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Thread: Trying to understand Boëthius' synthesis of Plato and Aristotle

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    Default Trying to understand Boëthius' synthesis of Plato and Aristotle

    This is a bit of a bother for me. This is one of the things that I have to know for my upcoming medieval philosophy exam and I still can't quite figure out how he managed to link one with the other.

    From what I understand Boëthius argues that Plato and Aristotle essentially believed the same thing except that they expressed it differently. He intends to demonstrate this by arguing that there are two levels on which something can participate in Platonic forms, and two levels on which something can have Substance in Aristotelian methaphysics.

    But that's where I get confused. From what I understand he argues that the substance common in things (for example, trees in general) is derivant from a participation in a certain Form, but that this Form is not essentially Good. And while I get where he's trying to go with that it seems a bit of a strange conclusion to draw since if he had sat next to Aristotle, Aristotle would've probably just said "no, you're wrong and you really don't understand what I have said at all". Plato might've agreed, though.

    Which makes it impossible for me to really grasp what he's trying to get at since it just seems a total lapse in logic from where I'm standing.

    Is there anyone who can help to shed some light on this?
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    Col. Tartleton's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Trying to understand Boëthius' synthesis of Plato and Aristotle

    Quote Originally Posted by The Dude View Post
    This is a bit of a bother for me. This is one of the things that I have to know for my upcoming medieval philosophy exam and I still can't quite figure out how he managed to link one with the other.

    From what I understand Boëthius argues that Plato and Aristotle essentially believed the same thing except that they expressed it differently. He intends to demonstrate this by arguing that there are two levels on which something can participate in Platonic forms, and two levels on which something can have Substance in Aristotelian methaphysics.

    But that's where I get confused. From what I understand he argues that the substance common in things (for example, trees in general) is derivant from a participation in a certain Form, but that this Form is not essentially Good. And while I get where he's trying to go with that it seems a bit of a strange conclusion to draw since if he had sat next to Aristotle, Aristotle would've probably just said "no, you're wrong and you really don't understand what I have said at all". Plato might've agreed, though.

    Which makes it impossible for me to really grasp what he's trying to get at since it just seems a total lapse in logic from where I'm standing.

    Is there anyone who can help to shed some light on this?
    From what I've read of Aristotle he's Plato's biggest fan but was wise enough to build off of him. That's the genius of the Greek philosophers. Its a chain of thought. Each philosopher is a link in a chain. Each one shot holes in the previous one's arguments but not in the sorts of feuds between different schools of thought, but of a teacher correcting the flaws of a student. However in this its backwards because the student is correcting the teacher.

    With forms the way I understand it is that there is an ideal form of everything that exists in the mind which we compare things to and while being real they lack perfection and are not "good" they are similar enough that we recognize them as such. In short there is a perfect "theoretical tree" which all trees are like and which we derive the notion of tree from. We understand the concept of a circle even though we've never actually seen a perfect circle.

    I see what he's saying about forms, but I think he's missing the point. Trees are trees because thats what the are. We see an object, we name it. We see things like the object. We give it the same name because we recognize it as such. Philosophy is painful.

    Boethius was probably right that they are in a similar line of thinking. But I don't know if I buy its the same. Plato laid the groundworks in his dialogues for Aristotle's Metaphysics. But its not the same thing, its Mk I and Mk II (or II and III if you want to add Socrates into the mix.)

    But don't take my advice, I'm in High School and haven't actually studied this stuff only read some of it...
    Last edited by Col. Tartleton; December 01, 2010 at 12:43 AM.
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    Default Re: Trying to understand Boëthius' synthesis of Plato and Aristotle

    It's been a while since I've studied this but:

    Aristotle based most of his philosophy off Plato, in epistemology, politics and biology. This is also true of the theory of forms. Whilst Plato claimed forms were prior to all things and perfect, Aristotle (much in the same way as Hume) claimed that forms were mental constructs we developed upon viewing all things. This is part of what his idea of biology is formed from, an idea of linking similar traits, and remains one of the main ways of classifying organisms.

