Plato, or the Inebriant Answer to the Reality Question

Abstract

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Aristotle’s concept of being prevailed, but Plato’s concept remained attractive. It implies that the perceptible has value and meaning by partaking in the perfection of ideas and thus explains the worth of things in nature that many people believe in. Still more important, as to the ideas belong mathematical principles, perceptible nature partakes in mathematical principles, setting science the task of discovering mathematical laws that a divine architect might have used when constructing the perceptible and ever-changing world.

In contrast, Aristotle’s concept seems to imply that nature is meaningless, which Aristotle disliked. Hence, he ascribes tele, innate goals, to the things of nature, allowing him to claim that nothing in nature is in vain or meaningless. This claim looks like an addition that doesn’t fit in with his concept of a binary and valueless reality. But it reapproaches Plato’s concept.