Platonic realism

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Platonic realism (also called Platonism or Anti realism) is the philosophical idea that one must try to know about perfect things, even though you know that they do not exist and may not be able to be understood. It is named after the philosopher Plato. Plato thought that goodness was part of reality, but was part of a parallel 'perfect' universe. Plato thought it was the job of the philosopher to look for reflections of these perfect things in our universe and to teach others about what they found.

In philosophy of mathematics, someone is called a Platonist if they believe a mathematical proof is part of reality, but also that it is not part of our universe but a parallel 'perfect' one. Mathematical Platonists also believe that numbers are not related to things in our universe, and that even if there was never a group of one million things that the number one million would still be a real number.

Some think this idea affects our ideas about money (economics) and our ideas of time. It is hard to say if this is true, since platonism is so basic in the Western culture. Plato and his student Aristotle had many ideas which are still the most important in this culture. It is hard to say if this one was critical. God's eye view may be more important, especially in politics.

Today, Platonism is mostly considered a philosophy of mathematics but not of science or reality in general. This might under-estimate its effects. But no one calls themselves Platonist other than a few mathematicians today.