THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS: Focus on Plato and Aristotle

Plato and Aristotle take center stage in the painting, and for good reason.  They are without question the two most important and influential ancient philosophers, perhaps even the most important philosophers of all time.  Plato (c. 428-347 BC, pictured on the left in red) was an Athenian student of Socrates.  Here he is depicted with his hand pointing upwards, a symbol of his claim that ultimate reality (the Forms) lies beyond what we experience.  He holds a copy of his work, Timaeus, a treatise on the origin of the world.  Aristotle (384-322 BC), a student of Plato, was born in northern Greece. He holds a copy of his Ethics while describing the earth and the wide realm of moral teaching with his extended hand in an elegant horizontal gesture. Aristotle thought that the  ordinary empirical world is 'more real' than Plato's world of Forms. Both philosophers wrote extensively on a wide array of topics that has guided virtually all subsequent western philosophy even to this day.  No educated individual should be completely ignorant of the contributions of Plato and Aristotle to western culture.