Aristotle and Plato
... Ancient Greek philosophy is dominated by three very famous men: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. ... Socrates came first, and Plato was his student, around 400 BC. Socrates was killed in 399 BC, and Plato began his work by writing down what Socrates had taught, and then continued by writing down his own ideas and opening a school. Aristotle, who was younger, came to study at Platos school, and ended up starting his own school as well. Aristotle It really is not possible to talk about Western culture (or modern, global culture) without coming to terms with this often difficult and often inspiring philosopher who didnt get along with his famous teacher, Plato, and, in fact, didnt get along with just about everybody (no-one likes a know-it-all). We can say without exaggeration that we live in an Aristotelian world; wherever you see modern, Western science dominating a culture in any meaningful way (which is just about everywhere), Aristotle is there in some form. Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Thrace, in 384 B. ... Although he studied under Plato, Aristotle fundamentally disagreed with his teacher on just about everything. He could not bring himself to think of the world in abstract terms the way Plato did; above all else, Aristotle believed that the world could be understood at a fundamental level through the detailed observation and cataloging of phenomenon. ... As a result of this belief, Aristotle literally wrote about everything: poetics, rhetoric, ethics, politics, meteorology, embryology, physics, mathematics, metaphysics, anatomy, physiology, logic, dreams, and so forth. Aristotle was the first person to really think out the problem of evidence. ... Plato Both aspects of the genius of Socrates were first united in Plato of Athens (428-348 BCE), who also combined with them many the principles established by earlier philosophers, and developed the whole of this material into the unity of a comprehensive system. ... After the death of Socrates, Plato carried on much of his former teachers work and eventually founded his own school, the Academy, in 385.