Why are there no Platonists? Seriously, 6 Aristotle lovers. I was hoping to get a good debate with a strong Platonist, who would point out my misunderstandings of Platonism! :)

Mystical math-fellating woo-woo Plato-Spinoza Frankenstein Demon, here. Gimme your best shot. >:)

More of an Aristotelian, here. Although, could always play devil's advocate.

So, there's a toothbrush, and an ideal form of a toothbrush, and the former is an imperfect copy of the latter? I don't buy it. I find Hume more convincing with his theory of impressions from which ideas are derived.

None of us were weaned on Aristotle and Plato (speak up if you were), and it is unlikely that many here encountered Greek philosophy in depth until their late teens, at least. By 18, most people have established a style, a mode, of thinking. College (normally) won't re-program our thinking style, though it will greatly enrich it. If you didn't go to college, then on-going reading and thinking is likewise not going to overthrow the basic approach to life one has developed, but will greatly enrich it.

Considering the way you approach the world, which philosopher do you resemble more -- Plato or Aristotle.

Given the milieu in which we live, it would be very surprising if the results were reversed -- that the majority of respondents to the poll thought they were Platonists rather than Aristotelian.

Or is it the case that Aristotelianism is a more "natural" way of thinking?

What sort of world would prefer Plato over Aristotle?

Is it a slur to accuse someone of preferring Plato?

The modus operandi of Aristotelian philosophy makes more sense to me than the Platonist one. The metaphysics of the former also make more sense than the latter.

Okay, okay, disclaimer: I don't really buy Plato's metaphysics, and I'm not sure if anyone, Plato included, ever did. However, the tone of the OP seemed to ask which direction respondents would lean in, and I do lean toward Plato.

That being said, if the "Platonic" viewpoint eventually floats off into the aether, then the Aristotelian viewpoint seems to eat itself alive, so to speak. This is Kant's whole schtick; how do you derive things from your senses without some means of deriving them given independently? There are answers to this argument, of course, but I'll stop there for now.

This is Kant's whole schtick; how do you derive things from your senses without some means of deriving them given independently? — Pneumenon

I think Aristotle offered a solution to this amongst many others no? :P The forms are not separate from the objects - one substance, two (intellectually) separable aspects - form and matter (or according to Spinoza - thought and extension) thus effectively removing the question of how an objective perception of the external world is possible

By 18, most people have established a style, a mode, of thinking. College (normally) won't re-program our thinking style, though it will greatly enrich it. If you didn't go to college, then on-going reading and thinking is likewise not going to overthrow the basic approach to life one has developed, but will greatly enrich it. — Bitter Crank

I certainly didn't. My positions and approach to everything RADICALLY changed around 17-20.

Given the milieu in which we live, it would be very surprising if the results were reversed -- that the majority of respondents to the poll thought they were Platonists rather than Aristotelian. — Bitter Crank

Well, given the Western cultural millieu, I think it is surprising to be close to EITHER approach :P .

Or is it the case that Aristotelianism is a more "natural" way of thinking? — Bitter Crank

Maybe. I think some Platonist would agree with this; but would accuse Aristotelianism to be only part of the story. For example, I can imagine Schopenhauer arguing along the lines of Aristotle being helpful when dealing with the empirical world, but totally unhelpful when dealing with the noumenal, where Plato becomes a better guide. (I think even Aquinas may agree to this)

What sort of world would prefer Plato over Aristotle? — Bitter Crank

One where (transcendental) spiritual matters played a greater concern than empirical matters. Which pretty much, given the nature of men, is no world. Even this desire motivating the transcendence of the world, or the search for a mystical experience is recently seeming odd and quaint to me. Much rather I am feeling a desire to infuse this world with spirit, rather than search for some spirit apart from the world. I would agree with an idealist, Buddhist perspective for example, or with Schopenhauer's system - I would make some changes though - the most important being returning the focus from achieving Nirvana and transcending this world, to achieving Nirvana and living virtuously in this world. I say I am tempted to agree with an idealist system because I think, ultimately, like the Platonist, that this empirical point of view fails to grasp our continued relationship with the infinite after the end of our finite existence. And I don't say this out of fear of death - recently, like Socrates, I feel nothing but indifference towards death, as if, in the end analysis it doesn't even matter. At the same time I don't know what sense talking of an afterlife has... it clearly has no sense to me. I cannot even imagine it. And it doesn't even interest me. Only that I think there is one.

