UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

PESHAWAR

FINAL TERM PAPER

IE-243 Logical and Critical Thinking

SUBMITTED TO: PROF. DR, FAWAD HAIDER

SUBMITTED BY: BILAL KHAN
REGISTRATION NO: 18PWIND0571
DEPARTMENT: INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
SEMESTER: 4th
SECTION: B
QUESTION 1
Write the brief history and philosophy of Plato and Aristotle (CLO 1, PLO:
Knowledge) marks 15.

ANSWER
PLATO:
 (c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC) was an immensely influential classical Greek philosopher,
student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. His most famous work is The
Republic (Greek Politeia, 'city') in which he outlines his vision of an "ideal" state. He also
wrote the Laws and many dialogues in which Socrates is the main participant.

Biography
Plato was born in Athens, into a moderately well-to-do aristocratic family. His father was
named Ariston and his mother Prediction. An ancestor, Glaucon, was one of the best-
known members of the Athenian nobility. Plato's own real name was "Aristotle’s". The
nickname Plato originates from wrestling circles, that much is agreed on. Since Plato
means "broad," it probably refers either to his physical appearance or possibly wrestling
stance or style.

He founded the Academy, one of the earliest known organized schools in Western
civilization, named after the spot it was founded on, holy to the hero Academes. Aristotle
was a student there for many years. It operated until it was closed by Justinian I of
Byzantium in 529 A.D.

Plato became a pupil of Socrates in his youth, and--according to his own account,
anyhow--attended his master's trial, though not his execution. Unlike Socrates, Plato
wrote down his philosophical views and left a considerable number of manuscripts (see
below). He was deeply affected by the city's treatment of Socrates: much of his early
work enshrines his memories of his teacher, and much of his ethical writing suggests a
desire to found a society where similar injustices could not occur.

Plato was also deeply influenced by the Pythagoreans, whose notions of numerical
harmony have clear echoes in Plato's notion of the Forms (sometimes thus capitalized;
see below); by Anaxagoras, who taught Socrates and who held that the mind or reason
pervades everything; and by Parmenides, who argued the unity of all things.

In Plato's writings one finds the heliocentric theory of the universe long before it was
advanced by Aristarchus (and revived still later and given a scientific footing by
Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler). One finds debates concerning aristocratic and
democratic forms of government. One finds debates concerning the role of heredity and
environment in human intelligence and personality long before the modern "nature versus
nurture" debate began in the time of Hobbes and Locke, with its modern continuation in
such controversial works as The Mis measure of Man and The Bell Curve. One finds
arguments for the subjectivity--and the objectivity--of human knowledge which
foreshadow modern debates between Hume and Kant, or between the postmodernists and
their opponents. Even the myth of the lost city or continent of Atlantis originates as an
illustrative story told by Plato in his Timaeus and Critics.

His writings take the form of dialogues and in majority of these, the main role is taken by
Socrates in whose mouth Plato puts the exposition of his own philosophy. A most
important element of Plato's style is his use of myths. He doesn't always explain the
meaning of things in a scientific way (like Aristotle did). Be frequently teaches by fables,
allegories and stories, all of which can be put under the general appellation of Platonic
myths. However, Plato himself was a harsh critic of the ‘poets. But he slips so easily
from scientific exposition into myth, that it is often no easy matter to decide whether his
statements are meant literally or allegorically. His works:

1) The earliest group, written about the time of the death of Socrates:

 Apology- dialogue that presents the speech of legal self-defense, which

Socrates presented at his trial for impiety and corruption.
 Hippias Minor
 Euthyphro
 Phaedrus
 Protagoras
 Crito-depicts a conversation between Socrates (who has been sentenced to
death and is in jail) and his wealthy friend Crito regarding justice, injustice, and
the appropriate response to injustice.
 Meno- It appears to attempt to determine the definition of virtue, or arete,
meaning virtue in general, rather than particular virtues, such as justice or
temperance.
 Lysis- discusses the concept of friendship,
 Charmantes- discusses the concept of temperance,
 Laches- discusses the concept of bravery

