Essay 3 Plato and Aristotle

      Plato and Aristotle's views are one of the first binary opposites known to us. Their views on mankind and the world were completely different. Plato was more focused on the spiritual world and Aristotle was more focused on real world. Their thoughts and beliefs appeal to different people and even different time periods. Without these two great philosophers the world wouldn’t be the same as it is today.

       Plato did not trust his senses. He believed that this world was nothing but an illusion. According to the allegory of the cave, we are all chained to the wall of the cave forced to stare at mere shadows. When we manage to emerge from the cave we are blinded, then we’re in awe and wonder. Our world is the world of shadows. Our senses don’t perceive much so in order to see the real world we must venture from the world of shadows and illusion out to reality. He also believed in the world of ideas. Plato said that the soul lived in the world of ideas and then picked a body to go in. This means that we already know everything we just don’t remember it and once we recognize it again, we remember the knowledge. An example can be a horse. We have seen countless horses and they are all different but there is something that makes a horse a horse no matter what. Plato’s explanation was that we already know what a horse is so no matter how different the horses we see are we will always recognize it’s a horse. Finally Plato’s thoughts on women were that they should have the opportunity to be educated equally to men.

       Aristotle on the other hand was the complete opposite. He focused on the real world and in nature. He trusted his senses and even did fieldwork to make observations about the different purposes of nature. He observed and experimented mare than he reasoned or wondered. He founded the science of logic which was based on the natural laws of the world. An example is, “All humans are mortal, I am a human, therefore I am mortal.” He also said that everything in nature had a purpose and a category. According to him there is nothing in the world without a category. Instead of believing in the world of ideas, he believed that humans learned from experience. If person sees a horse, and then another and then another, then the person will understand that that is what a horse looks like. Aristotle also believed in the golden mean which was pretty much about having a balanced life. An excess of something or a lack of something leads to unhappiness. His views on women were also opposite to Plato’s. He saw women as incomplete men and as lesser human beings.

       Both Plato and Aristotle have made valid points that make you think of your view on the world. There are some consequences to their belief systems though. Beginning with Plato, believing that this world isn’t more than an illusion could lead some people to become indifferent about life. Why would life on earth matter if there is a better world full of wonderful things that we may or may not go to when we leave earth? There are also some consequences to Aristotle’s point of view. If we live for ourselves then do we have a purpose other than finding the golden mean?  Is nature the only thing that can give us answers and a purpose?

       Even though these two minds were different, they were both hugely influential. Even today there are debates about the viewpoints that they started. It is hard to choose for it requires a lot of critical thinking and knowledge of oneself. Also one cannot agree with everything they say but we can get an idea of our own beliefs.