My point to summarise is this. It is wrong to search for what is to come after death while still alive. It betrays a fear of the unknown AND a fear of life AND impatience. Much rather, the virtuous man focuses on this life while alive (infusing matter with spirit), and on death (pure spirit) once dead. The living with the living and the dead with the dead as Jesus said. That's why ultimately I think an Aristotelian foundation, with a tint of Plato not to lose the connection with the infinite that expresses itself in this life as well as in death, is what is required.

I like Plato's Ethics, from which Aristotle took a lot. They are difficult to compare because, Aristotle wrote treatises and Plato wrote conversations.

I certainly didn't. My positions and approach to everything RADICALLY changed around 17-20. — Agustino

When, whether, how, or not one's positions and approaches change probably depends on one's social and intellectual milieu (which one usually can't do too much about at 17) and one's social / physical / intellectual confidence. I was not ready to undertake radical changes in thinking and behavior at 17. A sort of sheltered small town upbringing just didn't prepare me to make [wise] major changes. Leaving home and going to a state college was about all I could manage at that point. Had I struck out on a radical path, it probably would have turned out badly. Later... like 5 years after finishing college and getting more experience in the wider world, I was much more prepared to 'break out'.

When the time came to make more radical changes, I moved very slowly. The major change was to rid myself of the religious world-framework I grew up with and had been maintaining. This change involved a lot of persistence, resistance, cognitive dissonance, and all that. At some unidentified tipping point, I shifted from apologetic theism to a-theism, sometime around 20-25 years ago. Political views changed more rapidly-shifting leftward during college and immediately after.

What were you doing at ages 17-20 that facilitated radical change in thinking on your part? What material change had occurred in your life situation to make that the time to strike out for new horizons?

What were you doing at ages 17-20 that facilitated radical change in thinking on your part? — Bitter Crank