2) Second group of dialogues, generally connected with his travels. In addition to the
influence of Socrates, we have now the influence of the Eleatics. Here Plato for the first
time develops his own special philosophical thesis. This is infecting his constructive
period. The central principle of his philosophy is the theory of ideas.
  Gorgias- discusses and refutes the Sophistic identification of virtues and
pleasure, and attempts to show, as against it, that good must be something
objectively existent and independent of the pleasure of individual.
 Theaetetus- shows that truth is not, as many sophists thought, merely the
subjective impression of the individual but is something objectively true in
itself.
 Sophist- discusses being and not being and their relationship to the theory of
Ideas.
 Parmenides- inquires whether the absolute reality is to be regarded as an
abstract One.

3) The dialogues of the third group are works of Plato's maturity. By this point Plato has
completely mastered his thought. The first period was marked with literary grace, the
second by depth of thought, the third period combines both.

 Symposium- attempts to connect man's feeling for beauty with the intellectual
knowledge of the Ideas.
 The Phoebus- applies the theory of Ideas to the sphere of ethics,
 The Timaeus- to the sphere of physics and,
 The Republic- to the sphere of politics.
 The Phaedo- founds the doctrine of the immortality of soul upon the theory of
ideas
 The Phaedrus

Work
Plato wrote his philosophy down mainly in the form of dialogues in which several
characters discuss a topic by asking questions of one another. The early ones, where
Socrates figures prominently and his own teaching style is used, are called the Socratic
Dialogues. But the philosophy expressed in his dialogues changed a great deal over the
course of Plato's life, and this makes it difficult to determine whether an opinion
expressed in one of these dialogues is an idea of Socrates', or Plato's. (Plato himself
appears only very briefly in two of the dialogues, and says nothing.) It is generally agreed
that Plato's earlier works are more closely based on Socrates' thought, whereas his later
writing increasingly breaks away with the views of his former teacher. In the middle
dialogues, Socrates becomes a mouthpiece for Plato's own philosophy, and the question-
and-answer style is more pro forma. The later dialogues are closer to being simply
treatises, and Socrates is often absent or quiet.

Plato's Metaphysics: Platonism, or realism

One of Plato's legacies, and perhaps his greatest, was his dualistic metaphysics, often
called (in metaphysics) simply "realism" or "Platonism." Whatever it is called, Plato's
metaphysics divides the world into two distinct aspects: the intelligible world of "forms"
and the perceptual world we see around us. He saw the perceptual world, and the things
in it, as imperfect copies of the intelligible forms or ideas. These forms are unchangeable
and perfect, and are only comprehensible by the use of the intellect or understanding (i.e.,
a capacity of the mind that does not include sense-perception or imagination).

In the Republic Books VI and VII, Plato used a number of metaphors to explain his

