Editing World (section)

=== Plato ===
[[Plato]] is well known for his [[theory of forms]], which posits the existence of two different worlds: the sensible world and the intelligible world. The sensible world is the world we live in, filled with changing physical things we can see, touch and interact with. The intelligible world is the world of invisible, eternal, changeless forms like goodness, beauty, unity and sameness.<ref name="Kraut">{{cite web |last1=Kraut |first1=Richard |title=Plato |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=24 April 2021 |date=2017}}</ref><ref name="Brickhouse">{{cite web |last1=Brickhouse |first1=Thomas |last2=Smith |first2=Nicholas D. |title=Plato: 6b. The Theory of Forms |url=https://iep.utm.edu/plato/#SH6b |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=24 April 2021}}</ref><ref name="Nehamas">{{cite journal |last1=Nehamas |first1=Alexander |title=Plato on the Imperfection of the Sensible World |journal=American Philosophical Quarterly |date=1975 |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=105–117 |jstor=20009565 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20009565 |issn=0003-0481}}</ref> Plato ascribes a lower ontological status to the sensible world, which only imitates the world of forms. This is due to the fact that physical things exist only to the extent that they participate in the forms that characterize them, while the forms themselves have an independent manner of existence.<ref name="Kraut"/><ref name="Brickhouse"/><ref name="Nehamas"/> In this sense, the sensible world is a mere replication of the perfect exemplars found in the world of forms: it never lives up to the original. In the [[allegory of the cave]], Plato compares the physical things we are familiar with to mere shadows of the real things. But not knowing the difference, the prisoners in the cave mistake the shadows for the real things.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Partenie |first1=Catalin |title=Plato's Myths |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-myths/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=24 April 2021 |date=2018}}</ref>