Why did Aquinas value Aristotle over Plato?

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Why does it seem Aquinas value Aristotle over Plato? Does it have to do with Plato’s world of Forms and Ideals as opposed to Aristotle’s insight that basically, things simply are what they are and do not participate in an ideal? What was it?

Also, does anyone else Notice that it was the distinct shift away from Plato and the Neo-Platonists to Aristotle that seemed to coincide with the end of the Patristic Era and the Beginning of the Scholastic Era?
 
Gregory_I said:
Why does it seem Aquinas value Aristotle over Plato? Does it have to do with Plato’s world of Forms and Ideals as opposed to Aristotle’s insight that basically, things simply are what they are and do not participate in an ideal? What was it?

Also, does anyone else Notice that it was the distinct shift away from Plato and the Neo-Platonists to Aristotle that seemed to coincide with the end of the Patristic Era and the Beginning of the Scholastic Era?
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I am not a big expert on Aquinas, but I think one reason why Aquinas preferred Aristotle over Plato was because Aristotle was more concerned about this world in comparison to Plato, who was more interested in the next world. Remember, that Aquinas believed that we do not know God a priori, but we do know God a posteriori - more specifically, God is demonstrable in nature. Using Aristotle’s methodology, Aquinas first started with “this world” and moved on to the “next world”, unlike Plato who started first with the “next world” and moved on to “this world”. Aristotle’s methodology formed the basis of Thomist language known as an “analogy”, by which we draw a connection between God and His creation.

Not to mention the fact that Aristotle was perhaps the most influential philosopher of all time. He was nicknamed “The Philosopher”, and so many succeeding philosophers were more likely to follow Aristotle than his teacher Plato.

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
 
Gregory_I said:
Why does it seem Aquinas value Aristotle over Plato? Does it have to do with Plato’s world of Forms and Ideals as opposed to Aristotle’s insight that basically, things simply are what they are and do not participate in an ideal? What was it?

Also, does anyone else Notice that it was the distinct shift away from Plato and the Neo-Platonists to Aristotle that seemed to coincide with the end of the Patristic Era and the Beginning of the Scholastic Era?
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My guess:
Aristotole condemned suicide in the absolute sense.
Plato approved suicide in certain situtations.

SO:
Christian view.
Pagan view.

Again - only a guess.
 
The simple answer: it was his job.

The writings of Aristotle had only recently been re-discovered in Europe via North Africa, and he was attempting (sucessfully) to adapt Aristotelian metaphysics to Christian theology. He was supposed to see if they were compatable, and he did.
 
Aristotle’s philosophical truth agreed more with what Aquinas knew as true from God’s Revelation. Where Plato agreed with this truth, this could be put to service in pointing out cause of God from His effects.

Plato believed in many gods whereas Aristotle extrapolated the necessity of only one god, but did not know God as we do. He did not know human nature as fallen but thought that nature without grace was as it should be.
 
Plato didn’t exactly believe in multiple gods in the real sense of that term, in fact, he always operated under the principle that wherever there is a multiplicity, there must be a prior unity, and as such if there were multiple gods, there one have to bve one form of god which was higher than them all, and this form would have all of the perfection of what it was to be god. That would seem to be closer to a monotheistic position, which is why the Church Fathers loved him and saw him as a precursor to Christianity.

The over-simplification is that Aristotle was right on almost everthing and Plato was wrong. One of the biggest contributions of Aristotle was the paradigm shift which settled an age old question of the pre-Socratics. Earlier philosophers held to what seemed an obvious formula. “What is is, and what is not is not.” Something cannot both be and not be. While it seemed obvious, it lead to some crazy notions. Plato came up with the notion of participation as a means of partially solving the problem, but it was insufficient. Aristotle came up with the idea of potentiality which completely solved the problem.

The big problem for Aquinas was in epistemology. Plato’s world of the forms had serious problems, not the least of which was the necessary corollary of the transmigration of human souls (i.e. reincarnation), and an implied dualism where the body and all material tings were bad (which made the Incarnation a real brain twister).
 
Let me ask a related question. As Aristotle’s hylomorphism, as interpreted by scholastics, seems to be an essential component of Catholic philosophy. How did they explain things before his reintroduction?
 
Hylomorphism is Aristotelean insofar as the relationship he presents between matter and form were somewhat unique. The concepts of “matter” and “form” individually of course pre-date Aristotle and are present in Plato as well.

Part of the reason Aristotle became so popular in the Middle Ages is precisely because of certain doctrinal definitions and understandings which already were implicitly in line with Aristotle’s model. The Scholastics did not try to interpret reality in light of Aristotle (in other words, they didn’t read Aristotle into reality), but they realized that Aristotle had correctly interpreted reality. It is like the difference between exogesis and exegesis in literary criticism. Many philosophers try to make reality fit their world view, whereas Aristotle tried to make his world view fit reality.
 
I think Plato’s writing style was less congenial to theology that Aristotle’s. Think about the fact that almost all his work is in the dialogue format. Almost all of Aristotle’s work (except for some dialogues that are lost to us) was in the essay format, where questions were raised and answered with a degree of specificity and certainty you do not always find in the Socratic method.

