ELUSIYAN ‘TOLULOPE FRANCIS
INTRODUCTION
Focusing on Aristotle,
he provides an interesting case study of the way in which philosophical ideas
develop. To understand his agenda, we need to understand the relationship
between his vision of philosophy and that of his teacher, Plato. On the one
hand, the impact of Plato on his most famous disciple could never be erased.
Throughout his philosophical writings. Aristotle sought to give more coherent
and satisfactory solutions to the problems his teacher addressed. Soon after
his teacher’s death, Aristotle praised him as a man “whom bad men have not even
the right to praise, and who showed in his life and teachings how to be happy
and good at the same time. On the other hand, Aristotle as a powerful,
independent, and innovative thinker. He was not content simply to repeat the
ideas of his beloved teacher. He cautiously modified some of them and
vigorously refuted and rejected others. For example in his work on ethics, he
tenderly expresses the necessity of following the truth even if it means
painfully dismissing ideas introduced by Plato, his close friend.
However, our focus in
this work is “ARISTOTLE CRITICISM OF PLATO’S THEORY OF FROM” hence, this
discourse shall be exposed under the following thematic outlines:
-
PLATONIC FORM
-
ARISTOTLE CRITICISM OF PLATONIC FORM
-
EVALUATION/CONCLUSION
PLATONIC FORM
Plato’s metaphysics is
centered around his world of forms of which the material universe is only a
shadow or imperfect reflection. It is also called the world of ideas or the intelligible world. It is the
ideal world where everything is in its perfect form. What are the forms? They
are the universal ideas of things, the essences of things, or the real nature
of things. They exist as entities, ontological entities, out there in the world
of forms. For Plato, they are not just ideas in the mind but real entities,
existing on their own in a world of their own, independently of human minds.[1]
If one were to go there
(to the world of forms) one would actually see them. But it is only by
intellectual flight by means of metaphysics that one can get there. And there
one find the true nature of all the things found in this world. There in the
world of forms they can be seen in their perfect nature. For example, the
essence of justice, the essence of goodness, the essence of every species of
animal, the essence of cat, the essence of dog etc, as well as the essence of
man, are all there in the world of forms. The things in this world are simply
imperfect copies, imperfect reflections or shadows of the real things in the
world of forms. While individual things in this world of forms never pass away,
they don’t die neither do they change. Again while the things in this world keep changing, their
essences in the world of forms are immutable. Individual human beings for
example keep changing and eventually pass away. They come and go, but the
essence of man, the form of man in the world of forms never changes and never
dies.[2]
Thus, in Plato’s
metaphysics there are two worlds, the physical world which is an imperfect
reflection of the ideal world and the ideal world itself which is the world of forms, the perfect world. The
world in which we live is a world where things change and die whereas in the
other world there is no change, no death. It is an immaterial, immutable,
eternal and perfect world. Things do not come and go in that world, they remain
eternally the same. The most important form among all the forms there is the
form of good. It is the central form in which all other forms participate. The
form of good is the source of the being of all other forms, and it is also the
source of light that illuminates all the other forms. It is like the sun from
which light goes out, and the unifying principle that unites all the other
forms.[3]
ARISTOTLE CRITICISM OF
PLATONIC FORM
To understand
Aristotle’s criticism, it is important to see how his approach differs from
Plato’s. Recall that plato had a very severe dualism in which reality consisted
of two worlds. The world of the forms was non physical, eternal, unchanging and
known only by reason. The world of our everyday experience was material,
temporal, constantly changing and known through the senses. The first world,
according to Plato, is what is ultimately real, whereas the world of our experience
is like a collection of shadows.
Aristotle has some very
sharp criticisms of the platonic form and tries to replace them with a
radically revised theory of how universals and particulars are related.
Here are some of the
main criticisms that Aristotle offers in his metaphysics:
The forms are useless.
They have no explanatory power. Instead of explaining the natural world, Plato’s
theory creates a second world thereby doubling the number of things that
require explanation. Instead of bringing some unity to the multiplicity of
things in experience, it complicates more multiplicity.[4]
The forms cannot
explain change or the movement of things within our experience. “Above all one
might discuss the question what on earth the forms contribute to sensible things.
For they cause neither movement nor any change in them. In many passages, Plato
presents change as a symptom of the irrationality and imperfection of the
physical world, and he was less interested in it than he was in what was
eternal and permanent. For Aristotle, however, our lives are lived in a
changing world, and we need to make some sense out of it. Hence, he complains
that if the unchanging forms are the basis for all explanation, then “the whole
study of nature has been annihilated”.[5]
The forms cannot be the
essence or substance of things if they are separated from them.[6]
It is not clear what it
means for particulars to “participate” in the forms. To say that the forms are
patterns and that particulars share in them “is to use empty words and poetical
metaphors”.[7]
Also, Aristotle uses
the third Man Argument that was introduced in the chapter on Plato. If the relationship[8]
between two men is explained by means of the form of man, then do we need yet
another form of man, than do we need yet another form to explain the similarity
between the individual man and the form of man? If so, then this process would
never end, for we would have forms explaining forms forever.[9]
EVALUATION/CONCLUSION
Aristotle does not
believe that the platonic theory of forms can be salvaged. Despite of his great
respect for Plato, Aristotle harshly concludes, “the forms we can dispense
with, for they are mere sound without sense; and even if there are such things,
they are not relevant to our discussion”
Despite Aristotle’s
rejection of the platonic version of the forms, we must not suppose that
Aristotle does away with them altogether. With Plato, he still believes there
are iniversal forms that are objective and that constitute the essences of
things in the world. It is because of these forms that we are able to have
knowledge. Furthermore, Aristotle agrees that the order in reality can only be
explained by reference to the forms.
Good one
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