Mathematics and metaphysics in Plato and Aristotle

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36517/Argumentos.25.19

Keywords:

Mathematics. Metaphysics. Plato. Aristotle. Scientific revolution.

Abstract

The diferences between their respective ways of conceiving mathematical reality are at the very heart of the divergence between the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, figuring as they do in a crucial way in the stage of the metaphysical controversies that divide the two philosophers. Plato, it is argued, keeps faithful to the earlier philosophical tradition in establishing an ontological hierarchy that directly mirrors the degrees of intelligibility of the objects of Science. Aristotle subverts fundamentally such a tendency in subordinating mathematics to physics and proposing, in the place of mathematics, logic as the primary model of dianoetic reason.

References

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Published

2020-12-12

Issue

No. 25 (2021): Dossiê Filosofia do Brasil

Section

Varia

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