Plato And Aristotle Disagree About Virtue. Plato And...

Plato and Aristotle Disagree about Virtue Plato and Aristotle are great philosophers and they have talked a lot about virtue. Although these two people started from similar settings, their ideas about virtue were actually different. Plato’s philosophy was more about non-material things, like ideas and love. On the other hand, Aristotle liked things that are more measurable and physicals. In this paper, I will first discuss Plato’s ideas about the nature of virtue, which people have virtue when they are born and people can develop virtue when they believe in god. Then, I will follow a discussion of Aristotle’s ideas that virtue can be learned by ourselves. Finally, I will conclude by comparing the two different ideas virtue’s nature. To sum†¦show more content†¦Therefore, the things that are appropriate to the soul/mind, according to Plato, is virtue, and one of the aspects of virtue is wisdom. It can be seen from this quote that Plato thinks that one of the aspects of virtue is wisdom, wh ich is self-awareness and knowing about things, like one’s proper function in life. Plato also says that when a soul that is pregnant with virtue, it â€Å"has the luck to find a soul that is beautiful and noble and well-formed, he is even more drawn to this combination; such a man makes him instantly teem with ideas and arguments about virtue – the qualities a virtuous man should have and the customary activities in which he should engage; and so he tries to educate him. In my view, you see, when he makes contact with someone beautiful and keeps company with him, he conceives and gives birth to what he has been carrying inside him for ages† (Plato, 1989, p.492). This quote shows that Plato thinks that a person can learn about their own proper function by associating with someone who already has this wisdom; it cannot be increased. 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