauty of reality beyond the cave.

Remember, the escaped prisoner was like the philosopher looking at things more deeply.

What is Plato trying to say the job of philosophers is? Take a moment to think about what he feels philosophers should be trying to do.

Have a conversation if you can, and pause the video and come back to me.

That's right, Plato thought that philosophers had a very important role to play in society.

They should be trying to teach other people about what is real and that there is more to life, a deeper understanding than what they just come across in the physical world in front of them.

So let's have a go at our first task, Task A, Searching for what is real.

Sam, Lucas, and Laura have been asked to explain the meaning of Plato's allegory of the cave.

Whose explanation is the best and why? Lucas says, "The prisoner who escapes is like a philosopher because he gains true knowledge." Laura says, "The prisoner who escapes learns that what is real is different for everyone." And Sam says, "Once the prisoner sees the light outside, he easily understands true knowledge." Read the explanations carefully.

Two of them have got things slightly wrong and one of them is exactly correct.

Decide whose is correct.

Make a note of why.

And if you can say why the others are wrong, even better.

Pause the video and take some time to do this.

So let's have a look at what you wrote.

You might have said that Lucas's explanation was best.

If so, well done because this is the correct answer.

"The prisoner who escapes is like a philosopher because he gains true knowledge." Here's an explanation that you could have written.

Lucas's explanation is best because it shows that the prisoner's journey is like the journey of philosophers to understand deeper truths.

Now you could also explain why Laura's explanation is wrong.

Laura's explanation is wrong because Plato believed the forms are truths that exist independently of anyone's opinion.

And finally, Sam's explanation is also inaccurate because at first, the prisoner was blinded by the light, showing that Plato thought it isn't easy to gain true knowledge.

So well done if you said Lucas was correct and the others were not.

And excellent work if you managed to explain that why Lucas was right.

So moving on to the second part of our lesson, we're going to be looking at Developing a new worldview.

So Plato has explored the idea of what is real, and we have now learned that his worldview was that reality is made up of perfect forms which exist beyond our world.

And this is how it works.

We see examples of these forms. So we see examples of beauty.

What we do as we see these different examples is we notice that underlying all of these examples is a deeper quality of beauty.

So we recognise them as all being examples of the same thing.

At this point, Plato believed we realise, so we understand that there is a form of beauty, so a reality of beauty, and that what we're seeing are imperfect copies of it.

So they reflect beauty, but they are not true beauty in themselves.

Once we can understand this about one concept such as beauty, we can gain knowledge of other forms. So for example, truth and justice.

So we might see examples of truth and then we recognise that there is an absolute thing called truth that exists beyond this world and the examples we see are imperfect versions of it.

Let's check your understanding.

You're going to choose two answers.

What did Plato believe about the forms? Is it A, the forms are perfect, unchanging ideas? Is it B, the forms are things we can observe in the world? Is it C, like everything in the world, the forms change over time? Or is it D, everything in the physical world is an imperfect copy of the forms? Take a moment to jot down your two answers.

Pause the video if you need to.

Well done if you said A, they are perfect, unchanging ideas.

And if you said that B, everything in the physical world is an imperfect copy of the forms. So in order to spread his ideas, Plato founded his famous academy in Athens and his aim was to teach students about the forms, about reality.

Here, we can see a mosaic depicting his academy, with students discussing the nature of reality.

Now Plato was very interested in teaching through conversation.

All of his ideas are formed into dialogues or a script.

Usually, the main character is Socrates and there's at least one other person and very often, there were real-life people who lived in Athens in conversation with him.

We're going to think about a message that we receive from Plato through his dialogue "The Meno," and the main character, Socrates, passes this message on to us.

Socrates and Meno are deep in conversation about the nature of learning.

Meno is eager to understand whether virtue, right behaviour, can be taught and he approaches Socrates with some questions.

But as their discussion unfolds, they move more into the idea of generally what learning is.

