Plato Vs Aristotle Research Paper

Plato vs Aristotle Plato and Aristotle were two of the most influential individuals who contributed their ideas of rhetoric to the world. Plato created a school in Athens, Greece called the Academy and his most famed student was Aristotle. However, their views and beliefs differ on complete opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to rhetoric. Their views on ethics, knowledge, and virtues contradict one another and become complete opposites of the other. So how could these two men have such different views on rhetoric when one taught the other everything there is about it? Knowledge is defined as the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. Ethics is a branch of knowledge dealing with moral principles that govern a person’s behaviors and actions. (“Dictionary.com”). The ethics …show more content…
Both Socrates and Plato viewed knowledge and ethics in a theoretical way. Plato believed that knowledge was a virtue. This goes along with the thought that knowing good is doing good. If one knows what the right thing is to do, then he or she will inevitably do that good because knowing is doing. He taught people what was right over wrong or good over evil ("Aristotle vs Plato"). He knew that if he could teach what was right then the people would automatically choose to do the right thing versus the wrong thing. Aristotle looked at knowledge and ethics in a different way compared to that of Plato. He viewed them in the more practical form of understanding. Aristotle implied that one could not simply know that something is right but instead they had to choose how act on the manner. They themselves had to form habits of doing what was right ("Aristotle vs Plato"). So just by knowing what was right did not mean it would lead to doing the right thing. Instead, people had to know what was right and use that knowledge to put it into action. Doing good did not come automatic. People had to work for it in order to do