TOPIC: SOCRATES, PLATO, AND ARISTOTLE MATRIX

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Matrix

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Matrix

According to Socrates (c. 470-399 B.C.) Lovers of wisdom (philosophers) are seekers after wisdom. They are between the ignorant, who are not interested in wisdom, and gods, who are wise already. Plato (428-347 B.C.) thought that philosophy is the quest for truth, but he also thought that astonishment is the beginning of philosophy: "for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. He was not a bad genealogist who said that Iris (the messenger of heaven) is the child of Thaumas (wonder)." His disciple Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) repeated his opinion: "For through astonishment men have begun to philosophise both in our times and at the beginning"

A Greek noun theoria, and a verb theoreo, [to look at, to behold, to observe; to consider, to contemplate, to examine; to perceive], has a root theos [god, deity, divine being], means "to contemplate the divine".

Therefore, the original meaning of 'theory' or 'to theorize' was 'contemplation of the divine' or 'to contemplate the divine'. Those ancient thinkers were not theologians or simply believers. They were convinced that wisdom is a contemplation not of gods but of the divine, which was for them the 'cosmos' Greek kosmos, [the order (of things, or of the universe)], an opposite of 'chaos', [the undordered, unformed, undifferentiated beginning of things]. 'Chaos' is one of the most important notions in the Greek mythology, as Greeks believed that 'chaos' was in the beginning of anything existing, before time [chronos, Kronos] and matter, 'the stuff' of the universe

Socrates (in many ways influenced by the sophists - people with no public system of education)was convinced that virtue was equal with moral knowledge of right and wrong: if someone knew what was right to do him could not do ...