Plato's notion of Forms can be seen, and is by some, as a driver of knowledge and yet at times Forms appear to exist independently. An Ideal can express or identify love, the state itself, but only partially analyse it. The idea of Becoming nevertheless is where knowledge in our understanding, as fact or argument, lies. Reason gives knowledge of Form, but Form may exist without human attempts at knowledge.

I believe that the debate over whether knowledge is either independent of humanity or connected to humans has been a long-standing philosophical issue. Plato and Aristotle offer distinct views on this matter. Plato's Theory of Forms posits that knowledge is independent of humans. That is, Plato's knowledge is something that exists in a realm outside of the physical world. This realm, which he called the World of Forms, is a realm of perfect, unchanging, and eternal ideas or essences. These Forms, such as the Form of Beauty, are the source of all knowledge. Thus, knowledge is independent of humanity as it exists outside of the physical world. Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that knowledge is connected to humans. Aristotle viewed knowledge as something that is acquired through the senses and accumulated through experience. He believed that the only way to acquire knowledge is through empirical evidence, that is, through observing and experiencing the world. Thus, knowledge is connected to humans and is not something that exists independently of them. In conclusion, Plato and Aristotle offer distinct views on whether knowledge is independent of humanity or connected to humans. For Plato, knowledge exists outside of the physical world and is thus independent of humans. However, for Aristotle, knowledge is acquired through the senses and is thus connected to humans.

I am reminded of trying to turn around very fast in order to view the back of my head in a mirror. I thought George Berkeley sorted this matter out a long time ago. Maybe it was one of many other philosophers who came to the conclusion that observation was crucial to evidence and that antecedent factors had some bearing on the interpretation.

The universe as I experience it appears to have properties that create novelty; that make complexity and pre-consciously made us conscious. This is something we did not consciously do; come to be aware of ourselves, until that is, the major generational work had been accomplished.

Essences? Universals? Forms? Back to Berkeley and what we see in our minds eye and how it got there. Some may believe dialectics, for example, is a universal construct, mined out of the stuff we call determined. Then I suppose anything and everything could be made of the same monad unit able to form up according to the utility of universal properties making new from old as foreordained.

And so you have it, fictional responses to unanswerable questions which attempt to transcend the subjective by suggesting truth is linked in some way to the reiteration of old ideas.

Anthropocentric cults are not our friends, as I believe Plato and Aristotle were well aware after the execution of Socrates: only the dialectic principle is transcendent, so any foundation no matter how mesmerising, can only ever be a partial intelligibility of its totally comprehensive being

Frédéric Tremblay,

My question concerns the nature and origin of knowing, a philosophical problem that has been the subject of dispute for centuries.

Some philosophers contend that knowledge exists objectively and universally, independent of human perception or interpretation.

A few more philosophers contend that human knowledge is subjective and relative to human society, language, values, and experience[1,2,3].

[1]  Humanities | Description, History, Meaning, & Facts. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanities

[2] Franke, W. (2015, October 16). Involved Knowing: On the Poetic Epistemology of the Humanities. MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/h4040600

[3] What are the humanities? (n.d.). The British Academy. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-are-humanities/