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Two thinkers, side by side

Life

Plato

c. 428 BCE – c. 348 BCE

ClassicalPlatonist

Born Athens

He saw a world behind the world. The Forms are real; what we see are shadows.

Aristotle

384 BCE – 322 BCE

ClassicalPeripatetic

Born Stagira

He classified the world. Logic, biology, ethics, politics; he gave each its language.

Connection

Plato teacher → student Aristotle — Aristotle studied at Plato’s Academy for twenty years. He revered Plato but fundamentally disagreed with the theory of Forms.

Shared Ideas

Virtue Reason Logos Justice Being Change

Shared Places

Athens Athens

Ideas

Justice Being Virtue Reason Logos Change The Republic The Virtuous City

Virtue Reason Happiness Moderation Nature Logos Justice Being Change On Anger Ockham's Razor

Words

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
— Plato

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”
— Plato

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
— Aristotle

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
— Aristotle

Key Moments

c. 428 BCE

Born in Athens

c. 408 BCE

Meeting Socrates

399 BCE

Death of Socrates

c. 388 BCE

First Voyage to Syracuse

384 BCE

Born in Stagira

c. 367 BCE

Joining the Academy

343 BCE

Tutor to Alexander

335 BCE

Founding of the Lyceum

Works

Apology

Crito

Euthyphro

Protagoras

Symposium

Meno

Phaedo

Gorgias

Republic

Phaedrus

Theaetetus

Nicomachean Ethics

Metaphysics

Politics

Poetics