Nature of Plato's "Dualism"

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Dualism is a philosophical term with a lot of history and scope. For example, god and evil, mind and soul, ideas and forms etc. However, in terms of Plato I believe you are referring to the dualistic nature of ideas and forms. For Plato things in existence for human beings, what we can see with our eyes, are only ideas and what is real is the forms which exist outside of human sight. So when you and I look at a tree all we see is a representation of a tree - however there is also a perfect form of a tree. This means that a painting is a double lie. A painting of a glass is first a representation of a glass and second a glass is only a represenation of the form glass.
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<br>Have you read the cave allegory yet in The Republic? YOu should read that before answering this question. The people in the cave see shadows on the wall - shadows of what exists outside the cave in ...