It's hard to pinpoint to one thing, or even a group of things. Many things happened, either causing or as a result of my changing. I will list a few facts:
-I had started to be very serious about reading, studying and learning (not in terms of school, but for myself - I was always interested even before, but not like this).
-I became very popular and very well-thought of amongst my school peers - although very very different in behaviour and ideals compared to everyone else. I was never interested in pleasure-seeking. Always had been a serious man in that regard. People who were around - parents and teachers - could never understand how someone like me did it. Nevertheless, I was admired by virtually all other students. This made me completely uninterested in worldly success anymore - in other people thinking well of me. And ever since then, I never cared what anyone thought about me. I also lost my interest in prestige and money (before, my interest was always to become a very rich man - now, I couldn't care less about it - you could say I was obsessed about it). I might add I was also very successful in school, and I never really worked hard for it. By everyone's account I was an over-achiever, in pretty much all fields that one would be expected to be engaged in by that age and more.
-I had my first girlfriend, which probably (I would think) changed me the most. It was the first time that money became irrelevant. I used to sell things in school, and kept careful ledgers of my expenses, etc. This was the first time I didn't care about money, and I threw away the ledgers... stopped keeping record. I had amassed quite a sum for someone my age anyways. And so I started spending it on my girlfriend. I learned about love and self-transcendence, and for the first time, I felt the presence of something more than myself, my girlfriend, or the sum of both of us. I felt, as Spinoza put it, that I (we) am (are) eternal. I became interested in relationships with people, and valued that more than any other extrinsic good afterwards.
-I also stopped believing in God and praying (before I used to pray everyday). I stopped praying because, prior to what was my current girlfriend, I was interested in another girl, but despite my prayers, and despite all my outward success, she still rejected me. So I looked at myself, and I thought: I am too successful, I don't need any God. To add to this, my first girlfriend was an atheist, so spending time with her made me less interested in the subject. Now that I say she was an atheist, please don't think she was a hedonist as well. She was not, in fact she came from quite a conservative family, even though they were atheists. We were also quite a conservative couple (we never went to parties, clubs, etc. for example - she hated that). I later returned to belief in God, but in a different way than I first believed.
-Slowly slowly things crystallized in my mind. In the following years, I understood the shortcomings of the age I was born into. I deconstructed modern hedonistic culture as well as the conceptual structure which has made it possible (nihilism, postmodernism, global skepticism). I understood better and better what the good life is (namely virtue). I cultivated virtue and still do. I have been ascending, as Plato says. Now, I have turned my focus into helping others, and creating a culture of virtue, a community of virtuous people. My main enemies I would say are sexual immorality, anti-religious feelings (simply because religion is the only vehicle for the majority of people to learn virtue), and love of money (since it adds to and sustains the hedonistic culture - it's hedonism's fuel). Also in combatting modern attitudes, and liberating people from the hedonistic illusions which haunt us today. I have come to understand that I have achieved only an imperfect happiness by myself, and a perfect happiness entails that others achieve understanding with me as well. As Spinoza put it, the best thing for men are other men (and women of course). I have come to understand that religion (for the masses) and philosophy (for the wise) is the key to blessedness and teaching virtue. I am in general agreement with the systems put forward by Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein (he's my favorite thinker, although he doesn't really count as a system-builder unlike the others), Spinoza, Aquinas. I know any of these systems are far superior to most other alternatives out there. By and large things are figured out, only details remain. So whereas I haven't got much certainty regarding details, I do have certainty regarding the big picture. Thus I am more interested in spreading learning and virtue today, than in figuring out details. I want to spread the light I have reached with those around me. And this is what I have been focusing my energies on. Teaching virtue and combatting vice, because as Aquinas taught me, the office of the wise man has two purposes: to spread truth and to refute falsity.

There are the "material" changes which facilitated my turn in thinking and living (hope your Marxist questions have now been satisfied ;) ). Make what you will of them BC!

See here.

There are the "material" changes which facilitated my turn in thinking and living (hope your Marxist questions have now been satisfied ;) ). Make what you will of them BC! — Agustino

You seem to be a normal "type A" personality -- professionally aggressive, ambitious, striving vigorously towards goals, and a "big picture" thinker rather than a "detail" person. These are often characteristics of accomplished people -- though type A detail people do well too.

What field of engineering -- civil/chemical/mechanical/electrical? Are you presently practicing? I assume you like engineering.

How old are you? (You may have said somewhere in another thread; age is important in understanding someone's stage in life.) Also, what country did you grow up in?

You also appear to be a systematic thinker. It all fits together into a cohesive picture. (I like cohesive pictures). There is probably quite a bit of continuity in your life -- childhood forward -- else you would not have accomplished what you have so far achieved.

We are what we are, whether type A or type B personalities, big picture or detail people (I hate details), engineers or poets, platonists or aristotelians. Usually there isn't much we can do about these things. Type B personalities can drink a gallon of coffee, snort some amphetamines, smoke some crack, and they still won't be type A people.

Happy, type B personalities are also often successful, but not in the same jobs as Type As, and not by the same methods. Type B people tend to be less stressed and tend to boil at a higher temperature -- it takes more to incite them. My boiling temperature used to be much lower than it is now. I can tolerate annoyances (85% of the time) that in the past would have provoked a strong reaction. Why the change? Better mental health in my case. I can now strategically withdraw from troublesome issues which before I would have waded into, whether that made sense or not, and overheated in the process (i.e., become too riled up).

Are you presently practicing? I assume you like engineering. — Bitter Crank

Yes (although I am thinking to stop soon, and start a new business - I sold my previous). I'm not sure I like it, I just don't dislike it. It has taught me a few good things about philosophy, that I would never have learned had I done philosophy itself at university - that's what I've taken most from engineering (it has taught me Humean skepticism of pure reason and also Schopenhaurean value of imagination + rationality trumping rule following and empiricism).

