PLATO AND ARISTOTLE'S EPISTEMOLOGY

Plato and Aristotle's epistemology

Plato and Aristotle's epistemology

Plato Epistemology

Plato has a notion of thought as the essence of things is something transcendent that is separate from the world. Plato speaks of the soul as immortal and determined from birth, if you were born a certain way, you have been, what you are and what you will be forever. Plato tried to answer the Sophists postulating a world of unchanging and eternal forms, ideas, on which it is possible to have knowledge accurate and true. The things we see and touch are imperfect copies of the pure forms studied in mathematics and philosophy. Therefore, only the abstract reasoning of these disciplines leads to factual knowledge, while confidence in the perception of the senses produces vague and divergent opinions. For Plato, the material reality is only a starting point, but it is necessary to achieve the true reality, which is in the Cosmos Noetus. Plato ascribes these characteristics only to man, not all living beings. Soul means life concept, and, therefore, no sense to think of preexistence or transmigration of the soul. The soul in Plato is the hub and center of human life. This soul is tripartite, i.e. within the soul there are three functions or parties, intellectual or rational, passionate or irascible and, appetitive (Ackrill 2010).

Plato defined the soul as that which enables living beings and vital activities, in the case of the human soul, the divine and immortal principle that enables us to knowledge and the moral life. It is immaterial and spiritual nature. The principle of rational thought and knowledge is identified with reason by Plato. The soul can live off body. There are three kinds of soul: the rational, which is in the head with the intellectual faculty, which controls the other two, the irascible, which is in the chest, regulate the passions, and the concupiscible, which is in the stomach, controls the appetites of eating, drinking and sex. According to epistemological theory of Plato, the only factual knowledge can be achieved through the exercise of dialectical or discursive thought, the only way to achieve the Idea of Good. This true knowledge is called by Plato himself "epistemic", the other is the view, whose object of study is the physical world. Plato considered, however, that rationality is linked to soul (Havelock, 2005).

Plato begins creating his mind an ideal state, which is the main reason being bliss. Characteristic of this idealized state is the lack of equality. Plato divides citizens into three classes: the guardians, the assistant and the creators, which have different training and upbringing and living completely different lives. For Plato, the soul is immortal and determined at birth (i.e., if you were born warrior, warrior and you have been and what will be for all eternity). With his theory of reminiscence knowledge as Plato explains the memory of previously seen by the soul in the world of ideas. Plato believes that the ideas are separate things in a world apart from the ...