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Comparison of Plato and Aristotle in view of knowledge
Comparison of Plato and Aristotle in view of knowledge
Plato and Aristotle’s belief that knowledge is recollection
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What alternative does Aristotle offer to Plato’s claim that learning is recollection? Where would Aristotle locate the mistake in Plato’s argument in The Phaedo?
In his dialogues The Phaedo and Meno, Plato, through the form of Socrates, puts forth the idea that all learning is recollection. In The Phaedo, to prove that the soul is immortal, Socrates asserts the view that all learning is recollection and we simply need to be reminded of facts that our immortal souls are aware of. In Meno, Socrates attempts to show the truth of this belief by doing complex geometry with a nearby slave boy. Socrates leads the boy through a series of questions, and he answers correctly lending to Socrates’ idea about learning. His brightest pupil, Aristotle, disagreed with this view and put forth a differing view in his work The Metaphysics.
In The Metaphysics, Aristotle puts forth the view that universal information is gained through experience and not recollection as Plato had said. Man connects a series of events into a causal chain through experience. For instance, gathering the fact that a certain remedy has helped two different sick people get better is simply a matter of experience. In his view, art is even greater and closer to wisdom than experience. Experience belies art, in that art is created by the formulation of universals from many individual experiences. Extracting the universal idea that the remedy given to those two people will help all people afflicted with the same sickness ...
We have grown weary of man. Nietzsche wants something better, to believe in human ability once again. Nietzsche’s weariness is based almost entirely in the culmination of ressentiment, the dissolution of Nietzsche’s concept of morality and the prevailing priestly morality. Nietzsche wants to move beyond simple concepts of good and evil, abandon the assessment of individuals through ressentiment, and restore men to their former wonderful ability.
Socrates a classical Greek philosopher and character of Plato’s book Phaedo, defines a philosopher as one who has the greatest desire of acquiring knowledge and does not fear death or the separation of the body from the soul but should welcome it. Even in his last days Socrates was in pursuit of knowledge, he presents theories to strengthen his argument that the soul is immortal. His attempts to argue his point can’t necessarily be considered as convincing evidence to support the existence of an immortal soul.
It is thought that Meno's paradox is of critical importance both within Plato's thought and within the whole history of ideas. It's major importance is that for the first time on record, the possibility of achieving knowledge from the mind's own resources rather than from experience is articulated, demonstrated and seen as raising important philosophical questions.
The 'doctrine of recollection' states that all true knowledge exists implicitly within us, and can be brought to consciousness - made explicit - by recollection. Using the Platonic concepts of 'Forms', 'particulars', 'knowledge' and 'true opinion', this essay explains what can or cannot be recollected, why all knowledge is based on recollection, and why the doctrine does not prove the soul to be immortal.
Ethics is defined as values relating to human conduct with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions. It represents the core value system and the moral precepts held, or rules of conduct followed by individuals, institutions, or societies while making choices in the course of everyday problem solving. They create a framework for determining “right” versus “wrong”. (Journal, n.d.)
It has seen many things including all the forms and the knowledge of them all. We cannot search for what we do not know but we can search for what we have forgotten. Socrates’s theory of recollection has two problems. The first one is that the theory repeats itself without giving a conclusion. We do not know what virtue is, however, we can recollect it because our souls have knowledge about it.
After admitting that he does not know what virtue is almost halfway through Plato’s Meno, Meno states a few premises involving the acquisition of knowledge, which coined the term Meno’s paradox. In this paradox Meno says that virtue or knowledge is impossible to learn because of it. Meno then questions Socrates on how they can find what virtue is if they can’t discover it which I believe Socrates resolves by stating the theory of recollection and how the theory of recollection shows one part of the premise false by conversing with the slave boy.
The story begins with, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” Montresor cites what must have been in his mind, the ultimate betrayal imaginable, at least in his mind. A betrayal that
Abortion has been a controversial topic in the U.S ever since it became legal in 1973 after the Roe v. Wade case. Abortion is defined as the, “the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.” Pro-life supporters believe that abortion is unethical and argue that it is the mother’s responsibility to own up to her actions. They also argue that there is always the option of adoption, and that abortion could be very dangerous. I am pro-life and believe that the government doesn’t have the right to decide what a woman can or can’t do with her body.
Therefore, through the soul, that has been born before being placed into a physical human body, the human has knowledge. As a result of the soul being immortal and knowing everything, Socrates ties that idea of immortality with the theory of recollection, which claims that our knowledge is inside of us because of the soul and it never learns anything new, only remembers, consequently, serving as an evidence that the soul is pre- existent. Socrates uses the knowledge of the soul to explain that there is no such thing as learning but instead there is discovery of the knowledge that one has and does, by himself, without receiving new information. However, most knowledge is forgotten at birth since we are born without knowing, for example, how to add, subtract,talk, etc. Nonetheless, the knowledge we have, has to be recollected with the help of a teacher. Socrates is able to prove this argument to a degree by using Meno’s slave, who had no prior knowledge of geometry before, as an example of how humans have the knowledge inside of them, through the soul, and they know everything but all they need are a sort of guidance to be able to “free” the knowledge they didn’t know they had inside them all this time. (Plato,
Secondly, Plato and Aristotle contrast in their view of what knowledge we possess at birth. Plato supports the doctrine of Innatism, which claims that we enter this world with prior knowledge. All people possess immortal souls; therefore, the knowledge acquired in one life can be transferred into the next reincarnation. However, we forget the knowledge at the shock of birth and we then spend the rest of our lives trying to retrieve the lost knowledge. In contrast, Aristotle's doctrine of Tabula Rasa, or blank slate, states that we are born without any knowledge. Aristotle also claimed we possess souls, but he disagreed with Plato on the soul's status of immortality. Aristotle felt souls do not return to the world, so knowledge cannot be returned to the world either.
factors held constant – the door knob that was swabbed, time amount, petri dish, lighting, temperature
The philosopher Nietzsche has been scrutinized for most of his work because he stood against the Christian faith. He believed that Christianity held people back from achieving a full life because it countered all the wants and needs of the human. He believed that slaves made up Christianity to replace the things that they could not receive. Sex, power and revenge were all out of range for a slaves so in return they made up Christianity to follow. Nietzsche’s greatest works however is what he describes as Übermensch or Superman. This “superman” is someone that has evolved even greater than any of today’s humans. He compares evolution from apes to humans and believes that the human isn’t done with evolution yet, instead is still growing and
Abortion is a medical procedure to end a pregnancy. It has become one of the most controversial issues out there. Many people have strong feelings and beliefs for or against it. There are also people on both sides, in my case I am against abortion and for the rest of my life will. Abortion is murder, a killing of an innocent human beings unable to make decisions for themselves. Life begins at conception, and for that reason unborn babies are human beings with the right to live. An unborn baby is capable of feeling pain so they feel an enormous pain during the abortion procedure. In addition, abortion is an extremely dangerous procedure that has many risks. Why would you take away someone’s life when there are many options to
Aristotle was taught by Plato (who was taught by and heavily influenced by Socrates). Socrates and Plato had argued that no person knowingly does evil. If a person knows what the right thing to do is and who can distinguish between actions that are virtuous or that are not virtuous, then they will do the right thing because they know it is the right thing to do. They said that the person who does an evil action does it simply out of ignorance or they are mistaken about the virtuous or right thing to do. Plato thought there was “the good” which is a property that all good things have in common. This “good” is not part of physical reality but is internal and unchanging. It will always be the same and will always be good in Plato’s day an...