I was responding more to the Humean point raised by Sap. We derive ideas from impressions - where do we learn how to do that?

I was responding more to the Humean point raised by Sap. We derive ideas from impressions - where do we learn how to do that? — Pneumenon

That is indeed a correct criticism :D . I never understood people's fascination with Hume. To me, it just is evidently clear that his philosophy is sorely lacking and incomplete (at least in the modern reading of it).

I prefer this pre-modern post-postmodernist reading of Hume (http://newmedia.ufm.edu/gsm/index.php?title=Livingstonhumemoral). I disagree on a few issues with Hume even on this reading (although I adhere with him on the importance of tradition. I also agree with Livingston in his analysis of the depravity of the modern age, which has lost tradition and is wondering aimlessly through the abyss of self-indulgent hedonism). I am radical in my position (in the original sense of the word radical), because I collapse social virtues into individual virtues, love of others into love of self. For example, I argue that chastity isn't only an artificial social virtue that spontaneously arises when we organise ourselves into stable and well-functioning societies, but that it ALSO is an individual virtue - it doesn't only act for the benefit of society, but ALSO for the benefit of the individual. Thus I argue further that one who does not have this virtue, isn't simply selfish and just acting for their own good at the expense of social good, BUT RATHER that they are ignorant and irrational in so doing, and are actually harming themselves. I am Socratic/Spinozist more than Humean on this crucial point, as I allow for no excuses for lacking a certain virtue; and I argue, with Spinoza, that if men were entirely rational, no laws would exist in society.

There is probably quite a bit of continuity in your life -- childhood forward -- else you would not have accomplished what you have so far achieved. — Bitter Crank

What do you mean exactly by this?

There is probably quite a bit of continuity in your life -- childhood forward -- else you would not have accomplished what you have so far achieved.
— Bitter Crank
What do you mean exactly by this? — Agustino

What did I mean? Nothing more than that your intellectual development proceeded in a beneficial, straight-forward manner.

Proceeding forward with continuity doesn't always happen; people can get side-tracked by peer pressure, or involved in "sex, drugs, and rock & roll", or they have to work in very unrewarding jobs, or they get married and/or pregnant, or any number of other side-tracking events that either interrupt or stop their forward progress.

What did I mean? Nothing more than that your intellectual development proceeded in a beneficial, straight-forward manner.

Proceeding forward with continuity doesn't always happen; people can get side-tracked by peer pressure, or involved in "sex, drugs, and rock & roll", or they have to work in very unrewarding jobs, or they get married and/or pregnant, or any number of other side-tracking events that either interrupt or stop their forward progress. — Bitter Crank

Ok I see what you're referring to. English isn't my first language, so that's why I didn't understand clearly.

Proceeding forward with continuity doesn't always happen; people can get side-tracked by peer pressure — Bitter Crank

Well peer pressure always played a role in my life, but for most of the time I have always rejected it and stood my ground. Other people didn't. What makes the difference? It is true that my mother educated me from my early days to go my own way - but can that be all of it? I mean many other people were similarly educated by their parents, and yet, behold, they fell to peer pressure. I preferred social isolation, rather than fall to peer pressure... I was always more afraid of doing something I didn't want to, than of being alone. That's how it is with fear. If you fear the right thing, you will not fear the wrong thing. For example, if, like Socrates, you fear God (doing wrong), you will not fear death anymore. One thing I don't like about modern culture is that fear isn't valued anymore - but I think that fear is inescapable, and the good life just means getting your priorities when it comes to fear correct. I think other people fell to peer pressure, or drugs, etc. because they feared social isolation more than they feared wickedness.

I voted for Plato. One perhaps unconscious reason for siding with him is that he has much more of an effect on me due to the quality of his writing. Aristotle's dialogues are lost, and so all we have are his admittedly rather dry non-dialogical treatises and lecture notes. Plato is a master of the dialogue form and so always manages to convince me of his arguments, at least for a time.

