Aristotle vs Plato
Aristotle was Plato's most important student and the most important of his critics. The two thinkers, working at the same Athenian Academy in the fourth century BC, set the agenda for almost every subsequent dispute in Western metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy.
At a glance
| Aristotle | Plato | |
|---|---|---|
| Dates | 384 BC – 322 BC | 428 BC – 348 BC |
| Nationality | Greek | Greek |
| Era | Ancient | Ancient |
| Movements | Peripatetic School, Ancient Greek Philosophy | Platonism, Ancient Greek Philosophy |
| Profile | Aristotle → | Plato → |
Where they agree
Both held that virtue is a kind of knowledge, that the well-ordered soul mirrors the well-ordered city, and that philosophy aims at the universal rather than at the merely particular. Both treated reason as the highest of human capacities and the contemplative life as the highest form of human flourishing.
Where they disagree
The central disagreement is over the location of the universal. Plato held that what makes a particular thing the kind of thing it is — what makes Socrates a man, this circle a circle — is its participation in a transcendent Form, an eternal and unchanging entity existing independently of its instances. Aristotle rejected the separate existence of the Forms: the universal exists in the particular, not apart from it, and the kind a thing belongs to is its own essence rather than a relation to something elsewhere. Their methodological styles also differ sharply, with Plato writing dialogues that resist closure and Aristotle writing treatises aimed at definitive systematic statement.
Representative quotes
Aristotle
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“All men by nature desire to know.”
Metaphysics Book I, 980a.21 : Opening paragraph of Metaphysics | Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge. | The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10 -
“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies. -
“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Plato
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“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
The beginning in every task is the chief thing. -
“Philosophy begins in wonder.”
155d, The Dialogues of Plato , Volume 3, 1871, p. 377 -
“I shall assume that your silence gives consent .”
435b
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- Full profile: Aristotle
- Full profile: Plato
- Shared movements: Ancient Greek Philosophy
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