Comparing Plato, Aristotle, The Stoics, And Aquinas

Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Aquinas each have their different views about the way our world was constructed and what is truly real, however, some of the concepts and ideas are reflected throughout one another's belief system.
Plato believed in a theory he called Platonic Dualism which is the idea of resistance between spirit and matter, spirit being the higher, purer principle and matter being the lower and imperfect form of being, capable of change and corruption. He believed our world is a reflection of reality and being is a realm of ideas while becoming is one of opinions. Also, his view of truth was that truth will always remain, be non physical and eternal. Lastly, he used the study epistemology, he believed in futhy know the truth in its purest form you must have understanding which he thought only philosophers had. …show more content…
The unmoved mover advanced by Aristotle is a cosmic force which at the beginning made the world and everything in it. The four causations are form, meaning essence, matter meaning moldable, efficient meaning, and final meaning the purpose or goal. Aristotle wrote that he believed the unmoved mover pushes things to occur and the world to continue and the final causation pulls the world towards a purpose, not God. Siminalry to Plato, Aristotle believed that our world has a becoming however, no being, meaning there really is no truth it's just opinions and changes.
The Stoics specifically, Zeno believed in the cosmic force, the logos meaning mind, rational order, and fate. This group of philosophers believed that things are how they are because they are meant to be that way. The Logos being rational, directs the universe for a purpose the Stoics concluded that The Logos were immortal. The Stoics were focussed on self control and going with the flow rather than finding the