Secondly, I think the general idealist epistemological framework he presents stands on its own and is more or less correct, while Schopenhauer, whose system I accept in the main, managed to incorporate Plato's Ideas in such a way that they are still relevant philosophically. There are also mathematical Platonists around today. So Plato is not merely of historical interest as the purported founder of Western philosophy.

On aesthetic grounds, Plato's system is by far the more beautiful. If beauty were the standard of truth, as I am sometimes wont to think, then Plato's philosophy would be the truest. And it is further enriched and confirmed in its beauty by the Neoplatonists like Plotinus.

I voted for Plato. — Thorongil

Yep, I thought you were going to vote Plato.

One perhaps unconscious reason for siding with him is that he has much more of an effect on me due to the quality of his writing. — Thorongil

Also, I think you are closer in personal mission to Plato's goal, than to Aristotle's. Plato is good for telling the wise man what they should do. Aristotle is much better when we're intending to educate the man in the street.

Secondly, I think Schopenhauer, whose system I accept in the main, managed to incorporate Plato in such a way that he is still relevant philosophically, and not merely of historical interest as the purported founder of Western philosophy. — Thorongil

Yep, I entirely agree with this.

On aesthetic grounds, Plato's system is by far the more beautiful. — Thorongil

Indeed.

If beauty were the standard of truth, as I am sometimes wont to think, then Plato's philosophy would be the truest. And it is further enriched and confirmed in its beauty by the Neoplatonists like Plotinus. — Thorongil

Yes BUT, again, this highest truth, which is equivalent to the highest beauty, is of little interest to the man in the street. The mystical is irrelevant, what I think is really required is to naturalise the mystical as part of daily life - to infuse the material with spirit:

Even this desire motivating the transcendence of the world, or the search for a mystical experience is recently seeming odd and quaint to me. Much rather I am feeling a desire to infuse this world with spirit, rather than search for some spirit apart from the world. I would agree with an idealist, Buddhist perspective for example, or with Schopenhauer's system - I would make some changes though - the most important being returning the focus from achieving Nirvana and transcending this world, to achieving Nirvana and living virtuously in this world. I say I am tempted to agree with an idealist system because I think, ultimately, like the Platonist, that this empirical point of view fails to grasp our continued relationship with the infinite after the end of our finite existence. And I don't say this out of fear of death - recently, like Socrates, I feel nothing but indifference towards death, as if, in the end analysis it doesn't even matter. At the same time I don't know what sense talking of an afterlife has... it clearly has no sense to me. I cannot even imagine it. And it doesn't even interest me. Only that I think there is one.

My point to summarise is this. It is wrong to search for what is to come after death while still alive. It betrays a fear of the unknown AND a fear of life AND impatience. Much rather, the virtuous man focuses on this life while alive (infusing matter with spirit), and on death (pure spirit) once dead. The living with the living and the dead with the dead as Jesus said. That's why ultimately I think an Aristotelian foundation, with a tint of Plato not to lose the connection with the infinite that expresses itself in this life as well as in death, is what is required FOR SOCIETY (the requirement for the wise man in contemplation may be different). — Agustino

Also, I think you are closer in personal mission to Plato's goal, than to Aristotle's. Plato is good for telling the wise man what they should do. — Agustino

True, I am more drawn to mystical apotheosis than I am to scientific inquiry, though I do not wish to denigrate the latter.

Yep, I entirely agree with this. — Agustino

:P I added a couple other things to that point too.

this highest truth, which is equivalent to the highest beauty, is of little interest to the man in the street. — Agustino

Yes, though I am tempted to say "to hell with the man on the street." Let the vulgar associate with themselves.

It is wrong to search for what is to come after death while still alive. — Agustino

Agreed, but seeking after the denial of the world, or nirvana, need not mean or entail what you say above. The egoistic hope for immortality is not to be confused with the attempt to abolish one's ego while alive.

I added a couple other things to that point too. — Thorongil

I agree with those too haha :P

Yes, though I am tempted to say "to hell with the man on the street." Let the vulgar associate with themselves. — Thorongil

A certain fellow-feeling and compassion draws me to it though.

