Plato and Aristotle 61early writings after leaving the Academy, he worked out inter
pretations of Plato that he felt were more in keeping with reality,
which he saw as a combination of mind and matter. The Aristotlean
dictum, “no form without matter, no matter without form,” is the
basis for his philosophy, called realism. When challenged as one
who had been Plato’s favorite and seemed to have turned on his
teacher, Aristotle is reported to have said, “Plato is dear, but truth
is dearer still.”
Aristotle was a prolific writer, who wrote on virtually every
subject known to man. It has been said that he knew all there was
to know at his time in history. His Nichomachean Ethics is the
first systematic treatment of ethics. In it he outlines his idea of
happiness as self-realization. This rests on a concept of natural
law which requires a “thing fulfill the essence of it’s being,” i. e.,
achieve it’s potential.
The Lyceum, founded in Athens by Aristotle, was dedicated
not only to teaching, but to independent study, research, scien
tific investigation, and to the preservation of the existing aca
demic knowledge of the ancient world. The Lyceum, like
Aristotle, was the repository of the most comprehensive accu
mulation of intellectual achievements of his time.
The first and important difference between Aristotle and Plato
in their metaphysics is in the problem of ideals. Plato contended
that they were real in and of themselves. Aristotle maintained
that they were real only as they were actualized in material
objects. Aristotle believed that everything sought to fulfill the
essence of its being, to become what the combination of form and
matter was meant to be in its final form.
Plato’s ideals were eternal and immutable, so he maintained
that change was really one’s senses deceived. Aristotle, finding
this explanation wanting, concluded that while matter remains
the same, the form changes. Thus, Plato’s idea of form becomes
Aristotle ’ s essence of a thing, and the concept of matter becomes
Aristotle’s substance, the combination of which is reality.
Aristotle saw change as a manifestation of a thing moving
toward it’s essence. He used the term “entelechy,” which means
the final purpose, to describe the process. Nature makes nothing
in vain, so every thing is designed to reach its natural end. The
goal of every thing is to achieve the end for which it was made,
to move from its potential to its actual.