Teleology, Aristotelian and Platonic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23174142 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Sedley (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Pages | 5-29 |
| Publication date | 2010-11-18 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1017/cbo9780511919275.004 |
| OpenAlex | W1932936241 |
| ISBN | 9780511919275 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
Aristotle was Plato's student for two decades before founding his own school. Plato, like nearly every other thinker in and well after antiquity, associated teleology with conscious purpose. To make the world a purposive structure just is to posit an intelligent mind as its cause. In positing a detached and self-absorbed god, one who is above any inclination to intervene in our world, Aristotle sounds surprisingly similar to Epicurus. The goal of life, as Plato's followers expressed his idea, is 'to become as like god as possible'. This chapter describes how Aristotle's treatment of plants as inverted human beings has its origin in Plato's elevation of human beings to the status of inverted plants. It considers two areas in which Aristotle's teleology seems to me to reflect his Platonic beginnings. One is the role of the craft model; the other is global teleology.
Art · Epistemology · Literature · Teleology · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophy
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| Citations per year | 0.54 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2021 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |