Платон и Аристотель
Plato and Aristotle.
Aristotle’s philosophy was
basically the opposite of that of Plato’s. They disagree in virtually
everything, which I found very amusing considering that Aristotle was Plato’s
student.
Plato believed that reality is permanent and our senses
can’t be trusted. He believed that ideas are eternal, self-contained absolutes,
which answered to each item of exact knowledge attained through human thought.
Ideas are in Plato's view concrete standards by which all human endeavor can be
judged, for the hierarchy of all ideas leads to the highest absolute - that of
Good. He also believed that Ideas are immortal and are more real than the
mortal. Aristotle on the other hand believed that for something to be real it
had to have a substance and a form or a body and a soul. Our senses are also
reality. Aristotle refutes Plato's belief that Ideas are perfect entities unto
themselves, independent of subjective human experience. Ideas, Aristotle
claims, are not abstractions on a proverbial pedestal but mere duplicates of
things witnessed in ordinary daily life. Thus, according to Aristotle Ideas are
not perfect entities, indefinable to subjective human experience, but originate
somewhere in ordinary human activity and perception.
Their views on afterlife were
quite opposite as well. Aristotle believed nothing happens when we die because
to even exist you should have both a body and a soul. So if you die and your
body leaves then you don’t exist because you don’t have both a body and a soul.
Plato believed in some kind of reincarnation. He claims that states of being
are contingent upon the mingling of various Forms of existence. When one dies,
that only means a death of a material part or one’s physical body. To Plato
it’s not important as soon as we have souls or our immortal parts. Later on
your soul can inhabit another body and then another and so on up to eternity.
In a sense you kind of get recycled over and over again.
The question about God’s
existence and nature differ as well. Though both of them agreed to some extent
to the existence of God but according to Plato's philosophy God exists as a
supremely good being whose goodness is analogous (but not identical) to his
Idea or the ultimate good. He owes the existence of his Ideas to both God and
goodness, but he claims the two are not the same. It means that God is not
completely perfect, but God's intentions and actions have good aims - goodness
may emerge from other sources besides God. God, according to Plato’s philosophy
appears to be not an ultimate creator but a ‘coworker’ of goodness. To me this
eliminates the whole meaning of God as a
being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of
the universe. Aristotle on the other hand
argues that God is a self-sufficient, compelling force for both nature and man.
He believes that all goodness comes from within God and that the goodness in
man is drawn toward God and nothing else. This idea is quite consistent and
would serve as a good explanation from a pre-scientific point of view.
In summary, Aristotle and
Plato indeed hold quite opposite views. But interestingly enough I found that
their answers to philosophical questions strangely compliment each other. I
would agree with most of Aristotelian philosophy, which to me is very close to
that of a modern scientific prospective. But in concern with political and
sociological considerations I lean mostly towards Plato’s views. His idea of
Utopia is quite appealing, although certainly not perfect. Not to mention the
Aristotelian views of women as something inferior and incomplete I, as a woman
find very offensive.