Plato and Aristotle in the light of research on Indo-European culture

Abstract

Today we’re used to measure the value of works of culture through the lens of originality and their creators’ innovation. Against this background appears an outlying standpoint of Giovanni Reale, an Italian historian and Ancient philosophy scholar, who appreciated Aristotle's greatness and, first of all, believed he was a faithful continuer of Plato’s teachings. Even though Reale gives multiple accounts proving his own thesis, his point of view is contrary to most readers’ impressions of the two philosophers. His thesis doesn’t stand a chance against a critique from a different point of view. Polemicizing with Reale’s thesis, I’m going to prove that the difference between Plato and Aristotle is rooted deep down in the quintessence of their ontological views. Faithful to the tradition of the early Indo-European culture, Plato acknowledged ternary structures as the primal principle of his philosophical system, meanwhile Aristotelian metaphysics is binary. The reason for this paradigmatical incoherence may be the cultural differences between both philosophers. Nowadays this issue is a subject of academic research, especially on the grounds of transculturalism.