Plato Vs. Aristotle

(student 's name

Philosophy 120

Aristotle versus Plato on Reality

Aristotle was Plato 's student . This did not stop Aristotle creating his own philosophy which was a reaction to his teacher 's philosophy . In Raphael 's painting entitled The School of Athens ' Plato and Aristotle are portrayed standing in the middle of the painting . Plato is pointing up , while Aristotle is pointing down . I think this painting captures the very essence of the philosophy of these two thinkers . In this , I will show how Plato 's philosophy indeed points up ' and

br how Aristotle 's philosophy points to this world ' More importantly , I will argue that Aristotle 's philosophy that points to this world as reality makes more sense , and to a certain extent , verifiable , compared to Plato 's philosophy . To be able to accomplish this , I will first discuss the two philosophies afterwards , I will argue that Aristotle 's philosophy makes more sense than Plato 's

Plato spoke of two worlds , the world of being and the world of becoming . The world of being is the world outside of this world ' the topos ouranos , where forms are . Forms refer to what is truly real , what is unchanging (i .e , permanent , and what is perfect . Since these forms are perfect , and unchanging , they are also timeless and space-less (because time and space account for change . As such , in the world of being would reside the perfect dog (the form of a dog , the perfect house (the form of a house , the perfect bottle (the form of a bottle and everything else that is real . Now , the world of becoming , i .e , this world that we know of , is changing (that is what is meant by becoming , imperfect , and less real compared to forms in the world of being . In this world are poor copies of the forms in the world of being somewhat like photocopies of the original . In this sense , the particulars (that is the term used to refer to the realities in this world ) participate in the forms precisely by having the forms as their archetype . So everything we have here in this world is changing and imperfect . No earthly dog , earthly house , or earthly bottle can ever be called flawless . Nothing here can ever be perfect in the sense that forms are perfect . There is , in Plato 's philosophy , an unbridgeable gap between the two worlds , related only in the sense that forms are archetypes of particulars . And ultimately , what is real and perfect are the forms . Thus , Plato points up

Aristotle finds the whole platonic idea of two worlds as idle chatter ' Aristotle did talk about forms but this time , these forms are not separate entities compared to particulars . Forms , for Aristotle refer to that which makes it possible for us to identify an object . It is that which makes substances (i .e , realities ) distinct and identifiable . This would mean that what makes a horse a horse and not a dog is that the horse has...