PLATO OR ARISTOTLE ?
When I first got to read both Plato and Aristotle in depth in graduate school, I discovered how different their writings and philosophies are. Plato is rhapsodic and thoughtfully deep while Aristotle is more systematic and analytic. At first, I enjoyed reading Plato more, but had to admit that at times he seemed to wander and get stuck trying to fully explain his line of reasoning. Aristotle initially struck me as boring and too detailed in his reasoning.
However, as the years of teaching both went by my feelings about the two changed. Aside from his wonderful descriptions and explanations in his allegory of the cave, Plato’s writings eventually came to seem too scattered and overly creative to be of real philosophical use. Moreover, the basis for his ideal state, the Republic, as well as the ultimate result, seems tenuis at best. I do agree that wisdom is what is needed in governmental leadership, but the extreme measures included in Plato’s design are far too narrow and subject to extortion and misuse.
By the same token, some of Aristotle’s political beliefs and would-be practices surely seem rather naïve and subject to misunderstanding. Nevertheless, on the whole I think Aristotle is more realistic in his estimation of the limits of human political practice. Moreover, his careful and concrete analysis of various extant constitutions strikes me as a more realistic place to begin than does Plato’s idealized Republic. While Aristotle offers no “ultimate solution”, his approach was concrete rather than abstract, as was Plato’s.
I will admit that when it came to metaphysical concerns, Aristotle was every bit as abstract and speculative as was Plato. Indeed, it was Plato’s approach and systematic analysis, focused in the work of Augustine, that eventually guided the theologians of the Middle Ages and Protestant thought, while it was the more analytic and empirical approach that inspired the Roman Catholic vision, focused in the learning how to think of Thomas Aquinas, in the modern era.
In the end I must admit that Plato and Aristotle have had equal influence in Western thought, but it seems to me that there is something more concrete and realistic about Aristotle’s approach. Yet I am sure that this debate will not end here. In the end it’s the discussion about such issues that really matters, not the particular conclusions one comes to embrace. Tracing the arguments each of these great thinkers offer is the very heart of learning about philosophy, learning how to think for oneself.
While Plato enjoyed a certain amount of freedom and popularity throughout his career, in spite of the fate of his master Socrates at the hands of the Athenian government. Aristotle, on the other hand, felt he had to leave Athens for various “lest it sin against philosophy a second time”, and thus had to carry on his studies in several places in what is now Turkey. Nonetheless, he managed to make many discoveries and invented a number of classification systems that are still of use today.
One puzzle and unfortunate fact is that he seems to have had little actual influence on the young and great Alexander. Nonetheless, the latter seems to have been quite faithful in sending specimens of rare and even unique life forms gathered from his wide ranging travels throughout Egypt even India back to his great teacher. It is amazing to speculate what Alexander, this greatest student of Aristotle, might have accomplished had he not died so young.
6 responses to “Plato or Aristotle?”
Thanks for writing, Jerry! It’s such fun to see your thinking-in-writing in this way. I really began to learn Plato & Aristotle when I was teaching them. I love Plato, and I use Aristotle: especially his ethics.
thanks for speaking up Kathy :O) Great to hear from you. Tell your mom I am gaining on her percentage-wise- just became 90 ;O) Hugs to john. Love, jerry a MARI
Great reflections!
Keep ’em coming!
Del
PS: Did you ever go to Macedonia?
Thanks buddy :O) Yes i did visit Macedonia on the same trip when i climbed Mt. Olympus and visited a monestary on Mt. Athos. Why?
I wonder whether the hidden key to the difference between Plato and Aristotle in respect to ethical and political issues is the Aristotelian notion of “akrasia” and the ontological context in which it arises. We act as we do, Plato affirms, by the determining power of the Good: if we know the Good, we will do it. The extent to which we fail to know the Good is the extent to which we fail to live according to it. The reason for this obedience to insight into the Good seems to be that we actually become the Good in so far as we grasp it. If we work or way, by means of the educational program that Plato espouses, to the achievement of the intuition into the Good, we become Good. Hence, we do Good. Those who are Good belong among those who are properly the rulers of the state, indeed, who deserve to be king. In Plato, ontology slides into ethics. Plato assumes that being Good simply necessitates that what we do is Good.
Here is where Aristotle deviates from Plato. According to him, we can know the Good and still do what is wrong, unhealthy, improper, even evil. Plato would say that it is irrational to suppose that we can be Good and do evil. But Aristotle would say that the achievement of knowledge, while it may make it possible for one to change one’s character (consider J.S. Mill’s take on this point), is not a fundamental ontological change in the person. It is a change in the structure and dynamic of our behavior, which can facilitate a more natural capacity to choose what makes human living experientially good. The capacity to choose the better is a virtue, or, empowerment for achieving the full flower of good human living. Virtue is not simply a form of knowledge that is identical with an ontological change but a kind of habit of behavior that moves us more easily to the good life. We can, however, always engage in “akrasia”, making choices that knowledge (or reason) would otherwise reveal and destructive to good human living. Knowledge does not determine action.
Political life, therefore, is not so much a matter of education that gives insight into the Good as it is a recognition of what makes human living good; it also involves seeking strategies, such as the “golden mean” of Aristotle, for achieving the practical modes of good human living. We don’t exercise reason to achieve the understanding of the Good so much as observe and recognize what the flowering of true and good humanity is and exercise a practical reasoning that seeks to achieve it.
Oddly, Plato’s ontological identification of knowing and the Good leads to an understanding of how the Good determines how we behave; but Aristotle’s behavior-oriented way of seeking the good leads to the natural state of good human living, which is an ontological state of the human mode of being. The Good, then, for both Plato and Aristotle, holds an ontological status (though I admit that Plato seems at times to suggest that the Good is more the ground for the being of things than “ontological” in itself.). Alexander seemed to follow the path of akrasia more than virtue, beginning with his attitude toward his father!
Thanks so much David for the “tutorial” :O) Great basic difference between theses two “BIGS” :O)