Socrates, Plato & Aristotle

Plato was impressed by the fact that language has the capacity both to articulate the intelligibility of the world and to belie the world's true being. Aristotle proceeds by specifying certain parts of an argument, or moods, that axiomatically count as valid. Dialogue was regarded as the appropriate form for philosophical arguments, and hence the acquisition of dialectical skill was regarded as crucial for students of philosophy. In the Prior and Posterior Analytics Aristotle tried to work out which kind of premises are needed to gain scientific knowledge and which formal conditions an argument must satisfy to be incontestably valid. He constantly addresses the question of how to purge language of its potential deceptiveness, how to win the fidelity of words to the world. Any argument that can be transformed into an axiomatically valid argument must also be valid. Socrates therefore believes that he can teach merely by asking the right questions. According to the Posterior Analytics, the ultimate premises or principles of a science are necessary truths.

In conclusion Socrates, Plato and Aristotle believed in many of the same ideas but went about them differently. Deduction from these principles provides not only the knowledge that something is true, but also the reasons why it is true. When a subject is sufficiently familiar, its governing principles become evident to reason. Human knowledge of these truths is based on experience; it is not itself a matter of experience, however, but rather of reason. His wish to see through the world of flux to the true principles of its being is thus basically an act of love.

Aristotle believed in logic, the theory of formal truth and validity, which originated in reflections on the practice of dialectic, the kind of debate found in Plato's dialogues. He believed that virtue is a form of understanding and that the good life must consequently be grounded in knowledge.