POLITICS
BY
When we consider the greatest political and philosophical rivalries in history, what springs to mind? Keynes and Hayek battling out central planning vs free markets? How about Disraeli and Gladstone jostling for Prime Minister in the late 19th century? We could look forward into the 21st century for our answer, as times are as polarised as ever, but in order to understand a true philosophical rivalry, we must go back to the beginning. The great tradition of philosophy can trace its roots back to Greek antiquity, to two men; Plato and Aristotle.
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ARISTOTLE The differences between Plato and Aristotle led the latter to leave Plato’s academy, and open his own school. The diametric of their conflicting worldviews set the precedent for todays political dichotomy of Individualism vs Collectivism. Several rebuttals of Platonian thought appear in Aristotles earlier enquiries into morality and ethics. At the end of Ethics, Aristotle concludes that man is born an extension of society, and that no study of man is complete without studying society as a whole.