Beginning of Essay
Plato was concerned with Epistemology. Epistemology deals with the possibilities and limits of human knowledge. It tries to arrive at a knowledge of knowledge itself. It tries to answer such questions as: Is the world as people perceive it the basic reality, or ....

Middle of Essay
.... by these ideas and is thus less real because it is always changing, but the ideas (forms) are eternal and unchangeable. Opponents of Plato, such as materialists, have claimed that the ideas were nothing more than names people have attached to the objects they perceive. Names of individual objects and of classes of objects are merely ways of organizing perceptions into knowledge. People see one animal they decide to call "dog." All similar animals are called "dogs," and a whole category of animals is thereby named without any reference to eternal ideas or forms. Materialists insist that all activities of mind and emotion are based on physical ....