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Plato and Aristotle and Reason

Plato and Aristotle believed that meaning could be discovered through introspection. Two of the greatest philosophers ever to walk the earth, these intellectual giants were consumed with constructing an ethical world view that could uncover the meaning lurking behind our mundane existence. While Aristotle was a student of Plato's, his philosophy comprised a significant departure from his master's. This essay will explore the roles that reason and emotion played in Aristotle and Plato's philosophy, and will show that while both philosophers believed that reason was the paramount goal of life, Aristotle tempered this belief by introducing the notion that man's appetites, emotions, and desires must also be slaked if he is to lead the best possible life.

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 refer to:

the 'intellectualistic' character of the so-called 'Socratic ethics' because it leaves no room for other motivational forces such as emotions or desires. Socrates' proof in the Protagoras that reason cannot be overcome by the passions has ù from Aristotle on ù been treated as a denial of akrasia, of the phenomenon that was later dubbed 'weakness of the will'" (Stanford1).

In his early dialogues, Plato, through his spokesman Socrates, essentiall...

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Plato and Aristotle and Reason. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 13:33, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1688549.html