The Minds of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Essay Example for Free

The Minds of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Essay SOCRATES, one of those who sought to develop a more consistent and purer concept of god, but he paid the price of a pioneer in that the masses misunderstood him. He was considered as the destroyer of the gods of the Greeks. He maintained that the centrality of the real essence of man and individual is not only its acceptance of the different gods but the real understanding of one’s relationship with others in a rational manner. This implies a rational knowledge with all its capabilities within the realm of knowledge – the highest god, thus, the nature and conceptualization of god, for him, is the actual understanding of knowledge which one god. For Socrates, is something that can be reached through knowing and knowledge that the individual can possess? PLATO, the pupil of Socrates, uses the word God, but in a very confused way. Most of the time, he used the word god just a ordinary masses think of them, as beings governing different realms of the universe. In many of his works, we cannot actually distinguish how-in the process he thinks of gods in the same manner as the ordinary citizen of Greece and with his noble background (Drake, 1958), for in it, the mind of the masses, most of the time prevailed. Indeed, the popular conceptions of the gods are strewn all over these thoughts and works, but there were times that. He thought of the existence of one supreme god who is the master and ruler of the entire universe. In his book, the Timaeus, he accounts for the creation of the universe by using a demiurge, or sort of architect, who takes already-created ideas and matter and moulds the universe. In another place, we find him speaking of the creators as the source of souls. ARISTOTLE on this point is clear. He noted that there are two causes in the universe – form and matter. That, â€Å"forms are forces which realize themselves in the world of matter, just as the idea of the artist realizes itself in marble,† was central to the belief of Aristotle. The cause of motion, for him, is for him, is form; and matter moves as it is being caused by form. Thus, for Aristotle, the traces of the early Greek thinking, â€Å"that matter is a living form† was revived. Not only does form, which is within matter, move matter, but matter seeks to become or realize the form. For example, the mango tree is the form and the mango seed is the matter. When the seed grows into a mango tree, it realizes the form â€Å"mango tree† which is in it a mango seed, but unrealized. As it is growing according to Aristotle, it is striving to become a mango tree. This is its motion. Aristotle maintained that, before the mango seed, there was matter, and an idea or form â€Å"mango†. This form was in matter, and matter was striving to become a mango tree because of the presence of the form in it. We might move on tracing these series of events from the crudest matter, each step through the mango tree and beyond, and realizing that at each point there is matter striving to become form, being moved by form. Thus he asks, â€Å"Is this series continuous and forever? † his answer was â€Å"NO†. At the end. He called this an eternal â€Å"UNMOVED MOVER,† the ultimate cause of ll motion, of all becoming and being in the universe. He called the unmoved mover,† â€Å"GOD,† (Saddi, 1997). Aristotle’s god is â€Å"PURE INTELLIGENCE,† the ideal motif of all philosophers.