metaphysical views: the metaphor of the sun, the well-known allegory of the cave, and
most explicitly, the divided line. Taken together, these metaphors convey a complex and,
in places, difficult theory: there is something called The Form of the Good (often
interpreted as Plato's God), which is the ultimate object of knowledge and which as it
were sheds light on all the other forms (i.e., universals: abstract kinds and attributes) and
from which all other forms "emanate." The Form of the Good does this in somewhat the
same way as the sun sheds light on, or makes visible and "generates," things in the
perceptual world. (See Plato's metaphor of the sun.) But indeed, in the perceptual world,
the particular objects we see around us bear only a dim resemblance to the more
ultimately real forms of Plato's intelligible world: it is as if we are seeing shadows of cut-
out shapes on the walls of a cave, which are mere representations of the reality outside
the cave, illuminated by the sun. (See Plato's allegory of the cave.) We can imagine
everything in the universe represented on a line of increasing reality; it is divided once in
the middle, and then once again in each of the resulting parts. The first division
represents that between the intelligible and the perceptual worlds. Then there is
a corresponding division in each of these worlds: the segment representing the perceptual
world is divided into segments representing "real things" on the one hand, and shadows,
reflections, and representations on the other. Similarly, the segment representing the
intelligible world is divided into segments representing first principles and most general
forms, on the one hand, and more derivative, "reflected" forms, on the other. (See the
divided line of Plato.) The form of government derived from this philosophy turns out to
be one of a rigidly fixed hierarchy of hereditary classes, in which the arts are mostly
suppressed for the good of the state, the size of the city and its social classes is
determined by mathematical formula, and eugenic measures are applied secretly by
rigging the lotteries in which the right to reproduce is allocated. The tightness of
connection of such government to the lofty and original philosophy in the book has been
debated.
Plato's metaphysics, and particularly the dualism between the intelligible and the
perceptual, would inspire later Neoplatonic thinkers (see Plotinus) and Gnosticism) and
other metaphysical realists. For more on Platonic realism in general, see Platonic realism
and the Forms.

Plato also had some influential opinions on the nature of knowledge and learning which
he propounded in the Meno, which began with the question of whether virtue can be
taught, and proceeded to expound the concepts of recollection, learning as the discovery
of pre-existing knowledge, and right opinion, opinions which are correct but have no
clear justification.

A short history of Plato scholarship

Plato's thought is often compared with that of his best and most famous student, Aristotle,
whose reputation during the Middle Ages so completely eclipsed that of Plato that the
Scholastic philosophers referred to Aristotle as "the Philosopher."

One of the characteristics of the Middle Ages was reliance on authority and on scholastic
commentaries on writings of Plato and other historically important philosophers, rather
than accessing their original works. In fact, Plato's original writings were essentially lost
to western civilization until their reintroduction in the twelfth century through the Arab
scholars who not only maintained the original Greek texts of the ancients, but expanded
them by writing extensive commentaries and interpretations on Plato's and Aristotle's
works (see Al-Farai, Avicenna, Averroes). These were eventually translated into Latin
and later, into the local vernacular.

Only in the Renaissance, with the general resurgence of interest in classical civilization,
did knowledge of Plato's philosophy become more widespread. Many of the greatest
early modern scientists (e.g., Galileo) and artists (with the support of the Plato-inspired
Lorenzo de Medici) who broke with Scholasticism and fostered the flowering of the
Renaissance saw Plato's philosophy as the basis for progress in the arts and sciences.

Today, Plato's reputation is as easily on a par with Aristotle's. Many college students
have read Plato but not Aristotle, in large part because the former's greater accessibility.

