Hood Paper 2

"Plato and Aristotle came to a similar conclusions concerning universal. If I am eating Wheaties, then Plato would argue that there is a perfect type of Wheaties out in the universe somewhere, and the bowl I am enjoying is just a model of the Wheaties archetype. Everything in our sensory world is modeled after some archetype that exists in the heavens as a Form (56) which is perfect compared to everything we understand. Aristotle also believed in an archetypal Wheaties. Conversely, he accepted the idea of the universal being practically theoretical. The perfect bowl of Wheaties exists in the mind of the individual imagining it, but the sensory world is all that we have to work with. Though he believed that, Aristotle also assumed everything was working towards this universal perfection (72) –Wheaties have an organic purpose of being digested, so they are edible. The difference between Plato and Aristotle’s views affects how either one will perceive teleology. Plato thought it important to understand Forms as it would change the way we lived in light of understanding the universal (56). Aristotle’s teleology was something more akin to Fate or determinism in that he suggested that as everything had a specific goal (universal) to work towards, then its purpose was simply to become like the universal. These differences can affect the thinking of the believer to an extreme – perhaps an Aristotelian becomes a hedonist because he sees it as his inescapable purpose, while a Platonist becomes a free will Baptist?"