The Philosophy Book

58

A

ristotle was 17 years old

when he arrived in Athens

to study at the Academy

under the great philosopher Plato.

Plato himself was 60 at the time,

and had already devised his theory

of Forms. According to this theory,

all earthly phenomena, such as

justice and the color green, are

shadows of ideal counterparts, called

Forms, which give their earthly

models their particular identities.

Aristotle was a studious type,

and no doubt learnt a great deal from

his master, but he was also of a very

different temperament. Where Plato

was brilliant and intuitive, Aristotle

was scholarly and methodical.

Nevertheless, there was an obvious

mutual respect, and Aristotle stayed

at the Academy, both as a student

and a teacher, until Plato died 20

years later. Surprisingly, he was not

chosen as Plato’s successor, and so

he left Athens and took what would

prove to be a fruitful trip to Ionia.

Plato’s theory questioned

The break from teaching gave

Aristotle the opportunity to indulge

his passion for studying wildlife,

which intensified his feeling that

Plato’s theory of Forms was wrong.

It is tempting to imagine that

Aristotle’s arguments had already

had some influence on Plato, who

in his later dialogues admitted

some flaws in his earlier theories,

but it is impossible to know for

certain. We do know, though, that

Plato was aware of the Third Man

argument, which Aristotle used to

refute his theory of Forms. This

argument runs as follows: if there

exists in a realm of Forms a perfect

Form of Man on which earthly men

are modelled, this Form, to have

any conceivable content, would

have to be based on a Form of the

Form of Man—and this too would

have to be based on a higher Form

on which the Forms of the Forms

are based, and so on ad infinitum.

Aristotle’s later argument

against the theory of Forms was

more straightforward, and more

directly related to his studies of the

natural world. He realized that it

was simply unnecessary to assume

that there is a hypothetical realm

of Forms, when the reality of things

can already be seen here on Earth,

inherent in everyday things.

Perhaps because his father

had been a physician, Aristotle’s

scientific interests lay in what we

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Epistemology

APPROACH

Empiricism

BEFORE

399 BCE Socrates argues that

virtue is wisdom.

c.380 BCE Plato presents his

theory of Forms in his Socratic

dialogue, The Republic.

AFTER

9th century CE Aristotle’s

writings are translated

into Arabic.

13th century Translations

of Aristotle’s works appear

in Latin.

1690 John Locke establishes

a school of British empiricism.

1735 Zoologist Carl Linnaeus

lays the foundations of modern

taxonomy in Systema Naturae,

based on Aristotle’s system

of biological classification.

ARISTOTLE

We find the truth

from evidence

gained in the world

around us.

different

instances of “dog” in

the world around us.

We recognize the

common characteristics

of dogs in the world.

Using our senses and our

reason, we understand what

makes a dog a dog.