1001Philosophers

Aristotle vs Plato on Mind

Plato and Aristotle offer the two foundational accounts of mind in Western philosophy. Plato treats the rational soul as essentially distinct from the body — its proper activity is the contemplation of the Forms, which it knew before embodiment and recollects through philosophical inquiry. Aristotle rejects the separation: the soul is the form of the body, and intellect grasps the universal through sense experience rather than by recovering pre-natal knowledge. The Platonic mind ascends; the Aristotelian mind abstracts.

About this topic

Philosophy of mind asks what mental states are, how they relate to bodies and brains, and how thought, perception, and feeling are possible at all. Classical sources from Plato through Descartes treated the mind as a distinct substance, while later philosophers proposed varieties of materialism, functionalism, and emergentism in its place. Phenomenologists in the twentieth century turned attention to consciousness as it is lived from the inside. Contemporary philosophy of mind works in close dialogue with cognitive science.

For a side-by-side overview of the two philosophers more broadly, see the full Aristotle vs Plato comparison. To browse philosophy more widely on this theme, see the the Mind quotes hub.

Representative quotes on mind

Aristotle on mind

  • “Hope is the dream of a waking man.”

    p. 187

  • “Knowledge of the fact differs from knowledge of the reason for the fact.”

    I.13 , 78a.22

  • Attributed to Aristotle:

    “The soul never thinks without a picture.”

Plato on mind

  • “Philosophy begins in wonder.”

    155d, The Dialogues of Plato , Volume 3, 1871, p. 377

  • “Some say that the body is the " tomb " of the soul , their notion being that the soul is buried in the present life ; and again, because by its means the soul gives any signs which it gives, it is for this reason also properly called "sign". But I think it most likely that the Orphic poets gave this name, with the idea that the soul is undergoing punishment for something; they think it has the body as an enclosure to keep it safe, like a prison, and this is, as the name itself denotes, the "safe" for the soul, until the penalty is paid, and not even a letter needs to be changed.”

    400b–c

  • “Perception and knowledge could never be the same.”

    186e

  • “Neither perception nor true opinion, nor reason or explanation combined with true opinion could be knowledge… Then our art of midwifery declare to us that all the offspring that have been born are mere wind-eggs and not worth rearing… and if you remain barren, you will be less harsh and gentler to your associates, for you will have the wisdom not to think you know that which you do not know.”

    210a-c

  • “I do see one large and grievous kind of ignorance, separate from the rest, and as weighty as all the other parts put together. Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, I believe, all the mistakes of the mind are caused in all of us.”

    229c

All 8 Plato quotes on mind →

Continue reading