Universe of Platonic Thought 2024

32nd International Conference “The Universe of Platonic Thought: Plato’s Heritage in the History of Science and Education”

Ruslan Rafil'evich Abdrafikov; ANO PE Ural College of Economics and Law (Ekaterinburg, Russia), Lecturer

Plato's misunderstood rationalism - interval approach: Plato VS Aristotle

From the point of view of the interval approach (IA), a comparison of the cognitive positions of Plato and Aristotle is proposed. Plato's methodology is being rethought from the modern perspective of computer technology. Defining “intervals of abstractions” as contexts of cognitive conditions in the views of philosophers allows us to consistently build the method of thinking they use. Aristotle's creation of his own teaching, which became more understandable to the minds of most of his contemporaries and followers, laid the foundation for philosophical dualism and anthropocentrism. But through the prism of Aristotelian categories it turned out to be impossible to understand the perspective of Plato’s view. We are considering the sensory foundations of rational inference (from consequences to causes), which did not allow the student to understand his teacher, as a result of which he substituted the meanings of key Platonic categories (one, being, essence, idea, movement). Plato’s rejection of sensory knowledge, on the contrary, is also understood by us as a rejection of sensory-rational concepts, which forces him to rely exclusively on the capabilities of reason. Using fragments of the dialogues Theaetetus, Sophist, Parmenides, Philebus and Timaeus as an example, the systemic nature of Plato’s views and his desire to create a universal method of rational knowledge of nature and man, relevant and applicable today in all areas of scientific knowledge, are substantiated.

Keywords: Plato, Aristotle, interval approach, cognitive position, contexts of cognitive conditions, universal method of rational knowledge.

The “interval of abstractions” or the cognitive position of an individual is determined by the social conditions of its formation. The authors of IP identify three cognitive situations – “from within”, “from outside” and “above the interval”. Three levels of reflection are revealed: the social individual, the social scientist and the methodologist. A scientist, trying to understand how people’s lives work, already sees “from the outside” in relation to the mass interval, but his cognitive position is also under the influence of social conditions that are not reflected by him. The methodologist's reflection is already capable of detecting the dependence of the scientist's conclusions on social prerequisites and tracking the invariant determinants of consciousness. From our point of view, Plato’s position is comparable to the reflection ofa methodologist, and Aristotle to the position of a social scientist.

The following situation will help us illustrate this incommensurability of views. Having set ourselves the task of computer modeling of social reality, we found ourselves in a position similar to Plato. He also tried to create a model of the world, using the scientific means of geometry and mathematics known at that time, and started “from scratch.”

Defining Aristotle as a philosopher of reason, and Plato as a philosopher of reason, let us consider the principles of functioning ofthe rational and rational levels of thinking.

Function of Reason: analysis of the obvious results of feelings, empirics. Generalizes from consequences to causes, principles. Goes into retrospect (“reverse perspective”). The future is built based on the experience of the past (D. Hume’s habit). The priority method is induction.

Function of Intelligence: on the contrary, it is perspective. Not related to feelings. Creates his own “a priori synthetic” categories based on a non-obvious sense of order - distinction. Organizes the concepts ofthe mind. Objective: explanation of the purposes of existence, integrity and unity ofthe world. Moves from root causes to goals based on fundamental principles. The priority method is deduction.

Both philosophers begin by defining the category of “universal.” Aristotle's makes the first extreme generalization - “everything is things.” Next, he finds logical connections between the types of existing things and connects the essences of things through categories. Aristotle makes a new generalization and explains their origin from God - the “prime mover” through “matter” and “form”.

The result of Aristotle's formal logic: only concepts about sensory perceived or imagined things are thought rationally (in cause-and-effect relationships). Everything else (feelings themselves, thinking, mind, consciousness, psyche, values, soul, meaning of life, etc.) cannot be cognized rationally. A gap is established between consciousness and body. Consciousness, as an independent center of thinking, feelings, desires, actually replaces the whole person.

Plato seems to foresee all this. Generalization of sensory data alone tothe truth, to the understanding of “how is everything organized as a whole?” doesn't bring it closer. Plato's dialectic is not only complex, itis impossible for reason.

He also begins with the ultimate generalization: “everything is movement [becoming] and apart from movement there is nothing” (Theaetetus). Discovering two types of movement “action” and “suffering”, Plato introduces the criterion of existence as the principle of interaction (Theaetetus). Following from this, he derives the category of “being”, as everything that exists in interaction (Sophist).

Only now does it become necessary to introduce the first instrumental category “single” as a condition and as a principle for organizing systemic connections.

To prove the legitimacy of introducing the “one,” Plato contrasts it with the second instrumental category “many” (Parmenides). The connection of “many” into “one” becomes the third instrumental category – the “idea” of order.

What this “idea” of connection means, Plato shows by the example of assembling a cart from 100 parts, calling this skill knowledge of the essence (Theaetetus). Here it becomes clear that Plato’s “ideas” are not at all verbal hypostatized concepts, as Aristotle and his followers believed, but models of activity, movements, evolutionary algorithms for the collection and formation of things.

So Plato takes Pythagorean concepts into service and calls the “one” - the Limit, the “many” - the Infinite, and their connection is the Measure of Order, which is cognizable only with the help of the language of numbers (Philebus).

Now the perspective of a view that does not see things, does not recognize sensory knowledge, but seeks an explanation for their formation, evolution, production, becomes clear. From this point of view, a look at the sensory and rational cognitive abilities of consciousness must still somehow explain the nature of consciousness itself.

Thus, Plato creates a universal metacognitive method free from sensory perceptions, which is ahead of his time.