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PSIR Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Comment: ‘Reality is a shadow of ideas’. (Plato)

  • UPSC 1992
  • Western Political Thought

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The sentence is not a line from the dialogues but a fair compression of Plato's middle-period metaphysics, set out in the Phaedo and in Books VI–VII of the Republic. What the senses report as "reality" is a shadow or copy; the true realities are the Forms (eidos, usually rendered "Ideas"). An Idea here is not…

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What the full answer covers

  • What the Statement Claims
  • Why Plato Needed It
  • Critiques
  • The Indian Resonance
  • Conclusion
PSIR Optional PYQ Solutions

PSIR Optional PYQ Solutions

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