Political Science · Western Political Thought
UGC NET January 2017 Political Science
Which one of the following is not a source of Plato's theory of Ideas?
AHeraclitus – The notion of sphere of becoming
BAntisthenes – The notion of absolute asceticism and rigorous self-mortification ✓ Correct
CSocrates – The doctrine of concepts
DEleatics – The idea of a sphere of absolute being
Correct answer: (B) Antisthenes – The notion of absolute asceticism and rigorous self-mortification — Antisthenes, with his absolute asceticism and self-mortification, is not a source of Plato's Theory of Ideas.
Explanation
★Antisthenes, with his absolute asceticism and self-mortification, is not a source of Plato's Theory of Ideas.
★Plato's Forms draw on Heraclitus, whose doctrine of perpetual flux convinced him that the sensible world is always becoming and never truly is.
★From the Eleatics, Parmenides and Zeno, he took the idea of a changeless sphere of pure Being as the object of real knowledge.
★From Socrates he inherited the search for universal definitions and concepts, which became the Forms.
★Pythagorean mathematics also shaped the Forms as abstract, eternal objects grasped by reason alone.
★Antisthenes was a pupil of Socrates and founder of the Cynics, whose ethics of renunciation belongs to a different tradition.
★The standard trio behind the Forms is Heraclitus for becoming, the Eleatics for being, and Socrates for concepts, with Pythagorean mathematics adding their abstract character.
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