Socrates and me Part II (Plato and my Grandfather)
I had recently been thinking about getting back to Plato (read Socrates) but I hadn't had a chance to. Last week (October 19th, 2006) there was a solicitation to my late grandfather in my home town. As a part of this, I had learnt a lot about him. One of such discoveries was that he had translated a book in English titled "Theory of Knowledge" into Telugu. On further enquiry, I found that
this version in English by Cronford was in turn a translation of Plato's work. This part of "theory of knowledge" was associated with a story that Socrates
narrates in "The Republic", book 7. This story is very popular as the 'Analogy of the Cave". I had read this analogy about 3 years back when I was crazily
trying to write a thesis on "Theory of Analogy". Of course, I had lost the Abstract as it was lying on my hard disk which got corrupted. Anyway, coming back
to the actual discussion, I wanted to kind of get back to "Socrates and Me" series I had started last year.
I first read the "Analogy of the Cave", in a book on Western Philosophy, I do not remember the author name now. The story is about how the process of
perception of Truth to a mind that is illusive. In short it takes up a scenario of Enlightenment of an individual and the consequences he would bear in his
society which is still in dark. I think I would not re-write the story because there are numerous accounts of it everywhere in the world. I would rather do
an analysis of my own understanding of the theory and my own remarks.
According to my understanding of the story, Plato tried to depict how people tend to condemn the Truth, whilst believing the illusory preconceptions in their
minds. Many times in History, we have seen the beliefs of people so strong, but limited to just what is passed on over generations, ignorant of the actual
truth. The best examples would be of course, Science itself, and the foremost I can think of in this regard is that between Galileo and the Church.
Galileo when discoverd that Earth is revolving around the Sun, contrary to the then belief that Earth was the centre of the Solar System, the Church did not
just not believe him, but fanatically prosecuted him. I read somewhere that finally Church accepted Galileo's discovery in 1992, several hundreds of years
after his death. A more complicated story is with Einstein's Theory of Relativity.If we go beyond science into philosophy, of course we come back to Socrates. I suppose you know what happened about his prosecution.
Anyway, Plato was trying to explain a certain concept, deriving conclusions from this allegory. The theory popularly called "Forms". The concept of Forms in
simple words is, like various classes. For example, Form of Dogs, Form of Horse, Form of Humans. Again there is enough literature available solemn
commentaries on this Theory of Forms. During my first read of these forms, I was also learning the Object oriented concepts. I found striking similarity
between the two. I was so tempted to write a paper on the comparison of both, with a title "Object Oriented Programming and Plato's Theory of Forms". Of
course it never went of, because while I was doing a small research on the same, I already found a paper. Eventually discovered that there are many who went
through this already. So, as I always was, just left it there, trying to get into something which no one did before.
In a single statement, it can be said that the "classes" in OOPS are equivalent to the "Forms". And the "instance of a class, an object" is like the object, a specific set that belongs to a Form. There are enough papers now explaning the Abstraction, Encapsulation and Inheritance as compared to the Theory of Forms. So thats all with the comparison here.
I would have to spend some quality time in understanding this theory of knowledge and if possible grab a copy of grandfather's translation into Telugu to put together bits and pieces of my own conclusions. It would be particularly interesting because my grandfather being a Marxist and an equally great scholar in Hindu philosophy, would have contribute in his own way to the Gyana Siddhantam.
One thing I always end up is on the analogy between the great Greek thought and the ancient Hindu philosophy. I was less certain earlier, but my feeling now grows that all of the current knowledge, scientific or philosophical originated from my home land, Bharatha Varsha and from the religion that the humankind ideally belongs to, the "Sanatana Dharma".
I shall come back on more as now I am really ignorant of many things which I wish to say. So long now.
this version in English by Cronford was in turn a translation of Plato's work. This part of "theory of knowledge" was associated with a story that Socrates
narrates in "The Republic", book 7. This story is very popular as the 'Analogy of the Cave". I had read this analogy about 3 years back when I was crazily
trying to write a thesis on "Theory of Analogy". Of course, I had lost the Abstract as it was lying on my hard disk which got corrupted. Anyway, coming back
to the actual discussion, I wanted to kind of get back to "Socrates and Me" series I had started last year.
I first read the "Analogy of the Cave", in a book on Western Philosophy, I do not remember the author name now. The story is about how the process of
perception of Truth to a mind that is illusive. In short it takes up a scenario of Enlightenment of an individual and the consequences he would bear in his
society which is still in dark. I think I would not re-write the story because there are numerous accounts of it everywhere in the world. I would rather do
an analysis of my own understanding of the theory and my own remarks.
According to my understanding of the story, Plato tried to depict how people tend to condemn the Truth, whilst believing the illusory preconceptions in their
minds. Many times in History, we have seen the beliefs of people so strong, but limited to just what is passed on over generations, ignorant of the actual
truth. The best examples would be of course, Science itself, and the foremost I can think of in this regard is that between Galileo and the Church.
Galileo when discoverd that Earth is revolving around the Sun, contrary to the then belief that Earth was the centre of the Solar System, the Church did not
just not believe him, but fanatically prosecuted him. I read somewhere that finally Church accepted Galileo's discovery in 1992, several hundreds of years
after his death. A more complicated story is with Einstein's Theory of Relativity.If we go beyond science into philosophy, of course we come back to Socrates. I suppose you know what happened about his prosecution.
Anyway, Plato was trying to explain a certain concept, deriving conclusions from this allegory. The theory popularly called "Forms". The concept of Forms in
simple words is, like various classes. For example, Form of Dogs, Form of Horse, Form of Humans. Again there is enough literature available solemn
commentaries on this Theory of Forms. During my first read of these forms, I was also learning the Object oriented concepts. I found striking similarity
between the two. I was so tempted to write a paper on the comparison of both, with a title "Object Oriented Programming and Plato's Theory of Forms". Of
course it never went of, because while I was doing a small research on the same, I already found a paper. Eventually discovered that there are many who went
through this already. So, as I always was, just left it there, trying to get into something which no one did before.
In a single statement, it can be said that the "classes" in OOPS are equivalent to the "Forms". And the "instance of a class, an object" is like the object, a specific set that belongs to a Form. There are enough papers now explaning the Abstraction, Encapsulation and Inheritance as compared to the Theory of Forms. So thats all with the comparison here.
I would have to spend some quality time in understanding this theory of knowledge and if possible grab a copy of grandfather's translation into Telugu to put together bits and pieces of my own conclusions. It would be particularly interesting because my grandfather being a Marxist and an equally great scholar in Hindu philosophy, would have contribute in his own way to the Gyana Siddhantam.
One thing I always end up is on the analogy between the great Greek thought and the ancient Hindu philosophy. I was less certain earlier, but my feeling now grows that all of the current knowledge, scientific or philosophical originated from my home land, Bharatha Varsha and from the religion that the humankind ideally belongs to, the "Sanatana Dharma".
I shall come back on more as now I am really ignorant of many things which I wish to say. So long now.
Siddartha Pamulaparty
Oct/Nov 2006
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