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Plato's Four Types Of Epistemological Dualism

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Dualism is the philosophy that the mind and the body are not identical. For Plato things in existence for human beings, what we can see with our eyes, are only ideas and what is real is the forms which exist outside of human sight. The example Plato used is that a simple thing such as a bed would be linked to the perfect idea of a bed that exists independently. Plato saw the mind being identical with the soul but he argued that the soul goes through a continuous process of reincarnation. There are four main types of dualism: substance dualism, property dualism, predicate dualism, and epistemological dualism. Substance dualism argues that the mind is an independent substance. Property dualism is the idea that the mind is a group of independent properties that emerge from the brain, but is not distinct. Predicate dualism argues that more than one predicate is required for the world to make sense, and that the psychological experiences we go through cannot be …show more content…

Plato uses the example of a young child who had no knowledge in geometry or trigonometry, can be trained to have knowledge that he did not know he possessed. Plato uses the argument that he would not be able to display the knowledge unless he recollected it.
The third argument is called the indestructibility of the soul (the affinity argument). This argument attempts to prove that the soul survives death. Since the body is mortal, it constantly changes and is made of different parts, the soul must be immortal and unchanging because it is not composed of many parts. And the last argument (the argument from opposites) states that since death is the opposite of life, and opposites are interrelated (according to the cyclical argument), then when the human body dies, life must go on. This also relates back to the affinity argument because the soul survives

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