Compare And Contrast Plato And Aristotle

Introduction

Plato and Aristotle are renowned Greek philosophers who arguably proved to be great thinkers in their lifetime. Plato started his work in Athens as a philosopher and he played a big role in the development of the political philosophy. Apart from his philosophical works, Plato also took part in the development of science, mathematics and Christianity. In the republic, he sets out to define what is justice and its role to the society. On the other hand, Aristotle dealt mostly with political science. Just like Plato, Aristotle started an academy called Lyceum whereby its members did research in politics and philosophy. One of the philosophical works that Aristotle authored is the Nicomachean Ethics which focused on happiness and how it is achieved. Therefore, the two philosophers’ works are comparable since they dealt a lot with human element of character.

In The republic, Plato believes that individual justice is very important in any political body. It enables any person to play their role in the society and achieve pleasure. The soul of an individual is structured into three parts. There is the rational part

One of the main similarity is their take on justice. They both agree that justice brings good life. According to them, justice brings equality. In this context, Plato believes that justice and the law play a very important role in guiding the behavior of the individuals in a society.Aristotle writes, “Justice is considered to mean equality, in oligarchies, again inequality in the distribution of office is considered to be just,” (Hacker 91). Another similarity is that the two philosophers were mostly concerned with ethics. They had ideas and plans which aimed at improving the lives of those in their society. In order to achieve harmony in any given society, virtues ought to be followed. Plato and Aristotle in their excerpts agree that it is by observing virtues that someone achieves