Essays on Plato and Aristotle
The name of Aristotle is for many generations associated with great ideas and contribution into metaphysical, political, ethical views in the field of philosophy, as well as biology, botany, mathematics, medicine and agriculture. He was one of Plato’s students, who however finally rejected his theory of forms and was considered by most researchers more empirically-minded than Plato and his teacher – Socrates. Aristotle introduced new ideas into the most of spheres of life, which he worked with. In total this philosopher produced around 200 treatises, out of which only 31 were saved for future generations. Mostly, these were lectures, some drafts, notes, manuscripts, which are said to lack the general prose style, used by Aristotle. A great contribution he maid into the sphere of mathematics and biology, moreover some of the classifications, he suggested, are in use till nowadays. Further in this paper we are going to study the key views of Aristotle in the fields of metaphysics, ethics, politics, epistemology in comparison to other his contemporaries and philosophers.
The name metaphysics was given to the works of Aristotle on first philosophy. Aristotle treats philosophy starting from its historical appearance, according to him, it developed as soon as all the basic human needs were secured. Religion could answer all the life questions of an individual only partially, and thus the constant feelings of curiosity provided a good ground for the development of the philosophical views and ideas. Socrates is considered to be one of the first philosophers, contributing to “the expression of general conceptions in the form of definitions, which he arrived at by induction and analogy” (Ackrill, 1997). Aristotle in his turn understood metaphysics, as the combination of the first principles of scientific knowledge, the unique condition for the whole existing world. For his metaphysics deals directly with being as being, involving at the same time all the attributes to the process of being. This means, that for example in mathematics the being is described with the help of lines and angles, in reality existence is not included as it is in itself. The character of metaphysics is rather universal, that is why it is often compared to sophistry or dialectics. The key difference between metaphysics and dialectics is in its preliminary character; from sophistry it differs due to non-consideration of reality for formulating the basis of knowledge. According to Aristotle there are a lot of universal truths. “Against the followers of Heraclitus and Protagoras, Aristotle defends both the laws of contradiction, and that of excluded middle. He does this by showing that their denial is suicidal. Carried out to its logical consequences, the denial of these laws would lead to the sameness of all facts and all assertions. It would also result in indifference in conduct” (Adler, 1978). The main question, asked in the metaphysics of Aristotle is the following – what is understood under the actual substance? Plato stated that the universal element of knowledge and existence are the corresponding forms which remain permanent, when the senses change. Aristotle didn’t agree with this position. He argued that forms do not have the necessary power to explain what changes happen to things. Neither could they be responsible for realization, of how people come to certain knowledge about some special things. The last weak point of this theory Aristotle found in the lack of special forms for explaining our knowledge about art and its objects. Aristotle could not agree with the existence of some abstract forms, as he understood the form rather inside the phenomena of sense; the real being as a concrete thing, and not an abstract form. “In the Metaphysics, though, it frequently inclines towards realism (that is, substance has a real existence in itself)” (Adler, 1978). He used causes in order to explain the relations between one and many, which seemed so difficult for most philosophers before. According to him there are four causes “Material cause, or the elements out of which an object is created; Efficient cause, or the means by which it is created; Formal cause, or the expression of what it is; Final cause, or the end for which it is” (Adler, 1978). Aristotle really managed to treat the problems of metaphysics deeper than his teacher, introducing a number of interesting ideas and approaches.
The aim of the Aristotle’s philosophy was the universal, the same like by his teacher – Plato. But the difference was that he found the universal in special things, he referred to it as essence of things; for Plato the universal was not included into the particular things, but building a separate prototype. Epistemology of Aristotle is guided by the study of particular things and then coming to the knowledge of essences. “For Aristotle, “form” still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is “instantiated” in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below). In a certain sense, Aristotle’s method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato’s is essentially deductive from a priori principles” (Ackrill, 1997).
Aristotle introduced the notion “natural philosophy” as a branch of philosophy, conducting studies of natural world and its phenomena; nowadays these are such disciplines as biology or physics and so on. Nowadays however the studies of natural world are not related to philosophy, which is actually occupied with such issues as ethics, logic, metaphysics. Aristotle made a clear difference between “science” and “scientific method”, as for him “all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical” (Ackrill, 1997). By practical science, he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; by theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics” (Adler, 1978). Aristotle paid a great attention to studies of the objects of natural world, science. His contributions to mathematics were not considerable enough in comparison to his researches in the fields of zoology, botany, chemistry, astronomy.
Aristotle studied the issues of ethics, viewing it as a try to find out the highest good. This main end is usually referred to as happiness. Happiness is related to some personal experience, which causes immediate controversy to the theory of Plato of self-existing good. The good should be practical, present in the lives of individuals. It can not be substituted with vegetative life, the one which plants have, neither with the sensitive life of animals. “It follows therefore that true happiness lies in the active life of a rational being or in a perfect realization and outworking of the true soul and self, continued throughout a lifetime” (Ackrill, 1997).
Essays on Plato and Aristotle part 2
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