Aristotle on God

A question whose answer has been much disputed in various circles is whether Aristotle's doctrine of God is essentially Platonic. There are, certainly, distinctions between the views of the two philosophers, and their views were not static, thus making the task of answering this question similar to trying to hit a moving target. This paper will take the position that at its foundation, Aristotle's doctrine of God is fundamentally Platonic.

One of the reasons that Aristotle's doctrine of God can be considered Platonist is that Aristotle started out being a student of Plato (Kreis). Like many admiring students, Aristotle was at first an ardent admirer of Plato's thinking, particularly since Plato was several decades older at the time. However, as time went on, Aristotle's thinking diverged from Plato's in some respects. For example, "Plato believed that "there is an essence or Form or Absolute behind every object in the phenomenal world," insisting that "man was born with knowledge," while Aristotle believed that "knowledge comes from experience" (Kreis). Plato's philosophical tradition was rationalism, with knowledge being a priori (prior to experience), while Aristotle's philosophical tradition was empiricism, with knowledge being a posteriori (posterior to, or after, experience) (Kreis).

Although the differences between Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies appear to make them diametrically opposed, these are somewhat superficial differences, si

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ality are the same, suggesting that "the First Cause is immutable, since it lacks exactly that feature that explains the changeability of other substances" (Koons). Using these criteria, Aristotle builds a concept of God in which He is simply "a mind that eternally contemplates itself, and only itself" (Koons). Aristotle sees God as changeless, since "Intellectual contemplation is an activity, but it is one that does not entail change" since a being that has perfect self-knowledge "need experience no variation or undulation at all" (Koons). Aristotle also attributes motion in the world to the First Mover by virtue of its "being immediately present to certain subsidiary intelligences (such as the celestial intelligences responsible for heavenly movements) and by inspiring these intelligences to emulate the perfection and happiness of the Unmoved Mover" (Koons). Lloyd P. Gerson, in his book Aristotle and Other Platonists, definitively labels Aristotle as a Platonist (Brody 121). Gerson, a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, backs his opinion with a careful examination of Neoplatonist writings, along with those of others of the period, and concludes that "they were correct in assuming that there was no

Category: Philosophy - A