And Socrates introduces the idea that learning is not about acquiring new knowledge, but it is a process of recollecting or remembering things that we already know that are built into us.

Now he tries to show this and he calls across an enslaved boy to join them.

Now this boy, being the slave boy, has never been taught geometry.

So he doesn't understand things like shapes and areas of shapes and how to work out problems like that.

But through some carefully-guided questioning, Socrates is able to help the boy understand the answer to a geometric puzzle.

Socrates never gives him the answer.

He doesn't tell him how to do the problem.

He just asked the right questions and leads the boy to realise that he actually already knew the answer.

The boy is astonished that he arrived at the correct answer on his own.

Now Meno also is amazed, and Socrates explains that the boy's ability to solve the problem represents a real, profound truth.

The knowledge was already built in to him.

It was just waiting there to be recalled through the use of reason.

So thinking deeply and carefully.

Now Socrates explains that our souls have seen the forms, so the perfect concepts of things like beauty, truth, justice, and even things like maths and geometry, before this life.

Plato actually believed that your soul, the part of you that lives forever, has lived before.

He wasn't exactly very clear about how this worked, but he did suggest that our soul had been in the world of the forms. Socrates asserts in the dialogue, "For it is true that the soul is immortal and has seen all things that are.

Then it is no wonder that it can recollect what it knew before." Meno is struck by this revelation and realises that true education should focus on helping people to remember their lost knowledge rather than merely teaching new facts.

And Socrates emphasises the importance of reason in this process.

So reason is like a tool or ability to think deeply, and by using it, we can uncover the truths that we had half forgotten and we can move closer to an understanding of reality.

So let's check your understanding.

Plato believed we can find true knowledge in the world around us.

Is this true or false? Take a moment to jot down your answer and to think about why.

Pause if you need to.

So well done if you put false.

You are correct.

Why? Well, Plato believed that true knowledge comes from understanding that reality is the forms which exist beyond this world.

So they're not in the world around us and we can half remember them from a previous existence.

So that's why we can recognise different examples of things like beauty.

So let's have a go at practising what we know about developing a new worldview from Plato's perspective.

Aisha, Alex, and Jun are discussing Plato's worldview.

Use the sentences below as a prompt to explain a key idea in Plato's theory.

So firstly, Aisha is thinking about the theory of the forms, and she starts to explain, "Plato's worldview is that true knowledge means realising.

." Alex is considering the allegory of the cave and begins to explain, "Plato thinks we gain knowledge by.

." Jun is considering why we might be born with knowledge.

And Jun begins to explain, "According to Plato, learning is like.

." I'd like you to finish each of these three sentences and use the prompts at the bottom to help you explain.

So for example, with Aisha, you're going to be needing to use the word "forms" and to say what forms are.

Take some time.

Pause the video.

Think really carefully about what you have learned and finish those sentences.

Come back to me when you are ready.

So there are lots of things you could have said here, but here is an example.

For Aisha, you could have said that "Plato's worldview is that true knowledge means realising that what we see is only the imperfect version of its true form." Well done if you mentioned that for Plato, true knowledge is the forms and that is what is real.

For Alex, you might have said, "Plato thinks we gain knowledge by discovering what is already inside us." Or perhaps you used the word "remembering." Well done if you said that.

And finally, for Jun.

"According to Plato, learning is like being reminded of knowledge we thought we had forgotten." So if you've been able to explain that for Plato, learning is not being taught new things, but it is remembering things we already knew, well done.

Excellent work today.

We have looked at lots of different things.

We have learned that Plato was an Ancient Greek philosopher and a student of Socrates.

Plato's allegory of the cave illustrates his worldview.

His theory of the forms explains that true knowledge exists in the world beyond us.

And his theory of the forms has influenced some philosophers to believe that knowledge is discovered through the use of reason.

Thank you for working through this lesson with me today.

Well done for all of your efforts.