Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were some of the most famous Greek philosophers. Their philosophy has been so influential that it continues to be studied today. Although they lived so long ago, their intellectual contributions to the humanities are enduring because they laid the foundation of critical thought. Rather than accepting life as it came, they believed in questioning life. They also inspired debates about how to see the world. These debates are still relevant and studied today. ........more
Socrates was a Greek philosopher and is considered the primary source of Western thought. Because he could neither read nor write, much of what we know of his life was recorded by his students Plato and Xenophon. His “Socratic method” laid the groundwork for Western systems of logic and philosophy, delivering a belief that through the act of questioning, the mind can manage to find truth.
Guiding Principle
Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve practical results for the greater well-being of society. He emphasized the idea that the more a person knows, the greater his or her ability to reason and make choices that will bring true happiness.
Greek philosopher Plato was a student of Socrates and later became a teacher of Aristotle. He was a priori, a rational philosopher who sought knowledge logically rather than from the senses. He went on to establish the Academy in Athens, one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world.
Guiding Principle
Plato’s logic explored justice, beauty, and equality, and contained discussions in aesthetics, politics, language, and cosmology—the science of the origin and development of the universe.
Considered one of the greatest thinkers in politics, psychology, and ethics, Aristotle learned from Plato after enrolling in his Academy at age seventeen. Later, he went on to tutor Alexander the Great. Aristotle focused on a posteriori routes of knowledge, a term popularized by Immanuel Kant where conclusions are formed based on actual observation and data.
Guiding Principle
Aristotle’s intellectual knowledge spanned every known field of science and arts, prompting him to idealize the Aristotelian syllogistic, a belief that logical argument applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions assumed to be true.
Did you know Aristotle classified amimals,birds,reptiles ?How does this demonstrate LOGIC?