Opponents to Aristotle’s views on knowledge and learning

John Vespasian

In history, only a handful of philosophers have endorsed the views on knowledge and learning developed by Aristotle (384-322 BC). The opposition to Aristotle’s empiricism began before his birth, that is, with his predecessors, in particular Socrates and Plato. Let us take a look at how their views differ from those of Aristotle. Socrates (469-399 BC) never wrote any books, but his ideas have been recorded by Plato and Xenophon in their books. If we trust those sources, Socrates had been born in Athens to Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and Phaenarete, a midwife. Neither Plato nor Xenophon recount any details of Socrates’ youth. The first time they mention him, Socrates was already in his early thirties. Apparently, he was in the habit of holding lively conversations in the Athenian marketplace, attacking the established beliefs and traditions. His attacks employed a method that has been later labelled as “Socratic.” It consists of taking an apparently true statement and asking a series of probing questions to test its validity. The questions will start in a friendly tone, and grow increasingly aggressive as the statement validity begins to crumble. According to Plato, Socrates said that true wisdom starts with recognising one’s ignorance, which is a meaningless thing to say. In his work “Metaphysics,” Aristotle took the opposite view to Socrates. Aristotle considered that wisdom should be measured only by objective standards. Truth must be universal or not at all. It is irrelevant if you fulfil Socrates’ requirement of recognising your own ignorance because the truth is not subjective. Socrates is supposed to have said that “I am wise because I know that I know nothing.” That’s another meaningless thing to say. Socrates was trying to look humble, but humility has no connection to wisdom. The fact that someone is modest doesn’t mean that he is wise, nor that he will ever be. Socrates’ theory of knowledge and learning did not make any sense. Unsurprisingly, Socrates’ criticism of Athenian beliefs made him lots of enemies. Eventually, he was charged with impiety and corrupting the youth. The charges themselves were idiotic, but that was not the point. The real issue was that Socrates had made a vast number of enemies. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/opponents-to-aristotles-views-on-knowledge-and-learning/