PKU2 CAUSATION 1 Aristotle as a student of Plato
Aristotle, Plato, and Western Discipleship
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was for years a student of Plato, but in the long run he
repudiated much of his mentor’s philosophy of Forms in favor of systematically
observing and analyzing all of material nature, animal and human. Aristotle also
devoted much attention to the nature of argument, which, he insisted, ought to proceed
from self-evident premises to logical deductions from them [link: Euclid]. Compared to
Plato, Aristotle represents the other main line of Western thought, the one which has
tended to dominate in recent centuries. He is admired not because he got everything
right, according to modern lights, but he exemplified how analytical reasoning could
clarify very many matters of human concern.
From a Chinese point of view, it may seem surprising that Aristotle, after studying for
decades with Plato at his Academy, should turn against his master and reject his basic
approach to philosophizing. In fact, it was not unusual for Greek philosophers to criticize
their teachers. Teachers expected to be treated with respect, but they did not
discourage debate, as this was the mode by which the teacher expected to refine his
own ideas. In general, Greeks placed every individual in the position of having to
establish his own credentials [link: agon]. Greek philosophical schools exist primarily in
the minds of later historians of ideas who want to simplify the past by categorizing it. In
so doing, they may easily gloss over many areas of difference between individual
thinkers.
By contrast, disciples in the Chinese intellectual tradition were expected to remain
loyal advocates of their masters’ views. In the process, they also preserved the texts in
which the master’s views are exemplified, and they established a lineage of individuals
and texts, which was indispensable for that school to continue to maintain its influence.
If a lineage disappeared, as did that of Mozi around the time of the Han Dynasty, it had
no further influence within the Chinese tradition.
Excerpt from Western Civilization with Chinese Comparisons, 3rd ed, Shanghai:
Fudan University Press, 2010, CD-ROM, p 909.