Monday, April 30, 2012

Socrates vs. Aristotle

At the beginning of the semester, Dr. Griffin told us that it all comes down to  Socrates vs. Aristotle, so I thought I would consider there differences.


Socrates is only known through the writings of others, most notably Plato, and so it is difficult to determine which ideas belonged to him, and which belonged to the authors. Our actual idea of him is so unclear that an expert on the subject, Cornelia de Vogel, said, "“The ‘real’ Socrates we have not: what we have is a set of interpretations each of which represents a ‘theoretically possible’ Socrates.”

Without worrying too much about which beliefs originated with whom, we can summarize Socrates. He looked for answers from within himself and those around him and encouraged development of self and friendships. He is quoted as saying, "the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being." A proponent of oral traditions, he opposed writing. According to him, all wrong is a result of ignorance. He supported a higher placement of women in society than was granted to them at the time, and listed two women among his own teachers. He believed there was only one kind of excellence, shared by all humans. He searched for the big unifying truth of life and believed it could only be found through unending questioning.Where Bacon sought to vex nature into giving up her secrets, Socrates focused on vexing people to obtain a higher understanding.

His visit to the Oracle of Apollo in Delphi was mimicked by Neo's visit to the Oracle in the movie The Matrix. The Oracle has confidence in Neo, despite his admission of ignorance, modelling the Oracle of Delphi's statements that Socrates is the wisest man in the world after he admits he knows nothing.


Aristotle sought to observe the world around him, writing treatises on nearly every subject. His major contribution to the development of logic can be described by Kant, who wrote, "That from the earliest times logic has traveled a secure course can be seen from the fact that since the time of Aristotle it has not had to go a single step backwards…What is further remarkable about logic is that until now it has also been unable to take a single step forward, and therefore seems to all appearance to be finished and complete." Aristotle believed certain axioms must be adopted to allow for logical reasoning.

He attempted to sort and organize the objects of our world. Unlike Socrates, he believed different cases held different kinds of goodness or excellence. He made rational conclusions based on observations of nature and believed understanding the world was more important than understanding oneself. Because he based his works on pure observation, he findings were often wrong.

Aristotle believed destiny resides in everything, which can be taken to extremes in a deterministic sort of way. This is the case with movies such as Napoleon Dynamite , where every event leads up to the climactic dance scene.


While I can see the good points of each, I don't believe either of these can be taken as a philosophy of one's life. In order to live your life to it's fullest and to achieve as much as you're capable, you cannot go about observing only the world or only the internal workings of people. I guess in some ways I tend to agree with the path of moderation of the ancient Greeks. There is one point on which I do disagree with Socrates, which I think was put best by the following quote.
"But as for certain truth, no man has known it, 
nor will he know it; neither of the gods 
nor yet of all the things of which I speak. 
And even if by chance he were to utter
 the perfect truth, he would himself not know it. 
For all is but a woven web of guesses." 
-Xenphanes ca. 400 BC                              

 1. http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

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