Agreed, but seeking after the denial of the world, or nirvana, need not mean or entail what you say above. The egoistic hope for immortality is not to be confused with the attempt to abolish one's ego while alive. — Thorongil

Yes but I have qualms with the desirability of abolishing one's ego (if by that you mean the entirety of the individualised self) while still alive. From a different thread:

I have a few qualms with this essentially Buddhist/Humean idea. The Orthodox Christian idea is that, after death, ALL souls (even those which go to hell) are re-united with God, wherein they move and have their being. Those who hate God will perceive it as hell, those who love God will perceive it as heaven. The individuality (soul) of each remains. Now of course, ultimately, only God exists. But, we human beings, are not (fully) God. We cannot exist as infinite, and must therefore exist only as finite. In no way do we therefore avoid death by losing our self-identification - it would be like saying one avoids death by committing suicide, or by being already dead. We cannot be held to even exist as human beings without our self identification. What value does any of this have to us and/or to the fulfillment of our nature? None. How can we even be held to fall, when we don't even exist yet? Not to have self-identification for humans (who have a finite nature) simply means not to exist. — Agustino

A certain fellow-feeling and compassion draws me to it though. — Agustino

Touche.

I have qualms with the desirability of abolishing one's ego (if by that you mean the entirety of the individualised self) while still alive. — Agustino

It is the individualized self that is dissolved when being compassionate. ;)

I don't think so. I would say it is precisely the individualised self which is fulfilled when being compassionate, in-so-far as this individualised self has realised that everything else in existence is the cause of its own existence - that which ultimately sustains it into being. I don't think love implies annihilation of the self, only annihilation of the egoic self, which is different.

Yes, though I am tempted to say "to hell with the man on the street." Let the vulgar associate with themselves. — Thorongil

I often find myself thinking like this, although I wish I didn't. The mental image that comes up is someone sneering, "What, too good for this world, huh?" and the angry response that I want to give is, "Actually I am. What, are you insecure about something?" I feel very Schopenhauer-ish at times like that.

On the other hand, I think that, if I were to really become the wise old sage I want to one day be, I wouldn't be so spiteful toward the "man in the street," or feel all that separated from him.

I often find myself thinking like this, although I wish I didn't. — Pneumenon

This is symptomatic of this world's oppression of wisdom. You end up thinking this way because the world, at every step, attempts to pull you down, and doesn't want to let you rise up. But the reaction is only one of anger if you perceive that somehow the man who asks

"What, too good for this world, huh?" — Pneumenon

somehow harms or humiliates you. But the truth is that they humiliate and harm themselves first and foremost. Once this is realised and understood, then there is no more anger present - the whole situation becomes comic. As Socrates said, the good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death. And further, Socrates told those who killed him that the real irony is that they think they are harming him, while in truth, they are only harming themselves.

On the other hand, I think that, if I were to really become the wise old sage I want to one day be, I wouldn't be so spiteful toward the "man in the street," or feel all that separated from him. — Pneumenon

The sage dearly loves the "man in the street", and wants him too to become a sage. The sage achieves a more perfect blessedness, the more people share in wisdom

I don't think love implies annihilation of the self, only annihilation of the egoic self, which is different. — Agustino

I'm not familiar with such a distinction, or at least with how you have worded it.

I'm not familiar with such a distinction, or at least with how you have worded it. — Thorongil

The self is the real individuality, without the greed, the lust, the vices, the ignorance. It is the real thing behind the illusions of the ego.

On aesthetic grounds, Plato's system is by far the more beautiful. If beauty were the standard of truth, as I am sometimes wont to think, then Plato's philosophy would be the truest. And it is further enriched and confirmed in its beauty by the Neoplatonists like Plotinus. — Thorongil

I do agree that Plato's metaphysics has a certain air to it. It is aesthetically pleasing but also almost mystical. Too bad I'm not a strict Platonist...I wish I could be, though! ;)