Knowledge and Action

Abstract

Plato defined knowledge as ‘true belief with an account’ (logos). In this view, our pursuit of knowledge is the search for justification of our beliefs. For Plato, the sensible world is in a state of constant flux and thus cannot be the object of stable and true knowledge (Plato believed that true knowledge is knowledge that is both stable and unchanging). The goal of intellectual inquiry is to discover the eternal immutable idea, which can serve as the essence and ideal of all things. These external truths are able to be recalled by an intellect that is immaterial and immortal. Education has knowledge of the good as its goal since it is ignorance of the good that leads to evil. Plato argued that the business of education was to perfect the whole person in order to achieve self-mastery and self-realization. His emphasis in the Republic was on salvation through government by an adequately-educated ruler. A true philosopher seeks wisdom. Only the philosopher who has achieved true knowledge is fit to rule. The Greeks did not believe in the specialized divisions of knowledge that we are familiar with today. Instead they believed firmly that a ruler should be a person with a truly wide knowledge base.

Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind.

Kant (1781:45)