Death
(born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died 348/347, Athens)
ARISTOTLE’S LIFE:
Born in 384 B.C.E. in the Macedonian regions of northeastern Greece in the small city of
Stagira (whence the moniker ‘the Stagirite’, which one still occasionally encounters in
Aristotelian scholarship), Aristotle was sent to Athens at about the age of seventeen to
study in Plato’s Academy, then a pre-eminent place of learning in the Greek world. Once
in Athens, Aristotle remained associated with the Academy until Plato’s death in 347, at
which time he left for Assis, in Asia Minor, on the northwest coast of present-day
Turkey. There he continued the philosophical activity he had begun in the Academy, but
in all likelihood also began to expand his researches into marine biology. He remained at
Assis for approximately three years, when, evidently upon the death of his host Hermia’s,
a friend and former Academic who had been the ruler of Assis, Aristotle moved to the
nearby coastal island of Lesbos. There he continued his philosophical and empirical
researches for an additional two years, working in conjunction with Theophrastus, a
native of Lesbos who was also reported in antiquity to have been associated with Plato’s
Academy. While in Lesbos, Aristotle married Pythias, the niece of Hermia’s, with whom
he had a daughter, also named Pythias.
In 343, upon the request of Philip, the king of Macedon, Aristotle left Lesbos for Pella,
the Macedonian capital, in order to tutor the king’s thirteen-year-old son, Alexander—the
boy who was eventually to become Alexander the Great. Although speculation
concerning Aristotle’s influence upon the developing Alexander has proven irresistible to
historians, in fact little concrete is known about their interaction. On the balance, it seems
reasonable to conclude that some tuition took place, but that it lasted only two or three
years, when Alexander was aged from thirteen to fifteen. By fifteen, Alexander was
apparently already serving as a deputy military commander for his father, a circumstance
undermining, if inconclusively, the judgment of those historians who conjecture a longer
period of tuition. Be that as it may, some suppose that their association lasted as long as
eight years.
It is difficult to rule out that possibility decisively, since little is known about the period
of Aristotle’s life from 341–335. He evidently remained a further five years in Stagira or
Macedon before returning to Athens for the second and final time, in 335. In Athens,
Aristotle set up his own school in a public exercise area dedicated to the god Apollo
Lykins, whence its name, the Lyceum. Those affiliated with Aristotle’s school later came
to be called Peripatetics, probably because of the existence of an ambulatory (periapts) on
the school’s property adjacent to the exercise ground. Members of the Lyceum conducted
research into a wide range of subjects, all of which were of interest to Aristotle himself:
botany, biology, logic, music, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, cosmology, physics,
the history of philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, ethics, theology, rhetoric, political
history, government and political theory, rhetoric, and the arts. In all these areas, the
Lyceum collected manuscripts, thereby, according to some ancient accounts, assembling
the first great library of antiquity.
During this period, Aristotle’s wife, Pythias, died and he developed a new relationship
with Beryllias, perhaps like him a native of Stagira, though her origins are disputed, as is
the question of her exact relationship to Aristotle. Some suppose that she was merely his
slave; others infer from the provisions of Aristotle’s will that she was a freed woman and
likely his wife at the time of his death. In any event, they had children together, including
a son, Nicolaus, named for Aristotle’s father and after whom his Nicomachean Ethics is
presumably named.
After thirteen years in Athens, Aristotle once again found cause to retire from the city, in
323. Probably his departure was occasioned by a resurgence of the always-simmering
anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens, which was free to come to the boil after Alexander
succumbed to disease in Babylon during that same year. Because of his connections to
Macedon, Aristotle reasonably feared for his safety and left Athens, remarking, as an oft-
repeated ancient tale would tell it, that he saw no reason to permit Athens to sin twice
against philosophy. He withdrew directly to Chalcis, on Euboea, an island off the Attic
coast, and died there of natural causes the following year, in 322

Aristotle’s Books
Aristotle wrote an estimated 200 works, most in the form of notes and manuscript drafts
touching on reasoning, rhetoric, politics, ethics, science and psychology. They consist of
dialogues, records of scientific observations and systematic works. His student
Theophrastus reportedly looked after Aristotle’s writings and later passed them to his
own student Nereus, who stored them in a vault to protect them from moisture until they
were taken to Rome and used by scholars there. Of Aristotle’s estimated 200 works, only
31 are still in circulation. Most date to Aristotle’s time at the Lyceum.

'Poetics'
Poetics is a scientific study of writing and poetry where Aristotle observes, analyzes and
defines mostly tragedy and epic poetry. Compared to philosophy, which presents ideas,
poetry is an imitative use of language, rhythm and harmony that represents objects and
events in the world, Aristotle posited. His book explores the foundation of story making,
including character development, plot and storyline.
'Nicomachean Ethics' and 'Eudemon Ethics'
In Micromachine Ethics, which is believed to have been named in tribute to Aristotle’s
son, Nicolaus, Aristotle prescribed a moral code of conduct for what he called “good
living.” He asserted that good living to some degree defied the more restrictive laws of
logic, since the real world poses circumstances that can present a conflict of personal
values. That said, it was up to the individual to reason cautiously while developing his or
her own judgment. Eudemon Ethics is another of Aristotle’s major treatises on the
behavior and judgment that constitute “good living.”

