Differences between Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies.

Despite their influence, these two Greek thinkers disagreed in many respects.

Plato and Aristotle are probably the two thinkers who have had the greatest influence on Western culture.. Even today, a good part of our way of thinking, whether or not we have studied philosophy in schools and universities, has its raison d'être in the works that these two inhabitants of Ancient Greece were developing between the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

In fact, they are considered the main responsible for the consolidation of Western philosophy.

However, these two philosophers did not agree on everything. The differences in the thinking of Plato and his pupil Aristotle became profound and very relevant. became profound and very relevant, even though Aristotle was greatly influenced by his Athenian master. Below we will see an overview of what these points of discrepancy were.

• Related article, "How are Psychology and Philosophy similar?"

Differences in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.

On many issues, these two philosophers held opposing intellectual positions.even though, whenever Aristotle departed from the path of his master, he tried to formulate his explanations on the basis of Platonic thought.

These main differences between their way of understanding the world that both defended are the following.

1. The stance towards essentialism

Plato is well known for establishing a fundamental separation between the world of sensible impressions and the world of ideas. The former is composed of everything that can be experienced through the senses and is false and deceptive, while the latter is only accessible through the intellect and allows us to arrive at absolute truth.

This means that for Plato the essence of things lies on a plane of reality independent of objects and bodies, and that the latter are a mere imperfect reflection of the former.and that the latter are a mere imperfect reflection of the former. That essence, moreover, is eternal and cannot be altered by what happens in the world of the physical: the absolute idea of what a wolf is remains despite the fact that this species becomes extinct or is totally dissolved in hybridization with domestic dogs.

• You can read more about Plato's Theory of Ideas in this article: "Plato's Theory of Ideas".

For Aristotle, on the other hand, the essence of bodies (living or inert) is to be found in themselves.not in another plane of reality. This philosopher rejected the idea that everything true is to be found outside that which is composed of matter.

2. Belief or not in eternal life

Plato defended the idea that there is life after death, since bodies degrade and disappear but souls, which form the true core of people's identity, are eternal, as are universally true ideas (mathematical laws, for example).

Aristotle, on the other hand, had a conception of death more similar to that of the tradition based on the myths of Homer. He believed that there are souls in human beings, but they disappear when the physical body degrades.The possibility of existence after death is ruled out.

3. Different theories of ethics

In Plato's philosophy, knowledge and ethics are elements that are totally linked to each other. For him, goodness and moral perfection are reached through a progressive approach to truth, so that being ignorant is equated with evil and progressing through wisdom makes us better.

This idea may seem strange at first, but there is a certain logic to it if we consider the importance that this philosopher gave to the existence of absolute ideas: all those decisions that we make apart from the truth are erratic and irresponsible.

Aristotle, on the other hand, places the focus of ethics on the goal of attaining happiness. Consistent with this idea, for him the good can only be something that is exercised through our actions and that does not exist beyond them. This idea makes sense, since it removes from the equation the existence of absolute and timeless truths and, therefore, we must perform the good in the here and now with the resources at our disposal.

4. Tabula rasa or innatism

Another of the great differences between Plato and Aristotle has to do with the way in which they conceived the creation of knowledge.

According to Plato, to learn is, in reality, to remember ideas that already exist since ever (because they are universally valid) and our soul, which is the motor of intellectual activity, has already been in contact with them in the non-material world. This process of recognizing truth is called anamnesis, and it goes from the abstract to the specific: we apply true ideas to the sensible world to see how they fit together.

For Aristotle, knowledge is created from experience and observation of the concrete and, from there, we go on to create abstract ideas that explain the universal. Unlike his Athenian master, he did not believe that perfect and totally true ideas exist within us. and totally true, but that we create an image of them from our interaction with the environment. We explore the environment by trying to distinguish the false from the true through empiricism.

This model was known as "tabula rasa" centuries later, and has been defended by many other philosophers, such as John Locke.