Difference in the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and Their Influence.

The word Philosophy comes from the Greek words of ‘philo’ meaning love and ‘sophos’ meaning wisdom (Philosophy). It is the pursuit for wisdom, to comprehend human behavior, nature and ultimately the meaning of life. Plato was the student of Socrates, influenced by his work, Plato aged to become a great philosopher himself; establishing his philosophy from that of his teacher. Aristotle was the student of Plato, and like his teacher, grew up to ground his philosophy from that of Plato. Although, both Plato and Aristotle criticized their teacher’s works, they were also influenced by them. Both Plato and Aristotle developed their own modes of knowledge acquisition; Plato’s Platonic Idealism and Aristotle’s Analytic Empiricism. In this paper, my objective is to identify the differences in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, which lead to the development of two contradictory modes of knowledge acquisition and their influence on succeeding thinkers.

Plato (428-328 BC) was a successful philosopher, influenced by people like Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans: But, the most influential person in Plato’s life was Socrates (Nicholas). Socrates used oral arguing to cross-examine people, asking them to define an idea or concept and through argument, improve their answer to give a better definition and thus gain wisdom; this was called the Socratic Method. Socrates used to argue concepts such as wisdom, justice, virtue and love. Plato supported Socrates ideas but criticized his work. He supported Socrates because he wasn’t biased and didn’t conceal the issues at hand: But, Plato criticized Socrates work because Socrates believed that during the “reincarnation of an eternal soul which contained all knowledge, we lose touch wit...

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