On happiness: In his treatises on ethics, Aristotle aimed to discover the best way to live
life and give it meaning — “the supreme good for man,” in his words — which he
determined was the pursuit of happiness. Our happiness is not a state but an activity, and
it’s determined by our ability to live a life that enables us to use and develop our reason.
While bad luck can affect happiness, a truly happy person, he believed, learns to cultivate
habits and behaviors that help him (or her) to keep bad luck in perspective.

Other Works on Logic

Besides Prior Analytics, Aristotle’s other major writings on logic include Categories, On
Interpretation and Posterior Analytics. In these works, Aristotle discusses his system for
reasoning and for developing sound arguments.

Works on Science
Aristotle composed works on astronomy, including On the Heavens, and earth sciences,
including Meteorology. By meteorology, Aristotle didn’t simply mean the study of
weather. His more expansive definition of meteorology included “all the affectations we
may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the
affectations of its parts.” In Meteorology, Aristotle identified the water cycle and
discussed topics ranging from natural disasters to astrological events. Although many of
his views on the Earth were controversial at the time, they were re-adopted and
popularized during the late Middle Ages.

Works on Psychology
Aristotle examines human psychology. Aristotle’s writings about how people perceive
the world continue to underlie many principles of modern psychology.

Philosophy
Aristotle’s work on philosophy influenced ideas from late antiquity all the way through
the Renaissance. One of the main focuses of Aristotle’s philosophy was his systematic
concept of logic. Aristotle’s objective was to come up with a universal process of
reasoning that would allow man to learn every conceivable thing about reality. The initial
process involved describing objects based on their characteristics, states of being and
actions.

In his philosophical treatises, Aristotle also discussed how man might next obtain
information about objects through deduction and inference. To Aristotle, a deduction was
a reasonable argument in which “when certain things are laid down, something else
follows out of necessity in virtue of their being so.” His theory of deduction is the basis
of what philosophers now call a syllogism, a logical argument where the conclusion is
inferred from two or more other premises of a certain form.

Death
In 322 B.C., just a year after he fled to Chalcis to escape prosecution under charges of
impiety, Aristotle contracted a disease of the digestive organs and died.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

QUESTION 2
Analayze and differentiate b/w the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.

ANSWER
They are all great thinkers. diving into the differences, I want to briefly touch on the
similarity. All, Plato, and Aristotle believed in the purpose or final causes of being. That
was in contrast to atomists like Democritus who tried to look at the universe
mechanistically. They focused instead on the questions of what purpose the earthquake
served (teleology) instead of what caused it (ex: earth clusters).

I’d say while that attitude may be helpful in analyzing human psychology and in the
domain of politics, it was not particularly friendly to our modern scientific viewpoint.

Now let’s talk about the differences.

 Aristotle Plato

Notable The Golden mean, Reason, Logic, Theory of Forms, Platonic idealism,
ideas Biology, Passion Platonic realism

Main Politics, Metaphysics, Science, Logic, Rhetoric, art, literature,justice, virtue,

interests Ethics politics, education, family, militarism

Date of 384 BC 428/427 or 424/423 BCE

birth

Place of Stageira, Chalcidice Athens

Birth

Influenced Alexander the Great, Al-Farabi, Aristotle, Augustine, Neoplatonism,

Avicenna, Averroes, Albertus
Magnus, Maimonides Copernicus,
Galileo Galilei, Ptolemy, St. Thomas
Aquinas, Ayn Rand, and most of
Islamic philosophy, Christian
philosophy, Western philosophy and
Science in general
Cicero, Plutarch, Stoicism, Anselm,
Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Mill,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger,
Arendt, Gadamer, Russell and
countless other western philosophers
and theologians

PLATO
He instead looked up to Sparta (see below for the detail) where constitutional stability was provided
and the soldiers were seen as courageous and invincible. All of these factors made his political
philosophy to favor rather totalitarian attitude. His preference became a more legit culture that
straightens people’s bahavior constraints. Platonic Academy he has founded is carrying his desire to
produce cultural uniformity.

