Aristotle and Plato

Plato presented his philosophical inquiries in the form utilized by his mentor, Socrates, that form being the Socratic dialogue. The philosopher-teacher would ask questions of his followers-pupils, and they would answer. Socrates would guide the discussion and convince his followers through reasoned argument (Janaway 357). Aristotle did not usually make use of the dialogue form, though he did write some dialogues. Most of his work is in the form of treatises which may or may not have been lecture notes. Plato created the Academy, a school to convey his ideas, while Aristotle created the Lyceum as a rival institution.

Plato approached the issue of knowledge and f

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irth. Birth is a traumatic event and causes the soul to forget these truths. It is then up to the individual to spend the rest of his or her life addressing the soul to find what the soul already knows. We come to the truth, then, as a matter of rediscovery. Socrates in the dialogues acts as a guide helping his students to remember rather than teaching them something that comes from outside themselves. Hugh Lawson-Tancred states of Aristotle, The philosophy of Aristotle has been of enormous historical importance. It extends the work of Plato, but emerges with a very different view of reality (Lawson-Tancred 399). Aristotle's works are described by Lawson-Tancred as more complex than those of Plato in part because he lived at a later and more complex age of philosophical discussion. Aristotle was originally one of Plato's students, but he came to disagree with what he called the "other-worldliness" of his teacher. For Plato there were two worlds, the world perceived by the senses, and the world of the Forms, the ideals of which the objects in this world are only pale imitations. Aristotle disputed this, asking how, if the Forms are the essences of things, the Forms could exist separated from things, and how, if the For
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Approximate Word count = 1638
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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