Comparison Of Plato And Aristotle's Theory Of Knowledge

The study of knowledge and how we learn has been talked about and thought about for centuries, with Plato and Aristotle being two of the earliest philosophers. Fortunately, in the present-day studies, we do not follow exactly what Plato and Aristotle taught, as we have gained much scientific knowledge that has proven their thinking slightly off from what we follow today. Understanding that Plato was searching for absolute truths as a response to other philosophers that he thought were not going in the right direction, Plato found that absolute truth cannot be found by only using the senses. As Kardas (2014) explains, the senses could only provide partial evidence, as there is nowhere that one can find a “perfectly knowable truth”, (Kardas.

Of course, this was their reality, their senses told them so. Although attempting to use all their senses was naught as they only could use their sight, and, their sight was trickery. Plato still believed that the real word “was, but a shadow cast by those ideal, eternal truths” (Kardas, 2014, p. 77). Plato has spoken of many theories in his writings and one can say that his most famous theory was that of Forms. Plato would argue that our world can be understood from the ideal forms that we sense. The existence of the forms, Plato argued, could “only exist in the ideal world of the philosopher’s mind”, (Kardas, 2014, p. 77). With all this being said, it would reason that Plato found the sensory input to be inaccurate. Since it was inaccurate, it could then not be trusted. Since it could not be trusted Plato believed that true knowledge could only be found through seeking inside oneself to discover the truth. Simple observation, even scientific observation, then, according to my understanding of him, is that our senses are flawed. If our senses are flawed, so must be our perceptions. So, it follows that all is real and yet nothing is

Most of todays scientists would scoff at how Plato described how our eyes see things, however Plato also did not fully trust the senses, which is not entirely a bad thing. Aristotle and his theories, have stood more of the test of time because he did observe nature, created his hypotheses that were testable. Plato’s theories were not so much. When it comes to science based on observation, both Plato and Aristotle provided rudimentary starting points in the case of observation. With the scientific advancements we have made, of course we are going to learn more. Observation will always be a part of science. If we only took one or the other of Plato or Aristotle’s thought, science based on observation would have had many missteps. We owe a great deal to both for giving us a starting