His great gift to the later civilization was the merging of religion and reasoning. With his strong
interest in mathematics, he contributed to separation between the later intellectualized European
mysticism from straightforward mysticism of Asia.
Aristotle
Of the three, Aristotle’s philosophy had the most profound impact on the later European thinking
until Renaissance. His contribution includes the establishment of formalized logic and its application
in the role of inquiry and explanation (science and dialectic). It’s important to note however that
when he talks about science, it’s not only the empirical science we modern people think of but also
include mathematics and metaphysics.

Unlike Plato, he was highly critical against the Spartan idea. He treated the Spartan courage as
nothing but war seeking behavior. Instead, he talks the importance of happiness and pleasure in
defining the purpose of our lives and how we achieve them through virtuous actions.

The Works of Aristotle and Plato

Whereas most of Plato's works have survived through the centuries, roughly 80% of what
Aristotle wrote has been lost. He is said to have written almost 200 treatises on an array of
subjects, but only 31 have survived. Some of his other works are referenced or alluded to
by contemporary scholars, but the original material is gone.
What remains of Aristotle's works are primarily lecture notes and teaching aids, draft-level
material that lacks the polish of "finished" publications. Even so, these works influenced
philosophy, ethics, biology, physics, astronomy, medicine, politics, and religion for many
centuries. His most important works, copied hundreds of times by hand throughout ancient
and medieval times, were titled: Physics; De Anima (On the Soul); Metaphysics; Politics;
and Poetics. These and several other treatises were collected in what was called the Corpus
Aristotelicum and often served as the basis for hundreds of private and teaching libraries
up to the 19th century.
Plato's works can be roughly divided into three periods. His early period featured much of
what is known about Socrates, with Plato taking the role of the dutiful student who keeps
his tutor's ideas alive. Most of these works are written in the form of dialogues, using
the Socratic Method (asking questions to explore concepts and knowledge) as the basis for
teaching. Plato's The Apology, where he discusses the trial of execution and his teacher, is
included in this period.
Plato's second or middle period is comprised of works where he explores morality and
virtue in individuals and society. He presents lengthy discussions on justice, wisdom,
courage, as well as the duality of power and responsibility. Plato's most famous work, The
Republic, which was his vision of a utopian society, was written during this period.
The third period of Plato's writings mainly discusses the role of arts, along with morality
and ethics. Plato challenges himself and his ideas in this period , exploring his own
conclusions with self-debate. The end result is his philosophy of idealism, wherein the
truest essence of things occurs in thought, not reality. In The Theory of Forms and other
works, Plato states that only ideas are constant, that the world perceived by senses is
deceptive and changeable.

DIFFERENCES IN CONTRIBUTIONS

In Philosophy
Plato believed that concepts had a universal form, an ideal form, which leads to
his idealistic philosophy. Aristotle believed that universal forms were not
necessarily attached to each object or concept, and that each instance of an
object or a concept had to be analyzed on its own. This viewpoint leads to
Aristotelian Empiricism. For Plato, thought experiments and reasoning would be
enough to "prove" a concept or establish the qualities of an object, but Aristotle
dismissed this in favor of direct observation and experience.
In logic, Plato was more inclined to use inductive reasoning, whereas Aristotle
used deductive reasoning. The syllogism, a basic unit of logic (if A = B, and B = C,
then A = C), was developed by Aristotle.
Both Aristotle and Plato believed thoughts were superior to the senses. However,
whereas Plato believed the senses could fool a person, Aristotle stated that the
senses were needed in order to properly determine reality.
An example of this difference is the allegory of the cave, created by Plato. To him,
the world was like a cave, and a person would only see shadows cast from the
outside light, so the only reality would be thoughts. To the Aristotelian method, the
obvious solution is to walk out of the cave and experience what is casting light and
shadows directly, rather than relying solely on indirect or internal experiences.

