Plato Community Of Inquiry

As we look to solve some of the hardest problems in the area of morality we seek ways that may be beneficial to how we work out any enquiry as a whole. One such option that is becoming used more often is the idea of a group of people that come together to attempt to reach an understanding on the larger questions we ask ourselves and to seek the approval of others about our findings or beliefs on a matter.

In the interest of seeing if the model of “Community of Inquiry” in and of itself is not flawed in how it attempts to advance moral and other philosophical understandings, it can be looked at through that lense of any ethical position that you may choose. One of the standpoints that would strongly support the existence of such a community

One such position that provides a strong contrasting look at the community creates is the Rationalist ideas of Plato. One of the main staples of a rationalists position is that existence of an absolute fact, something the is formal and can be proved. As compared to the previously stated position, this creates a very large hole in the use of a “Community of Inquiry” as it has no alternate true moral or ethical solution but instead embraces multiple equal ones. It is because of this that the community suddenly becomes very inefficient at narrowing down what can be left out of any ethical problem it is faced with. A second strong reason that a Rationalist view creates problems for the use of a “Community of Inquiry” is that all the people in that rely on their imperfect senses of understanding. As explained by Plato himself, (Plato 581) there is a need to take the time to fully understand and grasp the situation, and to get a sense for its true impact on what is ethical and moral. Another impact is how there must be an overall foundation that the group's beliefs must be made on in order to attempt to create a truth to any problem it attempts to deal with, that alone would open up multiple avenues that would need to be explored and clarified, (Plato 585) and overall that would almost never allow the group to start to figure out the original problem that was being asked of them because they would spend all their time attempting to establish common ground and never be able to attempt to solve the ethical inquiry. Another more restrictive nature of this way of thinking is the needs to create its own progressional following to base its truths on only once more adding to the amount of work that needs to be done in order to even start at the real question. If this ethical position was used for the group