This week we have continued upon the path of enlightenment, moving from Plato to Aristotle in an effort to continue to improve our psuche's.
In class the argument came up about which was better, Plato or Aristotle. The room seemed divided on the matter, both in student and professor comments on the matter. To me, it seemed like a fairly simple matter. Plato loved riddles, and most of his work leaves you to reach the conclusion for yourself rather than telling you how it should be.
Aristotle on the other hand had no qualms about telling you exactly how he thought things were and should be. Aristotle worked the problems out for you, eliminating some of the confusion that Plato was so want to provide to his readers.
To be honest, I enjoyed Plato a bit more myself. True, I think I found myself more lost in the contents of the city than I did in the construction of the virtuous person by Aristotle. But I would rather wander the streets of Plato's construction of words than to contemplate the dryness of Aristotle's blunt concepts. In the end, it comes down to how your mind works. If you prefer to be ponder things and their very natures, then Plato is your man. If having a theory presented for you straightforwardly, if rather dryly, without any fancy hoops to jump through is more your style, then Aristotle shall make you happy.
This entire analysis could be in a way tied into Aristotle's point about habit making a person virtuous. Habit could make a person more well read, and therefore more knowledgeable and able to form an actual opinion on their favored author between Plato and Aristotle. A person can have read Aristotle, but without having habitually read works of a similar nature, one is very unlikely to have gained anything from such a reading. Without a basis to work from, there can be no understanding of what an act is supposed to represent. we can mimic a virtuous person by saving the baby in the carriage, but until we develop a 'saving people' habit, we cannot truly become virtuous. We can read Plato, but until we develop a philosophical reading habit, can we truly understand?
P.S.--I commented on Fimbulvetr's blog Do We Need A Reason...
Mashburn always made the point of 'Read correctly: read, re-read, and re-read again.' These would probably be great approaches to such works as Plato's and Aristotle's, as continued reading with due diligence (meaning not keeping your head in the stuff 24/7 or neglecting it for long periods of time) might very well help to enlighten certain points. Such methods work with novels and movies; why not the philosophes? :P
ReplyDeleteMy mind adores Aristotle. My heart yearns for Plato. Both my psyche and my pseuche are divided between these two great philosophers, so I can't say that I like one or the other better. Plato's material is somewhere I like to lose myself (note somewhere, not something), where Aristotle's work is something I like to look at on paper and see all the facts layed out and applied to real-life. These two would have made a great think-tank team (and, without direct influence, ended up being one anyway), but I can't imagine what a conversation between the two may have been like.
*shrugs*. Good stuff. :)