Plato vs Aristotle
...opposing ideas are the ones that primarily dictate Plato and Aristotle's ideas on change. Plato believed that the world of forms was totally unchanging. He would most likely apply the ideas of Parmenides and Zeno to the world of forms. He would argue that in the world of forms everything is perfect, so it has no need of change. The world is perfectly ordered and everything is in its proper place, so no change is necessary. Parmenides argued that things had no creation, no growth or change, and no death or destruction. He said that nothing could come from nothing and so there could never be any new things created, and nothing could become nothing and so there could never be any destruction of anything. This correlates with Plato's ideas about the world of forms. He claimed that everything there was now exactly how it always had been and exactly how it always would be. Plato, however, also believed in a world of matter. The world of matter is the physical world that we live in. He believed that this world was changeable. Therefore as it applied to this world, Plato disagreed with Parmenides and Zeno's ideas about change. He didn't necessarily agree that change was constant either, although he explored the idea. Regardless of his decision on the idea of constant change, he did believe that there was change not only possible, but taking place in the material world. Aristotle, however, had a different view. He also believed in the worlds of form and matter, but he constructed them differently. He said that change was only possible in the world of forms. Therefore the ideas of Parmenides and Zeno are more easily applied to the world of forms than to the world of matter. His ideas of change in the world of matter were specific. He said that matter cannot change, only form. Sometimes it is the nature of things to change, such as a child becoming an adult. He did agree, however, that nothing can come from nothing. The only thing that can happen, according to Aristotle, is that potential being can become actual being. Aristotle, therefore, would disagree with Parmenides and...