The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
World history
Plato never went so far as to reduce his great discoveries and intuitions
in every department of science to a complete and connected whole, being
averse, on scientific and ethical grounds alike, from the dogmatic
definition inseparable from any systematic treatise. This Aristotle
did, dividing the whole body of philosophy under three principal heads
(theoretical, practical, and poetical) and distinguishing subdivisions
(logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics, and politics, and so forth) within
these divisions by strongly marked lines of demarcation and methods
rigorously exact. He is a Platonist in all things and feels himself so to
be. Even where he displays most independence, as in the development of
syllogisms or in biology, it is impossible to overlook his indebtedness
to the bold speculations of the master.
If the whole work of Plato’s life and of his scholars between 388 and 348
had been preserved to us, the ultimate connection between Aristotle and
the researches of the Academy would probably be even more evident than it
is. Nevertheless there is a marked difference between the speculations of
these two great philosophers. Plato wholly dissevered the Universal and
Essential in things from the Terrestrial and placed it in a heaven beyond
the earth.
Aristotle repudiates this transcendentalism all along the line. The
Universal cannot exist without the archetype, the essence must be
immanent in it. Hence the individual is the only true Substantive,
containing Substance and Matter. This opposition of opinion concerning
“Universalia” is, as is well known, the starting-point of mediæval
Scholasticism (Nominalism, Realism).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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