Plato and Aristotle 59One might mistakenly assume that the home will be a master
piece, with all the best men available working on it. Not so. There
is one major factor that is missing, without which the home might
easily be a disaster. Without an architect to see to it that all these
excellent components are put into a proper relationship, one with
the other, the necessary symmetry of the whole will be askew.
Likewise, a man must not only perfect his mind, spirit, and
appetite, he must do so in proper proportions. If one is basically
intellectual, wisdom should dominate. If one is basically
appetitive, he must develop a greater temperance; that virtue will
be most necessary since he lacks intellect and spirit. A man
whose basic disposition it to be spirited, must harness that
attribute and develop courage. Each man must develop to the
fullest those attributes with which God has endowed him, and in
doing so will create the house which the architect has designed.
Plato applies this theory to the state, which we will see in his
political theory, and develops a pyramidal organization which
he conceives as the ideal state.
Since knowledge, the means to wisdom sits atop this pyramid,
it is the supreme good. In many of his dialogues some of the
characters challenge Plato’s contentions. Some of the characters
in his scenarios argue that men would forsake knowledge for
pleasure while others contend that they might choose power.
Plato rejects both in his dialogues with the sophists Glaucon,
Thrasymachus, and Callicles. The sophists contend that injus
tice is better than justice, since it provides the greatest pleasure,
i.e., happiness. The person who can be unjust on a grand scale
and achieve power over others will be much happier than those
over whom he exercises power. It is better to dominate than to be
dominated.
Thus, there arises the issue of knowledge or pleasure, which
is the highest good? Plato maintains that knowledge is the
highest good, and that when men act in pursuit of pleasure, they
are simply acting in ignorance. Plato believes that no man
knowingly does evil, but that when one is overcome by pleasure,
knowledge is blurred, and evil occurs. If one knew for certain
that a particular act was wrong, he would not perform it. Because
some acts are so obviously wrong, most men do not murder,
steal, rape, plunder, and pillage. Plato would contend that it is the
knowledge of the evil of those acts which restrains us. Most evil