ANHS1600 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, De Interpretatione
15 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Lecture – Plato and Aristotle
27/04/2016
Socrates didn’t commit anything to writing whereas both Plato and Aristotle did. Plato and Aristotle
stood more properly at the beginning of philosophy – they are the first philosophers who we have
complete works from.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Table Talk, 2 July 1830.
- Gendered quote → Doesn’t consider women.
“Evert man is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist. I don’t think it is possible that any one born an
Aristotelian can become a Platonist, and I am sure no born Platonist can ever change into an
Aristotelian. They are the two classes of men beside which it is next to impossible to conceive a
third”
- Mutually exclusive and jointly exhausted philosophism.
- He thought he was a synthesis of Plato and Aristotle.
Painting:
- Plato pointing to heavens → The real and eternal things
- Aristotle has his right hand out → Reference to his orientation of our world (this world). Concerned
with the physical world, in comparison to Plato.
- Orientation of Plato’s book is vertical and Aristotle is horizontal → Emphasising their other
gestures.
- Plato holds book “timeas” → Creation of the world
- Aristotle holds book “etica” → Ethics → Concerned with human action and the things done in this
particular world.
- There is still synthesis between them → Plato’s gesture of pointing with one finger follows the arch
leading to Aristotle’s left hand holding his book.
Plato of Athens (427-347 BCE)
- Life: Athenian, aristocratic family, political involvement, poetic temperament
- Works: Dialogues
- Philosophy: Holistic → It is about “everything”. I.e. Republic is about psychology, metaphysics, the
republic, etc. He thinks that you don’t get to know things except in the context of other kinds of
knowledge. He was interdisciplinary.
- Metaphysics: Idealist
- Quote: “Doesn’t dreaming (whether one is asleep of awake) consist in just this: thinking that the
similar is not similar but the same as that which it is like?” (Plato, Republic, 476c5-7)
- Example: Allegory of the Cave → Plato thinks people get their ideas from images that are crafted by
others and not from themselves. Plato thinks you can get out of this “cave”.
- He turned his back on Athens after the death of Socrates
- Plato uses a lot of imagery / images, differentiating from Aristotle who drives away from this.
Aristotle of Stagira (384-322 BCE)
- Life: Macedonian, Professional family, political involvement, scientific temperament
- Works: Treatises
- Philosophy: Analytic
Document Summary
Socrates didn"t commit anything to writing whereas both plato and aristotle did. Plato and aristotle stood more properly at the beginning of philosophy they are the first philosophers who we have complete works from. Samuel taylor coleridge table talk, 2 july 1830. Evert man is born an aristotelian or a platonist. I don"t think it is possible that any one born an. Aristotelian can become a platonist, and i am sure no born platonist can ever change into an. They are the two classes of men beside which it is next to impossible to conceive a third . He thought he was a synthesis of plato and aristotle. Plato pointing to heavens the real and eternal things. Aristotle has his right hand out reference to his orientation of our world (this world). Concerned with the physical world, in comparison to plato. Orientation of plato"s book is vertical and aristotle is horizontal emphasising their other gestures.
