Aquinas and Plato?

I haven't finished Aquinas, but what I'm gathering is that he has three different parts of the Summa Theologica including External Law, Natural Law, and Human Law.  Although he does reference "the commentator" (averroes) It seems as though he uses a form of question and answering. Maybe not exactly the same as one like Plato, but similarities are definitely there. They way he uses the "objection", and then "on the contrary" is kind of like Plato in a sense that he allows actors to oppose him and is open to it, and then gladly answers to them. On the contrary, his ideology is more geared to that of Aristotle, not Plato. He uses "The Philosopher" Aristotle as a reference for many of his answers as well as the Bible. Aquinas opposes Plato in most ways though, and my correlation of their questioning methods may be very off....just a thought though.


Although Plato's works are more dialogues instead of question and answer format, it still really is a Q and A, just more entertaining with named actors. I'm pretty sure that William of Ockham may have used a question and answer technique but I don't remember.  I guess the point is, that they saw it as effective, because they try to cover all bases of their opponents before their opponents can. In Plato's work, it can be viewed that Socrates appeared to be arrogant in his ways of covering all bases before his opponents, but Aquinas doesn't come off that way to me.

Universals

Ive read so much about universals and its getting old. Not really but I just think I need to take a break. Anyway, I read William of Ockham and realized he was a strong advocate for Aristotelian ideology in many ways. He believed that universals relied on particular substances and that particular substances relied on each other to make universals. I think? When I started to read more and more, I realized that it was a lot harder to understand his points than I thought it would be. Some things seem simple, but I think thats only because I have read so much Aristotle that it seems like a breeze. I feel like sometimes he said that universals can be particulars and that they also cant. I think they can because they are particular in its significance, or in its work of signifying. And they cant because they cant be what it is predicated on, or else it wouldn't be predicated on anything. I feel like the "second intention" is like the primary substance from Aristotle and the "first intention" is the secondary substance...and then there's the whole predicate and subject thing. The dog is green means that green is modifying the dog, and this may be way deep but its almost like in Plato, the dog is modifying the green. Haha, that doesn't make sense but I can almost see how that could work if we were talking about the essence of green. Even though I know forms cannot really modify or be modified more than likely.

I think its easier to understand William of Ockham's ideology about universals being that of ones mind, because he explains it like a mental language. It makes sense to me, but then when he starts adding all the rules and extra detail it gets more complicated...but it wouldn't be philosophy if it weren't complicated.

Talk it out...or write it out I guess.

For this blog I thought I might just talk out some things that I'm studying for the exam to kind of kill two birds with one stone.

First I've started with substance of course, and that it is a cause of what something is, or the characteristics of what makes it what it is. 
-Core of what something is and exists in this world
-The definition of substance comes from secondary source because you cannot get a definition from a particular because attributes can get in the way of the definition
-Substance is physical, non transcendent and made of natural things.
-Composed of matter and form:

Matter-is perceived through our senses and is a kind of "stuff" things are made of

Form- The shape that matter takes. All matter has a perception of a form. Form is more the "___ness" that something has that cannot be differentiated into something else.
-To Aristotle, form is something that cannot be detached from matter, where as to Plato, Form is in its own world of existence and is more abstract.
- Aristotle's idea of form also that each form has something in common with similar objects, while Plato's view is that Forms are their own entity that cannot have comparisons.

Since Aristotle was an advocate of the belief of change, he studied the way that things come into existence and develop. In order to understand the change he came up with the 4 causes:
-Formal- Blueprint of the substance, primary substance
-Efficient- Who or what made it?
-Material- What is it made of?
-Final- Purpose, none of the other causes would be in existence if not for this cause. (teleological view, telos)

Another way of looking at change involves potentiality and actuality:
Matter-potentiality
Form-actuality

Kind of cyclical, one cannot exist without the other. (goes for matter and form, and potentiality and actuality)

Souls:
Another topic that Aristotle and Plato didn't agree on
Aristotle viewed the souls as an active living force and that their were different capacities in different living beings:
Nutritive- plants, reproduce
Perceptive- Animals, reproduce,  self movement, emotions
Rational-humans, reproduce, movement, emotions, reason (rationality)

Each capacity (obviously) carries the qualities of the previous one and then some.

Going more into Aristotle's idea of forms:
-Lower case "f" because inseparable from matter
-everything exists and is not "other worldly"
-commonalities with other similar objects is what makes it a form... depends on this fact
-"___ness" concept

Aristotle's problems with Plato's Forms
-Other worldly forms, where the other world has to actually be explained
-Plato's Forms do not change, where as Aristotle's do
-Aristotle believed in Empiricism, which meant knowing through observation, learning, experience...not something you already knew

Phew! That was a good recap of the most confusing things. If anyone has read this far, that's amazing.
Left out primary and secondary substances just because I have studied it so hard I felt no need to reiterate.