Plato and Aristotle and Reason

First, we will examine Plato's views on reason and emotion. It is difficult to ascribe particular views to Plato because his writings center on his teacher, Socrates. However, it seems clear that for Socrates, and probably for Plato as well, emotion always played second fiddle to reason when it came to their ethics. In his famous early dialogues, Plato works through different virtues and uses Socrates' constant questioning to foil the simplistic definitions that were popular at the time. In his work Protaqoras, Plato famously pleads for the unity of the virtuesùthat all virtues have one underlying causeùand reduces these virtues down to one overriding factor: the pursuit of knowledge. This has led many scholars to re

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ic, to an audience that has genuine doubts about the value of justice. It appears that Aristotle believes "that happiness consists in exercising some skills or other, but that the moral skills of a virtuous person are what one needs is not a proposition that can be established on the basis of argument" (Stanford2). Aristotle points out in his opening statement, which describes what happiness is, that his philosophy is an outline that must be filled in by the reader later. The Ethics, then, are a guide to why the virtues are important generally; the value behind specific virtues such as courage and justice can be only be understood after further reflection. That, in effect, is one of Aristotle's main point: we cannot understand things without beginning from certain assumptions. Theoretical or practical inquiries cannot start from scratch. For example, one cannot gain an understanding of biology without having made some observations or studies of the subject before hand. The same is true for ethics, in that one must enjoy its virtues in order to develop an understanding of them. "Then, when we engage in ethical inquiry, we can ask what it is about these activities that makes them worthwhile. We can also compare these goods w
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Approximate Word count = 1326
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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