What did Plato and Aristotle mean by "Form"? Was it the same or different between the two?

Question

I need more understanding on the theory of form and wonder if they said and meant the same thing.

The Yahoo! Answers team informed me to extend the deadline to more four days for the question, thanks.

Answer 1

Hey wiwat1802,

In The School of Athens, the fresco by Raphael on the home page of this web site, Plato and Aristotle stand side by side. Plato points to the heavens, to the ideal world of the Forms. Aristotle is shown with his hand open toward the earth. The painting shows how passionate Renaissance intellectuals were about the views and achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It also accurately portrays the difference between Plato and Aristotle. It's a difference that shows up in their approaches to the arts.

Answer 2

No, they're not the same. I'm a democratic socialist, and I wish the Democrats WERE the same as socialists -- but they're not. If you want to know what real socialists are thinking about this election and this economy, don't take the word of Fox News for what the "socialists" and the "communists" are thinking. Try linking to some actual socialist web sites and see what real leftists think about Obama. For starters, try the web site of Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, the Trotskyist group International Socialist Organization (ISO), the Maoist group "Revolutionary Communist Party," and maybe the Communist Party USA and the anarchist web site Zeta Magazine and/or Znet. I think you'll find that the Communist Party USA basically urges its members to vote for the Democrats, while still hating most of what they do. You'll find that ISO and the Maoists both despise the Democrats and call for third party politics, or massive physical resistance to what they see as a bipartisan dictatorship of capitalist Democrats and capitalist Republicans. And you'll find sharp disagreements among the anarchists with Obama and the mainstream Democratic Party, although you'll probably find that the anarchists hate the Republicans even worse. This nonsense about Democrats and socialists being just the same has been a favorite piece of Republican propaganda since the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt rescued American capitalism with his New Deal programs and the right wing of the Republican Party had no clue what to do about economic crisis, and knew it, and hated Roosevelt for doing what they couldn't do. Whenever Republicans get caught their heads too far up the nether orifices of the super-rich or the racist right, they start publishing garbage about Democrats being socialists. Consider the source when you hear this kind of GOP propaganda. This is the same party that brought your George W. Bush's failed economic policies, right? It's also the same party that, under Ronald Reagan, funneled American economic and military aid to Saddam Hussein and Islamist "freedom fighters" doing guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan. Consider for a moment how much you want to trust these guys when they now promise to protect you against "socialist" Democrats who are supposedly ruining the USA by trying to keep a government run Social Security system in place. -- democratic socialist

Answer 3

For Plato, forms were real (they actually exist) and ideal (they are not material/physical). The perfect form of “red” exists, so for example, if all red objects suddenly disappeared from the universe, there would still be the form “redness”. If all triangle disappeared, there would still be the form “triangleness” etc. These forms are not material things – you can’t go find “triagleness” apart from triangular objects, but if all triangles disappeared, there would still be some sense in which “triangleness” continues to exist.

For Aristotle, forms do not exist apart from multiple instantiations of a similar thing. So, for example, the form of “red” is noting more than the collection of all red objects. If all red objects disappeared, there would no longer be any redness in the universe.

Answer 4

I think they meant the same thing.


Carpe Diem!