GREEK PHILOSOPHY I | CLASS 34: NOV 19, 2014
T H E P L AT O N I C A N D
ARISTOTELIAN SYNTHESIS
DR. MICHAEL GRIFFIN
CLASSICS & PHILOSOPHY
S O C R AT E S . A R T S . U B C . C A / 2 1 1
T O D AY
• Review of the Presocratics
• Plato’s Synthesis
• Aristotle’s Synthesis
B
T O D AY
• Review of the Presocratics
• Plato’s Synthesis
• Aristotle’s Synthesis
B
T H E P R E S O C R AT I C S : R E V I E W
• The history of theōria (following the Aristotelian tradition)
[See the online “Bird’s Eye View” document for timeline]
• Homer and Hesiod
• The Milesians
• Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes
• Pythagoras
• Xenophanes
• Parmenides
• Heraclitus
• Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists
B
T H E P R E S O C R AT I C S : R E V I E W
• Strong development of the distinction between appearance
(where things come to be and pass away) and reality (where they
do not). Reality causes appearance, but not vice versa.
• cf. Homer, Iliad 5.123. Athena... drew near to his side and spoke
to him in winged words: / Have courage... for I have drawn the
mist from your eyes, / that you may discern in truth gods from
humans...
• From the Milesians and Xenophanes: value of abstraction from
exclusively anthropomorphic imagery of divinity
• From Heraclitus: problematic nature of private perceptions;
possibility of a unifying reason (logos) transcending them
• From Pythagoras, Parmenides and subsequent thinkers: Reality as
available to reason, but not directly available to perception
B
T O D AY
• Review of the Presocratics
• Plato’s Synthesis
• Aristotle’s Synthesis
B
P L AT O : S Y N T H E S I S
Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.6. After the systems we have named
came the philosophy of Plato, which in most respects followed
these thinkers, but had peculiarities that distinguished it from the
philosophy of the Italians. For, having in his youth first become
familiar with Cratylus and with the Heraclitean doctrines (that all
sensible things are ever in a state of flux and there is no knowledge
about them), these views he held even in later years. Socrates,
however, was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting
the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these
ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions;
Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not
to any sensible thing but to entities of another kind—for this
reason, that the common definition could not be a definition of any
sensible thing, as they were always changing.
B
P L AT O : S Y N T H E S I S
Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.6 (cont’d). Things of this other sort,
then, he called Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were apart from
these, and were all called after these; for the multitude of things
which have the same name as the Form exist by participation in it.
Only the name 'participation' was new; for the Pythagoreans say
that things exist by imitation of numbers, and Plato says they exist
by participation, changing the name. But what the participation or
the imitation of the Forms could be they left an open question.
Further, besides sensible things and Forms he says there are the
objects of mathematics, which occupy an intermediate position,
differing from sensible things in being eternal and unchangeable,
from Forms in that there are many alike, while the Form itself is in
each case unique.
B
P L AT O : S Y N T H E S I S
• Nothing perceptible exists stably and definably, so naive
human sensation is problematic (Heraclitus)
• But something must exist stably and definably, since
otherwise our thought is incoherent and self-defeating
(Parmenides)
• And it’s that kind of thing, a stable and rationally definable
criterion, that we might guide our lives by (Socrates)
• Plato calls the real, stable, definable objects of mentation
Ideas or Eidē (Forms). Notice that they are not concepts,
but the realities picked out by concepts.
• Forms are answers to questions about causation in
metaphysics, epistemology, and value.
B
P L AT O : S Y N T H E S I S
• We can pursue witnessing or contemplation (theōria) of
the Forms (such as true Beauty Itself, or Justice or
Goodness itself), and in grasping them, live rationally and
well.
• We can also recognize the Forms at work in nature;
mediated by mathematics, they inform the basic
geometrical building-blocks of the universe, which
(following the Pythagorean model) are built up into the
perceptible world (in Plato’s Timaeus).
• See syllabus readings on Plato (for Lectures 15-16 and
33-34) as well as your notes from our earlier discussions in
class for summary.
B
T O D AY
• Review of the Presocratics
• Plato’s Synthesis
• Aristotle’s Synthesis
B
ARISTOTLE: SYNTHESIS
• The earlier thinkers are all right so far as their perspective
goes, but their perspectives are limited: tend to emphasis
just one kind of causation.
• For example, the Milesians emphasize material (“out-ofwhich”) causation. Perhaps the Pythagoreans emphasize
formal (“according-to-which”) causation.
• We need all four kinds of cause to produce a full explanation.
• And what we’re explaining is phusis, a process of natural
actualization (entelecheia) of potential, “from acorn to oak
tree”.
• See syllabus readings on Aristotle (for Lectures 17-21 and 35)
as well as your notes from our earlier discussions in class for
B
summary.