metaphysics
That there are aspects of metaphysics that lend colour to this caricature can scarcely be denied. The language of Plato, in particular, suggests an absolute distinction between the deceitful world of appearances, which can never be an object of knowledge, and the unseen world of Forms, each of which is precisely what it appears to be. Plato urged his readers not to take seriously the things of sense; he told them that everything having to do with the senses, including the natural appetites and the life of the body, is unreal and unimportant. The philosopher, in his view, needs to live an ascetic life, the chief object of which is to cultivate his soul. Only if he does this, and follows a rigorous intellectual training, has he any hope of getting the eye of his soul fixed on true reality and so of understanding why things are what they are. Yet even this program admits of an innocuous, or relatively innocuous, interpretation. The “dialectician,” as Plato called his metaphysical philosopher, is said in one place to be concerned to “give an account,” and the only things of which he can ... (200 of 37,078 words)Metaphysics as knowledge of the supersensible