ARISTOTLE VERSUS PLATO

(The subject of the Platonists versus the Aristotelians was already raised in the earlier entry Aristotle With A Grain Of Salt, but, considering that all philosophy allegedly boils down to Plato against Aristotle, an extra entry, or any more of them on this subject, should not be seen as too many.)

Is it Aristotle Versus Plato, or Aristotle Contra Plato? Let us not rush to judgment.

There is a saying, common in philosophical circles, that all philosophers fall into two categories: Platonists and Aristotelians. This is supposed to signify the chasmic difference between the two Greek giants, but the question of where this difference lies, is of a very special nature.

I remember, in my young age, puzzled about this alleged difference, not finding much of it in the substance of both men’s philosophies, but mostly in the way these were presented. Plato’s style was more like fiction, whereas Aristotle’s read like science-nonfiction, but what was that serious, substantial difference between them, which had divided the thinking world? Make sure, of course, that I could distinguish the authorship of the Allegory of the Cave from the source of the Four Causes, but metaphysically speaking, this was not an evident difference in principle!

Fortunately, my puzzlement was not caused by any woeful gap in comprehension. Aristotle is, indeed, very close to Plato in their metaphysical substance, but very different from him in his form of presentation. Here is a delightful passage from Bertrand Russell on this very subject:

“Aristotle’s metaphysics roughly speaking may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. Aristotle is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily. When one tries to understand him, one thinks part of the time that he is expressing the ordinary views of a person innocent of philosophy, and the rest of the time that he is setting forth Platonism with a new vocabulary.”

Our old friend W. T. Jones, in his own History of Western Philosophy, makes a very similar point:

“…It appears that Aristotle’s early thought was very much influenced by Plato… It is important to insist on this purely Platonic period in Aristotle’s development, because some writers have seen him as an opponent and critic of Platonism. But although Aristotle, because of his objection to the apartness of the forms, was forced to reject much in Plato’s work, he was fundamentally and acknowledged a Platonist, and his work is to be understood only as an effort to reformulate the fundamental insights of Plato. His primary interest is, like Plato’s, to reaffirm the existence of a public world of knowledge, and to answer the question: “What is the good life for man?” Like Plato, he found that answer not in radical novelties and strange new doctrines, but in a reinterpretation and reformulation of the old traditional beliefs of the Greeks. What he and Plato did was to give these beliefs a new vitality and a deeper meaning, by basing them on a sound metaphysics, and by showing that the ethical and political values in question were rooted in the very nature and structure of the universe.”

Aristotelianism versus Platonism are therefore not two entirely different philosophies, but, rather, two very different approaches: of the consummate scientist-scholar of philosophy in Aristotle’s case, and of the pure perfect philosopher par excellence in Plato’s. This does not mean, of course, that Aristotle was merely Plato’s follower in matters of pure philosophy. We may say that he was a Platonist where Platonism was larger than Plato himself. Plato started it himself, building on the pre-Socratic foundation. Aristotle’s contribution was partly a reformulation of Plato, and partly a continuation where Plato had left off.

But it was, of course, the striking difference in philosophical styles that divided the philosophical world and compelled all later philosophers to take sides in the case of “Aristotle contra Plato,” each according to their own individual methodological and stylistic preferences.