    In Plato, we are able to see horses as horses because our souls, prior to existing in our bodies, viewed the form (or soul) of the absolute horse, and as these creatures resembled this horse so closely, they must be horses.

    In Aristotle, we see many horses. We are able to see their similarities, and therefore our minds produce a composite idea of a general "horse". Any creature which is similar to this general idea must be a horse. The idea follows us seeing the horses, not is prior to it. This is almost identical to Hume's later ideas on perception.

    Boethius was one of a generation of medieval philosophers to attempted to see Neoplatonic thought in everything, they saw Aristotle's explanations not as the opposite to Plato, but as a continuance of it, seeing this product of a general idea as a metaphysical, not a mental product.

    Unfortunately it was a while ago I studied this, so it may not be all accurate. Check out http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boethius/ Stanford Encyclopedia is a very accurate and informative source for such things.

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    Default Re: Trying to understand Boëthius' synthesis of Plato and Aristotle

    Was it really Boethius that was intended here? What works are you citing here, he did not do this synthesis in the Consolation of Philosophy.

    I think you may be referring to the Neoplatonists as such; they tried to do this synthesis out of the competition with Christians, and to remove the relentlessly squabbling parties of the two schools (Plato and Aristotle, idealism and realism), by proving that they were saying the same thing. You probably mean guys like Plotinus and Porphyry.

    Now on the metaphysical division between Plato and Aristotle and how the Neoplatonists sought to resolve it, it's been a while for me as well. Ultimately I think their project had more intentions than success. Certainly all subsequent history of philosophy has not accepted their argument that the two were mutually identical.


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    Default Re: Trying to understand Boëthius' synthesis of Plato and Aristotle

    Quote Originally Posted by SigniferOne View Post
    Was it really Boethius that was intended here? What works are you citing here, he did not do this synthesis in the Consolation of Philosophy.
    No, I believe he did it in the Hebdomadibus. Boethius was indeed intended since that's who the college that caused me to post this thread was precisely about

    I actually think I understand it a bit better now, because Boethius' statement near the end of De Hebdomadibus goes: "Species is to be regarded as nothing else than the thought gathered from the substantial likeness of individuals that are unlike in nuber. Genus, on the other hand, is the thought gathered from the likeness of species." It is this notion that it seems Thomas Aquinas built on further in his own work though obviously he had his own stance on the matter.

    I think you may be referring to the Neoplatonists as such; they tried to do this synthesis out of the competition with Christians, and to remove the relentlessly squabbling parties of the two schools (Plato and Aristotle, idealism and realism), by proving that they were saying the same thing. You probably mean guys like Plotinus and Porphyry.
    Actually Porphyry plays a major role, yes, but the way it has been told to me is that this synthesis has been forged as a result of Boethius' commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge. Which is probably what produced De Hebdomadibus, chronologically speaking.

    Now on the metaphysical division between Plato and Aristotle and how the Neoplatonists sought to resolve it, it's been a while for me as well. Ultimately I think their project had more intentions than success. Certainly all subsequent history of philosophy has not accepted their argument that the two were mutually identical.
    This is the feeling I'm getting, though I think I now somewhat understand the general gist of it. Essentially Thomas argued many hundreds of years later that there can be substantial likeness between individuals, but that such likeness has no bearing on the (in)existence of transcendentals. Because there is still a commonality between substances in such a way that there has to be a root for this aswell.

    Quote Originally Posted by Silver Guard
    Unfortunately it was a while ago I studied this, so it may not be all accurate. Check out http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boethius/ Stanford Encyclopedia is a very accurate and informative source for such things.
    Thanks mate, already been using the stanford encyclopedia for a while indeed, very useful resource. Managed to provide a boatload of extra info on pretty much all of my colleges so far.

    Also, thanks for the responses folks because I had completely given up hope of this thread ever receiving any attention.
    Last edited by The Dude; December 02, 2010 at 09:43 AM.
    I have approximate answers and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and many things I don’t know anything about. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing.
    - Richard Feynman's words. My atheism.

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