Plato and Aristotle on Knowledge

Although Aristotle disagrees with Plato on several important issues, their philosophies are more similar than is believed. This chapter will focus on their theories of knowledge. I will first provide an analysis of passages that we encounter at the end of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, where Aristotle discusses the acquisition of first principles. I will then turn to Plato and show that in several dialogues Plato adopts a similar framework. Next, I will examine what is often referred to as Plato’s theory of recollection, comparing it with Aristotle’s statement that the soul is in a way all things. Lastly, I will say a few words about the reception of Aristotle’s texts in the early Middle Ages, which could partly explain why commentators in that era and ever since have overstated the extent to which the two philosophers disagree with one another.