In Ethics
The connection between Plato, and Aristotle is most evident with regards to their
perspectives on morals. Plato was Socratic in his conviction that information is
goodness, all by itself. This implies that to realize the great is to do the great, i.e.,
that realizing the proper activity will prompt one consequently making the best
choice; this suggested that prudence could be instructed by encouraging
somebody directly from off-base, great from evil. Aristotle expressed that
comprehending what was correct was insufficient, that one needed to decide to
act in the best possible way basically, to make the propensity for doing great. This
definition put Aristotelian morals on a commonsense plane, as opposed to the
hypothetical one upheld by Socrates and Plato.
For Socrates and Plato, astuteness is the essential goodness and with it, one can
bring together all ideals into an entirety. Aristotle accepted that astuteness was
righteous, however that accomplishing ethicalness was neither programmed nor
did it award any unification (securing) of different ideals. To Aristotle, astuteness
was an objective accomplished simply after exertion, and except if an individual
decided to think and act carefully, different ethics would stay far off.
Socrates accepted that joy could be accomplished without righteousness, however
that this satisfaction was base and carnal. Plato expressed that temperance was
adequate for joy, that there was nothing of the sort as "good karma" to allow
rewards. Aristotle accepted that righteousness was vital for bliss, yet inadequate
without anyone else, requiring sufficient social builds to enable a highminded
individual to feel fulfillment and happiness. It is important that Greek perspectives
on these issues were more sensitive to Aristotle's perspectives than either to
Plato's or Socrates' during their lifetimes.

Personal Backgrounds of Aristotle and Plato

Plato was born around 424 B.C. His father was Ariston, descended from kings in
Athens and Messenia, and his mother, Perictione, was related to the great Greek
statesman, Solon. Plato was given the name Aristocles, a family name, and
adopted Plato (meaning "broad" and "strong") later when he was a wrestler. As
was typical of upper middle-class families of the time, Plato was educated by
tutors, exploring a wide range of topics centered largely on philosophy, what would
now be called ethics.
At the request of Philip of Macedon, he returned to Macedonia in 338 B.C. to
tutor Alexander the Great, and two other future kings, Ptolemy and Cassander.
Aristotle took full charge of Alexander's education and is considered to be the
source of Alexander's push to conquer Eastern empires. After Alexander
conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to that city and set up a school of his own,
known as the Lyceum. It spawned what was called the "Peripatetic School," for
their habit of walking around as part of their lectures and discussions. When
Alexander died, Athens took arms and overthrew its Macedonian conquerors.
Because of his close ties to Macedonia, Aristotle's situation became dangerous.
Seeking to avoid the same fate as Socrates, Aristotle emigrated to the island
of Euboea. He died there in 322 B.C.
………………………………………………………………..

QUESTION 3
Evaluate the main points of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Develop
the argument of your own from their arguments on the basis of critical
thinking and receptiveness. Refute both or anyone of them if necessary.

ANSWER
MAIN POINTS OF PLATO
• That the spirit is never-ending

• In a long way ahead Research he figures with the possibility of eternity.

Plato likewise clarifies the spirit as having three for example

• functions

• reason

• emotion

• desire

These Spiritual mockups fundamentally stuck various other philosophical models later
on.

To sum up Plato's contention at that point:

1) The capacity of everything is controlled by what it can do best

2) The mind is best at administering, thinking, and so on

3) The capacity of the mind is then to govern and think

4) All capacities have their specific greatness (arête)

