Plato

He had also attended courses of philosophy
This life-changing event occurred when Plato was about twenty years
old, and the intercourse between master and pupil probably lasted
eight or ten years.
As a youth he had loved to write poetry and tragedies.
He became a student of Socrates and turned to philosophy in earnest
This is based on Plato's concept of
histheory of Forms or hylomorphism, the idea that
substances are forms inhering in matter. He
Ideas, which refers to his held that substance is composed of matter
belief that the material world and form, although not as any kind of a
mixture or amalgam, but composed
as it seems to us is not the
homogeneously together such that no
real world, but only a shadow matter can exist without form (or form
or a poor copy of the real without matter). Thus, pure matter
world. and pure form can never be
perceived, only
comprehended
abstractly by the intellect.
In the allegory, Plato saw the outside world, which the cave's
inhabitants glimpsed only in a second-hand way, as the timeless realm
of Forms, where genuine reality resides. The shadows on the wall
represent the world we see around us, which we assume to be real,
but which in fact is a mere imitation of the real thing.
He represented man's condition as being chained in the
darkness of a cave, with only the false light of a fire behind him.
He can perceive the outside world solely by watching the
shadows on the wall in front of him, not realizing that this view
of existence is limited, wrong or in any way lacking (after all, it
is all he knows).
Plato imagined what would occur if some of the chained
men were suddenly released from this bondage and let out into
the world, to encounter the divine light of the sun and perceive
“true” reality.
He described how some people would immediately be
frightened and want to return to the familiar dark existence of
the cave, while the more enlightened would look at the sun and
finally see the world as it truly is. If they were then to return to
the cave and try to explain what they had seen, they would be
mocked mercilessly and called fanciful, even mad.
Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.) was an important Greek philosopher from the
Socratic (or Classical) period, mainly based in Athens.
Aristotle was born to an aristocratic family in Stageira on the Chalcidice Peninsula
of Macedonia (a region of northern Greece) in 384 B.C. His father, Nicomachus,
was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon, and Aristotle was trained
and educated as a member of the aristocracy. Aristotle's mother, Phaestis, came
from Chalcis on the island of Euboea, and her family owned property there.
Aristotle studies under Plato as student.

Then one of the Aristotle’s pupil was Alexander the Great
For Aristotle the Theory of Form of Plato is Illogical and
impossible to prove. Aristotle held that the substantial here
and now was quite realm and the Form are not separate
things.
The Theory of POTENTIALITY
Potentiality means that within everything, people included, there exists
a natural progress towards fulfilling its own potential, in essence
becoming its own Form. A movements in nature and in human from
imperfection to perfection, or as close as anything can get to perfection
Things have both potentiality (what it is capable of

doing or becoming, if not prevented by something
else)
Aristotle speaks of causes in the process form
potentiality to actuality
Things have both:
Potentiality : what it is capable of doing or becoming, if not
prevented by something else and
Actuality :the fulfillment or the end of the potentiality.
Thus, the matter of a thing is its potentiality, and the form is its
actuality.
Essence is what provides the shape or form or purpose to matter, and
the movement from formless stuff to complete being results from four causes:
material cause (what something is made of, the coming
together of it parts),
efficient cause (the motion or energy that changes matter),
formal cause (a thing’s shape, form, essence or definition) and
final cause (a thing's reason or purpose or the intention behind
it).
St. Thomas Aquinas (AKA Thomas of Aquino) (c. 1225
- 1274) was an Italian philosopher and theologian of the
Medieval period.
He was the foremost classical proponent of natural
theology at the peak of Scholasticism in Europe, and the
founder of the Thomistic school of philosophy and
theology.
Aquinas was born around 1225 to a noble family in the small town
of Roccasecca, near Aquino, Italy, in what was then the Kingdom of
Sicily. His father was Count Landulph and his mother was Theodora,
Countess of Theate. His uncle, Sinibald, was abbot of the original
Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino and Aquinas was expected
to follow his uncle into that position. At the age of 5, Aquinas began
his early education at a monastery, and at the age of 16 he continued
his studies at the University of Naples.
Thomas Aquinas rejected both
illumination and the double
truth .
He believe that religion and
reason did not each represent
a separate truth.
Philosophy and Theology are
not in opposition.
.
His two great works are the "Summa Contra Gentiles" (often
published in English under the title "On thr Truth of the Catholic Faith"), written
between 1258 and 1264, and the "Summa Theologica" ("Compendium of
Theology"), written between 1265 and 1274. The former is a broadly-based
philosophical work directed at non-Christians; the latter is addressed largely to
Christians and is more a work of Christian theology.
From his consideration of what God is not, Aquinas proposed
five positive statements about the divine qualities or the nature
of God:
God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and

soul, or matter and form.
God is perfect, lacking nothing.
God is infinite, and not limited in the ways that created beings
are physically, intellectually, and emotionally limited.
God is immutable, incapable of change in repect of essence and
character.
God is one, such that God's essence is the same as God's
existence.
Aquinas believed that the existence of God is neither self-evident nor
beyond proof. In the "Summa Theologica", he details five rational
proofs for the existence of God, the "quinquae viae" (or the
"Five Ways"), some of which are really re-statements of each
other:
1. The argument of the unmoved mover (ex motu):

everything that is moved is moved by a mover, therefore
there is an unmoved mover from whom all motion
proceeds, which is God.
2. The argument of the first cause (ex causa): everything

that is caused is caused by something else, therefore there
must be an uncaused cause of all caused things, which is
God.
3. The argument from contingency (ex contingentia): there are
contingent beings in the universe which may either exist or not exist
and, as it is impossible for everything in the universe to be contingent
(as something cannot come of nothing), so there must be a necessary
being whose existence is not contingent on any other being, which is
God.
4. The argument from degree (ex gradu): there are various degrees
of perfection which may be found throughout the universe, so there
must be a pinnacle of perfection from which lesser degrees of
perfection derive, which is God.
5. The teleological argument or argument from design (ex fine): all

natural bodies in the world (which are in themselves unintelligent)
act towards ends (which is characteristic of intelligence), therefore
there must be an intelligent being that guides all natural bodies
towards their ends, which is God.

Plato

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He had also attended courses of philosophy

Aristotle studies under Plato as student.

Things have both potentiality (what it is capable of

God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and

1. The argument of the unmoved mover (ex motu):

2. The argument of the first cause (ex causa): everything

5. The teleological argument or argument from design (ex fine): all

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