3. Aristotle was great but not grateful student of Plato” Comment. (2010)

Actually without understanding The political system of Athens and hatred of the Socrates against it, It is impossible to understand Plato and without Plato, Aristotle. The story begins with the downfall of Athens in the generation long Peloponesian war (430-400 BC) in which Sparta defeated Athens. Socrates attributed the fall to the corrupt democratic set up where he said everyone was ruler: "This government by the Debating Society(Ecclessia General Assembly) is the root cause of all the ills plaguing Athens", similarly the lot system by which the Athenians took turns in the government was anathema to Socrates, It, he said, makes bribery expensive and is inefficient and indecisive therefore knowledge is virtue and only knowledge has the RIGHTFUL claim to power. "Ignorance is the ruins of states".His preachings ultimately brought about the Oligarchic Revolution in Athens but the Revolution by the minority Rich class was crushed by the Democratic forces who finally decided the fate of Socrates, he had to pay with his life for speaking against the democracy. Plato witnessed all this and took oath to materialize his master,s proposition: Knowledge is virtue. He proposed his Ideal State where knowledge would reign. universal system of education was introduced to achieve the the goal of Ideal state where Philosophers would be the rulers. for that cause everything which hindered the project was abolished; no property, no marriage, no Law, "FOR no law is mightier then the Knowledge". Plato justified all this by maintaining that Philosopher King on account of his superior knowledge knows all what is best. Further Plato justified the rule of Philosopher King by proposing a rationalistic method which is known as his Theory of justice by which he proposed that there are three types of men: first the man of desires who dominate business, second the man of courage who love power and dominate armies, third the man of intellect who neither yearn for bucks nor for power but knowledge, these men are fit for the public office. Ruin comes when businessman becomes ruler or the General uses his men to establish government, business man is good in trade, General in battlefield both are at their worst in public office.

Now Aristotle criticized Plato,s ideal state on all accounts hence not grateful student of Plato
I will elaborate it further in an other post.

__________________
Prejudice is an opinion without judgment. Voltaire my hero

Thank you Dear Sara and Tobabar. OK here I would try to complete it, yet I may forget to mention some important things as I am doing it without book. For better understanding I would suggest you to pose questions.


Now you got that Plato's Republic which contains his ideal state is actually a commentary on the political system of Athens. Plato criticizes Athenian democracy and builds his Ideal state on its ruins. Aristotle criticizes Republic and proposes his own political thought by deducing it from the Republic. That is the reason he is known as ungrateful student of Plato.

Being an empiricist Aristotle developed a scietific methods to prove that what Plato proposed was against human nature and the ideal state would be incapable of achieving the goal of a harmonized society. Yet Aristotle agreed with Plato that only Knowledge has the rightful claim to power. They differ on means but not on ends; end is a harmonized society, where as means differ. Aristotle sees Law as indispensable for good governance, while Plato omitted law from his ideal state. Aristotle sees private property as the source of harmless pleasures where as Plato considers it as the apple of discord,which creates imbalance in society: "however small every city is divided into two one the city of the rich and the other of the poor", so long there is private property there would be no peace: Oligarchic revolution was the example. Further Plato abolished marriage but Aristotle condemned it as the family was the basic unit of society. Plato believes that if by the mating of best animals we get best offspring, the same principle can be applied to humans: only the best men or the Guardian class(Philosophers) will be tasked to reproduce.

To prove that Plato was wrong Aristotle collected 156 constitutions of different city states and employed historical, analytical, deductive methods. while doing this Aristotle kept the Republic before his eyes and attacked Plato where ever he found contradictions and inconsistencies. He gave examples from history as well as used the same knowledge which he got from the Republic to condemn Plato. It should therefore be kept in mind that had there been no Republic, Aristotle might never have been the father of Political science.
Aristotle may be great but he was ungrateful!!!

Secondly Plato wrote an other book: The Statesman, in which law was supreme however in Republic it was subordinate to the discretion of Philosopher King. It was the Second Ideal state of Plato but It remained the Ideal State of Aristotle.

Why he wrote the Statesman and how it became the ideal of Aristotle, I will discuss it in an other post. There are many things which I am leaving untouched but If you are interested I will explain each and everything.

__________________
Prejudice is an opinion without judgment. Voltaire my hero

mr sajidnuml i need further assistance on political theories, if u are available kindly let me know