5) The mind has a greatness, which we will call equity

6) A mind had of the greatness of equity will play out its capacity well and rule the
person well (or, as such, live well)
Significant thing by plato
The most significant hypothesis in Platonism is the Theory of Forms. Plato's
interpretation of power sets that what we are seeing isn't, indeed, this present reality.
He demanded that there was a different universe out there. In the event that that is the
situation, at that point what are we seeing? Plato said all that we are detecting is really
a broken portrayal of what is truly there. Each item has properties that permit them to
be characterized. A cup, for instance, ought to have the option to hold fluid, they are as
a rule round here and there, and they are utilized for drinking. Not all cups are
awesome, fundamentally, and Plato utilizes this blemish to infer that solitary
wonderful cups exist in that ideal world. Not exclusively do physical standards exist
there however thoughts, as well. One key thought is magnificence. The Form of Good
is crucial in Plato's hypothesis of memory and information. Something else Plato is
acclaimed for is his Allegory of the Cave. To summarize the moral story, we are
accustomed to seeing shadows, and just when we are liberated from our restrictions do
we at last observe reality.

MAIN POINT BY ARISTOTLE:

As a young man, Aristotle studied at Plato’s school and remained there until
Plato’s death. Afterward, he served as a tutor to Alexander the Great, a fact about
his past that hurt his standing with many people once Alexander began to conquer
the majority of the known world. Like his mentor Plato, most of Aristotle’s work
was lost initially. Unlike Plato, his actual works were never recovered, and instead
we only have class notes from his students to give us an idea of what Aristotle’s
views and beliefs actually were

Axioms
Aristotle believed that when trying to determine the fundamental nature of reality,
the only place to begin was with basic axioms. One such axiom was the principle
of non-contradiction, which states that a substance cannot have a quality and not
have that same quality at the same time. Aristotle would use this concept not only
as an important beginning point for natural philosophy and metaphysics but also
for the basis of symbolic logic, which he was the first to establish. Even though an
axiom can’t be proven, it is something that we assume to be true because it seems
to be self-evident, and this allows us to move forward in establishing an argument

Logic
Through symbolic logic with Aristotle, we had our first attempt to evaluate validity
in reasoning. If, for instance, “all insects are invertebrates” is our first premise and
“all invertebrates are animals” is our second premise, then our conclusion that “all
insects are animals” is a valid conclusion because it follows from the premises.
This has nothing to do with the truthfulness of the premises. If we substituted the
first premise for “all birds are invertebrates” and the conclusion “all birds are
animals,” the logic is still valid regardless of the fact that the first premise is false.
In this case, we still get a true conclusion even though we have a false premise, and
in this way Aristotle had proven that reasoning is separate from the truthfulness of
the premises being considered. A logical argument could have false premises and a
true conclusion, but true premises would always lead to a true conclusion.

Ethics
Aristotle’s ethics do not deviate greatly from Plato’s in that they are agent-centered
ethics, in which the moral agent determines the right moral action. Aristotle
thought that no rules or appeal to consequences could possibly give a person
correct guidelines in which to respond to all situations. His ethical viewpoint was
largely disregarded in the medieval period, where it was assumed that ethics had
their basis in the will of God, and in the early-modern period, more materialistic
views of ethics began to compete with religious concepts.
After debates in the 19th and 20th centuries could not resolve the conflicts between
Immanuel Kant’s Deontological ethics and John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarian
viewpoint, many philosophers began to go back to Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics as a
good alternative.

Refute both or any one of them if necessary

Sir according to me
By and by I would state Aristotle. In spite of the fact that I have not perused the entirety
of either's works, I am slanted to state that Aristotle surely greaterly affected the
improvement of western idea. I think Aristotle had the best molding to seek after his way
of thinking to its normal end, definitely in view of the foundation that Socrates and Plato
created against the Sophist scholarly atmosphere. Perusing the Republic, it is provocative
yet it is far less directional than Aristotle's style. Or on the other hand, you could state
that Plato appreciated posing significant inquiries while Aristotle attempted to respond to
them. Plato likewise had a bigger penchant towards supernatural arrangements while
Aristotle built up the logical strategy. In any event, perusing his The Art of Poetry or
Ethics, his composing appears to me undeniably additionally persuading as he by and
large1. States a proposition,