Similarities Between Plato And Aristotle

1399 Words6 Pages
Introduction The purpose of this essay is to illustrate, compare and contrast the moral and political duties and characteristics of a citizen according to Plato and Aristotle. The essay will be splitted into three parts. The first part will focus on Plato’s description of citizen’s duties, followed by Aristotle’s view on it. The comparison and highlighting of the differences and similarities between philosophers will be given at the next part. Finally, it will be concluded that Aristotle and Plato have a range of notable differences as well as similarities in their views on citizen’s role in the society. PLATO Plato, in his book called “Republic” gave a broad amount of his thoughts on what it is like to be a citizen. Citizens of the ideal polis for Plato are divided into three groups: 1) rulers 2) soldiers 3) artisans, farmers and others (Constitution.org, 2016).…show more content…
In support of his aristocratic ideals Plato proposed to convince the citizens with myths about how God mingled metal particles in the souls of men: “Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently (Constitution.org, 2016: Book 2, §412b-427a)”. The souls of those that are able to rule are to be the most valuable, so he mingled gold in their souls; silver was inserted into ruler’s advisors/soldiers souls and iron and copper into souls of farmers and artisans (Constitution.org, 2016: Book 2-3, §412b-427a). However, if the latter would have a baby with a mixture of noble metals, his transfer to the higher level is only possible on the initiative of the

More about Similarities Between Plato And Aristotle

Open Document