Aristotle and Plato: philosophical foundations and differences

Aristotle v. Plato

Compare and contrast the metaphysical position of Aristotle and Plato. Does Aristotle's work constitute a sharp break with the position laid down by his teacher? Or is the old saying true that he apple does not fall far from the tree?

Although their positions are often elided, the focus of Aristotle and Plato's metaphysical emphases is quite different. Ironically, given that one of his most famous works is called the "Metaphysics," Aristotle is far more interested in the material world than his teacher. Aristotle is much more concerned than Plato with the actual political and social world around him. An additional irony is that Plato is the author of the "Republic," a word used to refer to an actual, political society, not a metaphysical truth about the cosmos. Plato's "Republic," however, is an ideal society, whereby Aristotle attempts to study and critique the real, rather than to place a stress upon the ideal.

Plato stated in the "Republic," in his famous allegory of the cave, that the only thing that mattered in philosophy was studying the realm of ideas and perfect forms, which could be extrapolated and applied to human political organization. As human reality had a three-fold reality of forms, dreams, and materiality, so society was lead by guardians, who were protected by the military soldiers, and finally the bodily needs of the "Republic's" society were satisfied by workers. Aristotle also believed in the existence of forms, or preexisting, ideal and distilled essences of physical realities that human beings could only apprehend dimly in life, like shadows upon the walls of the cave. Aristotle also agreed with Plato on a metaphysical level that the cosmos was of a rational and mathematical design, the result of an orderly plan as reflected in the existence of truth in the absolute and the universality of the forms. But the existence of forms did not mean that the form's truth could or should be reflected in the structure of human governing bodies or society.

Aristotle's tendency as a philosopher was to examine, the specific, rather than the general. For instance, Aristotle in his "Ethics" distilled the nature of friendship into three categories, disinterested and mutually beneficial associations being the most perfect and form-like of all human associations, while those friendships based upon social or political self-interest the least perfect. In contrast, Plato attempted to generalize from specifics, creating absolute truths and showing less concern for the specifics of the form's manifestations on earth. Plato thus stressed deductive logic, while Aristotle stressed inductive logic. Plato stressed mathematics, as is evident in his "Phaedo," where a young slave boy who is utterly uneducated is talked through a geometric proof by his mentor Socrates. Aristotle stressed the detailed empirical investigations of nature by philosophy in both the human and animal worlds. By studying the organizations of the natural world he believed he better understood the evolving political and historical worlds around him.