Question

Philosophy:

Compare and contrast Plato’s notion of form to that of Aristotle’s. How do their respective notions affect their respective pictures about the way the world really is?

Answer 1

Though both Plato and Aristotle mention form as one of the main components of things that exist, their ideas of just what form is were quite different. Plato posits that there is an “intelligible realm” where the forms of things such as justice, good, and beauty, that can only be conceived of with the mind, exist. The representations of these things on Earth are just weak reflections of the perfect forms in the intelligible world. Aristotle, on the other hand, rejected Plato’s theory of forms. He asserted that all things must have matter, or material, from which they come into existence. Something must be present for anything to come to be; which he referred to as the form. Both form and matter are necessary for anything to come to be, according to him, and when things come to be it is not a matter of creating one or the other, but of combining them.