Also, at the time of Aquinas the scientific method was just starting to rear its head again after being down for several centuries, and no matter what you think of Aristotle’s science, he was a bit more deliberate at answering scientific questions than was Plato.
 
I think it might just have to do with the plain fact that Aristotle was a far more rigorous philosopher than Plato. Plato is wonderful as far as ideas come, but they’re not all that formal. Also, the fact that Plato’s dialogues were far less widespread during the time may be a contributing factor; I think there were only a few that people actually read.

I would note however that there actually is quite a bit of influence from Plato on Aquinas. For instance, his defense of the Divine Ideas in God’s mind is decidedly Platonic.
 
What I really like about Plato though is his world of Forms, and as St. Augustine reinterpreted it, the Forms that exist in the mind of God.

Say I draw an isosceles triangle. Now, that is not the true Isosceles triangle. That is a representation of an ideal that I conceive of and which can be universally communicated as “THE” Isosceles triangle. But if I tear up a paper, did I tear up the eternal triangle? No, I tore up its representation. If I destroy a flower, did I destroy the eternal idea of a flower? No, just this particular one.

I like how it points to the mind of GOd as holding all things in existence.
 
Gregory,

What you are referring to is more precisely the concept of universals. The notion of Platonic Forms goes way beyond that is and totally incorrect. Plato believed that the Form of isoceles triangle actually had its own singular existence in some “world of the forms”. Aristotle comes along and retains the notion of universals, but shows that the human mind actually abstracts the nature of isoceles triangle from the image created because the image in someway has the form of triangle in it. Also, as soon as you apply Plato’s notion to living things, or even some other cases of inanimate matter it falls apart. The classic example is that of a tree. Can you say that the tree outside is just a representation of a tree, and if you destroy it you have not detroyed the “eternal tree”? No. Plato might have said such a thing, but we cannot, for a tree is in fact a tree, and possesses the nature of a tree.
 
Katholish said:
Gregory,

What you are referring to is more precisely the concept of universals. The notion of Platonic Forms goes way beyond that is and totally incorrect. Plato believed that the Form of isoceles triangle actually had its own singular existence in some “world of the forms”. Aristotle comes along and retains the notion of universals, but shows that the human mind actually abstracts the nature of isoceles triangle from the image created because the image in someway has the form of triangle in it. Also, as soon as you apply Plato’s notion to living things, or even some other cases of inanimate matter it falls apart. The classic example is that of a tree. Can you say that the tree outside is just a representation of a tree, and if you destroy it you have not detroyed the “eternal tree”? No. Plato might have said such a thing, but we cannot, for a tree is in fact a tree, and possesses the nature of a tree.
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Aquinas thought that the Forms exist as Divine Ideas in God’s mind. Besides, it may be easy for Aristotle to make sense of trees, but when we start getting into abstract objects like numbers, sets, functions, propositions, etc. things start to look like Plato was right, or rather, that Aquinas was right. 🙂
 
awatkins69 said:
Aquinas thought that the Forms exist as Divine Ideas in God’s mind. Besides, it may be easy for Aristotle to make sense of trees, but when we start getting into abstract objects like numbers, sets, functions, propositions, etc. things start to look like Plato was right, or rather, that Aquinas was right. 🙂
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Platos world of the Forms and the Divine Ideas as discussed by St. Thomas are radically different. St. Thomas is an Aristotelean through and through. Aristotle had no problem explaining abstract ideas like numbers. He introduces an idea which again was of the greatest importance to human thought, and that is the distinction between substance and attribute. Number is an accident. Plato thought it was a substance, hence his need to have a special world where the real substance of the numbers could exist. Aristotle points out that those numbers really exist in material things as their accidental qualities.
 
Gregory_I said:
Why does it seem Aquinas value Aristotle over Plato? Does it have to do with Plato’s world of Forms and Ideals as opposed to Aristotle’s insight that basically, things simply are what they are and do not participate in an ideal? What was it?

Also, does anyone else Notice that it was the distinct shift away from Plato and the Neo-Platonists to Aristotle that seemed to coincide with the end of the Patristic Era and the Beginning of the Scholastic Era?
Click to expand...
The question is why he value either of them, they were both pagan philosophers.
 
PaulinePresbytr said:
The question is why he value either of them, they were both pagan philosophers.
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(a) Way to revive a 19-month old thread.
(b) Pagan or not, both Aristotle and Plato were excellent philosophers.
(c) God’s Truth is found everywhere, in pagans and Christians alike.
 
Gregory_I said:
Why does it seem Aquinas value Aristotle over Plato? Does it have to do with Plato’s world of Forms and Ideals as opposed to Aristotle’s insight that basically, things simply are what they are and do not participate in an ideal? What was it?

Also, does anyone else Notice that it was the distinct shift away from Plato and the Neo-Platonists to Aristotle that seemed to coincide with the end of the Patristic Era and the Beginning of the Scholastic Era?
Click to expand...
I think the simplest and most practical answer is that Thomas Aquinas was directly and significantly influenced by Albertus Magnus, or St. Albert the Great. Aquins was his student. St. Albert was well versed in philosophy and the natural sciences and was the first, if i recall, to reconcile Aristotle with Christian Theology.
 
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