id and invalid in many differentways. This is true for many ancient philosophers. Their ideas can often be hard totouch upon due to changes in things such as time, society, technology and evenknowledge. I believe that neither Plato nor Aristotle has complete grasp on theirphilosophy of life, for as much as the two contradict one another, they also tie in witheach other and logically, I believe, one can almost not make sense without the other.
Iwas assigned to choose one of the two whos beliefs I agree with more for this essay. Personally, as I mentioned already, I think neither is completely valid and I also believethat without Platos views coming into play, Aristotles views are quite pass. I was alsoassigned to write this essay using examples of personal experience. Althoughregardless I do ultimately agree with the ideas of Aristotle over those of Plato, I alsofeel that ultimate agreement with Plato in this essay would be somewhat illogical andcontradicting of the itinerary expected.
For Aristotle believes in experience as reasonand Plato does not. Platos philosophy I believe contradicts its self in more then the way Aristotlebrings to our attention about the senses being separate from the mystical world of theminds. I also somewhat disagree with this Aristotle on this as is evident later on in thisessay. I think it is also a contradiction on Platos behalf to say that experience fools us,but to also believe that people with expertise should have power over those without.
Idont understand how one can have expertise on anything without experience. Withoutthe word experience the word expertise would not even exist. I do however, agree withPlato on the fact that life experiences can indeed fool or deceive, but without beingfooled or deceived by experience, we would have nothing to learn from. This is where Ibelieve the two views of these philosophers tie in together. Aristotle believes we live life through personal experience. Without the mistakesand deceptions given to us through experience, as spoken about in Platos philosophy,we wouldnt have as much concrete experience to live our lives through.
I believeexperience comes with mistakes and learning through them , and although Platoidentifies that experience causes mistakes through his philosophy, he gives us nochance in that same philosophy to use those mistakes and what we often learn throughthem. Aristotles theory gives us a chance to live and learn which in reality is the waylife works. An experience is not done with once a mistake or deception has beenincorporated into it. The mistake or deception is often more valued and kept close athand to be improved on a future situation of that sort or to avoid a reoccurrence. Thesepoints are more valid though the ideas of Aristotle.
Such instances in our lives where the tie in between the two philosophers isevident includes such emotions as love, greed, fear, and guilt and our actions we takeupon these emotions as well as all emotions in general. Plato claims that thephysical senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and seeing are the basis to all things inlife over experience. Imagine ones life however, although emotions cannot always beidentified as accurately as the direct physical senses, without feelings such as love orfear. If a human falsely identifies love, or hate for that matter, which are commonmistakes people make throughout life, there is no deeper way to look into and identifysuch things as true for the future. If one did not have fears to overcome, life wouldstand without challenge. Although today many of these things are often taken forgranted, they all offer learning experiences, as Aristotle would agree, and can oftenimpact our lives in a much more radical way then anything related to the physicalsenses.
In relation to this issue of physical senses vs. emotional senses, such anexample to compare and contrast the two is sex. Sex is a physical act, as the fivesenses are physical and is supposed to come into play after the emotion love is foundbetween two people. In contrary, humans are often fooled by the physical world of sex,believing good, passionate, addictive sex is equal to love. This is in too many casesfalse and an instance that sides me a bit with Plato. Perhaps this is evidence
