Aristotle vs Plato

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One of the most fundamental questions of moral philosophy as it applies to our everyday lives is the relationship between truth and philosophy, and as such, it is appropriate that Plato, as one of the founders of Western philosophy, attempts to deal with them. Before one can fully comprehend how Plato understands this interconnection, it is imperative to understand how Plato understands truth and happiness as separate entities—that is, what is truth and what is happiness? Plato never explicitly declares what the truth actually is; rather, the closest he comes is describing characteristics of the truth (much in the same way he flirts with defining justice until the Republic). One of the central characteristics of truth is its singular nature. There is only one truth, for Plato, which allows for the possibility that it could be found in many forms, all connected by one thread. Happiness, an idea with which most of us believe ourselves to be much more familiar, is supposedly derived from performing one’s duty, as stated in the Republic. Having proceeded in this manner, it then becomes simpler to qualify how Plato sees the relationship between truth and happiness. For the philosopher, there is one truth and there is only one way to find happiness; as such, truth and happiness in some ways become subsumed within each other: happiness, the attainment of which is most often the goal of everyday life, is found in truth.

Proceeding in the same fashion with Plato’s successor, Aristotle, takes us to a slightly different conclusion owed to the fact that Aristotle does not agree with Plato’s view of truth, approaching it with a more dogmatist perspective, or with Plato’s idea of happiness, which he criticizes as too centered on th...

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...l as integral to and subject to the necessities of the state. Truth and happiness do not arise from acceptance of one’s place as a manual laborer or merchant but from a life of contemplation and reflection. In this sense, it is as if a modern reader has to choose between the lesser of two evils: Plato, with his intrusive view of happiness and the state, and Aristotle, with his very aristocratic idea of happiness and truth. Aristotle does not believe that individual happiness should have to be sacrificed for the good of the community. In this sense, the two great philosophers diverge on the primary unit of political life. For Plato, the community and its will reign supreme over the lives of its inhabitants. For Aristotle, the individual and the family are the necessary, constituent parts of a greater polis, an idea he more explicitly articulates in the Politics.

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