12. Evaluation of Plato and Aristotle Part 3/4

This is the third video evaluating Plato and Aristotle. In this video we will be focusing on the ontology of dualism. Plato was clearly a dualist. He accepted the existence of non-physical entities in addition to physical ones. While some people claim that Aristotle was a materialist, and this is what we set out with as an idea in our first video, his belief in the non-physical, non-observable prime mover as pure thought actually challenges this idea. So Aristotle as well as Plato faces the problem of interaction. Plato claimed that physical particulars instantiate forms, and that the non-physical form of the good causes all, including contingent physical particulars that depend on it. Aristotle claimed that the non-physical prime mover affects the physical world as its final cause via the power of attraction. Could be argued that Plato and Aristotle's claims should be rejected because it is not possible for the non-physical and physical to interact in these ways, instantiation, causation, and attraction. They are just too different. Even if it were theoretically possible, it isn't clear exactly how these things would work. How would instantiation, causation, and attraction between physical and non-physical entities work? For example, Plato needs to explain how physical matter could come into existence from the non-physical forms, and Aristotle would need to explain the material cause of the universe. Did matter come from pure thought? And if so, how? The particular problem of body-soul interaction faced by Plato will be discussed later when we talk about souls and bodies and how they might interact. In response to this, some people argue that being too different isn't good enough as an explanation for why this wouldn't be able to work. Different things can affect each other. We see this all the time. The non-solid wind can blow and affect the physical clothes drying on a line, for example. And how causation works between physical objects isn't obvious either, as we looked at in our last video discussing the problems and skepticism surrounding causation generally as an idea. So if we can't even explain properly causation between physical objects, why should we rule out causation between the physical and the non-physical? This video has been brought to you by Just Education. Thank you for watching and please subscribe to find out more.