Differences Between The Philosophies Of Plato And Aristotle
Plato and Aristotle are probably the two thinkers who have most influenced Western culture Even today, a good part of our way of thinking, whether or not we have studied philosophy in schools and universities, has its reason for being in the works that these two inhabitants of Ancient Greece developed between the 5th and 4th centuries BC.
In fact, they are considered the main people responsible for the consolidation of Western philosophy.
However, these two philosophers did not agree on everything. The differences in the thought of Plato and his pupil Aristotle They became profound and very relevant, even though Aristotle was greatly influenced by his Athenian teacher. Below we will see an overview of what these points of discrepancy were.
Differences in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle
On many issues, these two philosophers maintained opposing intellectual positions despite the fact that, whenever Aristotle deviated from his teacher’s path, he tried to formulate his explanations based on Platonic thought.
These main differences between their way of understanding the world that they both defended are the following.
1. The position regarding essentialism
Plato is well known for establishing a fundamental separation between the world of sensible impressions and that of ideas. The first is made up of everything that can be experienced through the senses and is false and misleading, while the second is only accessible through the intellect and allows us to reach the absolute truth.
That means that for Plato the essence of things is found on a plane of reality independent of objects and bodies, and that the latter are a mere imperfect reflection of the former. This essence, furthermore, is eternal and cannot be altered by what happens in the physical world: the absolute idea of what a wolf is remains despite the fact that this species becomes extinct or completely dissolves in hybridization with animals. domestic dogs.
For Aristotle, on the other hand, the essence of bodies (living or inert) is found in themselves, not on another plane of reality. This philosopher rejected the idea that everything true was found outside of that which is composed of matter.
2. Belief or not in eternal life
Plato defended the idea that there is life after death, since bodies degrade and disappear but souls, which form the true core of a person’s identity, are eternal, as are universally true ideas ( mathematical laws, for example).
Aristotle, on the other hand, had a conception of death more similar to that of the tradition based on the myths of Homer. He believed that in human beings there are souls, but these disappear when the physical body degrades with which the possibility of existing after death is ruled out.
3. Different theories of ethics
In Plato’s philosophy, knowledge and ethics are elements that are totally linked to each other. For him, good and moral perfection are accessed through a progressive approach to the truth, so that being ignorant is equated with evil and progressing through wisdom makes us better.
This idea may seem strange at first, but there is a certain logic in it if you consider the importance that this philosopher gave to the existence of absolute ideas: all those decisions that we make outside the truth are erratic and irresponsible.
Aristotle, on the other hand, places the focus of ethics on the objective of achieving happiness. In coherence with this idea, for him good can only be something that is exercised through our actions and that does not exist beyond them. This idea makes sense, since it eliminates the existence of absolute and timeless truths from the equation and, therefore, we must do good in the here and now with the resources we have.
4. Tabula rasa or nativism
Another of the great differences between Plato and Aristotle has to do with the way in which they conceived the creation of knowledge.
According to Plato, learning is actually remembering ideas that have always existed (because they are universally valid) and our soul, which is the engine of intellectual activity, has already been in contact with them in the non-material world. This process of recognizing the truth is called anamnesis, and it goes from the abstract to the specific: we apply true ideas to the sensible world to see how they fit.
For Aristotle, knowledge is created from experience and observation of the concrete and, from there, we go on to create abstract ideas that explain the universal. Unlike his Athenian teacher, I didn’t believe that perfect ideas existed within us and totally true, but we create an image of them from our interaction with the environment. We explore the environment trying to distinguish the false from the true through empiricism.
