ARISTOTLE AND PLATO

Aristotle and Plato have been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the People, Dates, Places and Events category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the entire history of european integration and the future of Europe.

Aristotle and Plato are among the most important people in whole history of european integration and will probably have influence on the future of United europe, as the principal members of philosophy greek and authors of still actual books about politics, metaphysic and physic, ethic and religious mindkind, they started two different schools of thinking that inevitably conditioned all the European culture until nowadays!

Plato was the main philosofer of the "idealism" current in early IV century B.C.: supporter of the culture of "dualism", where there is only a subject via existent between humankind and God (called άρχή in greek language), the demiurge (δηµιουργός) needed to forge and guide the terrestrian life in accordance to the divine wishes, an intermediate entity who can shape the material to produce the phenomenic reality throughout the Logos power (σοφός) to control the originary thinking, so that he can transform reality in conformity with the supreme expectations and humankind must hope in him to receive luck and material goods, but he became the Evil of the Bible. The political application of this vision came at the time of the Byzantine Empire, where the Basileius wearing the Pontifex Maximus dress could realize the joining of political e religious heads (a model called "Caesaropapism’), the supreme point of conjunction between State and Church, summit of the double platonic pyramids of Potestas promanent in a hierachical structure from him: from God-Father to the Demiurge-Basoleius, then from him to the Caesars, descending towards laicaò/ecclesiastical Dignitarians up to the Popolus of Christians. So could be possible the union of the Ecclesiae Christiana in the typical platonic conception of Saint Augustine in his book "the City of God", included in the idealistic vision of the political community (πολιτεία).

Within the Neoplatonism conception emerged in IV century A.D. based on the ancient ideas of Plato, the paganist vision of the Roman Empire was respectful of human laws and the Auctoritas of divine Emperors, in coherence with the ancient eastern/egyptian Sophia (σοθία) and the Gnosis, with the Ancient Testament and the most traditional paganist roman culture: that "new culture" founded on Neoplatonism would have influenced history of european integration throughout the mystical Theologia and the "Scolastica" teaching (see Saint Thomas Aquinas), then to the christian Humanism (see the fall of Constantinople) and the Reform of Cluny Congregation, that still today are the most accepted among the european intellectuals. Since then, the senatorial gens adhered to Neoplatonism and founded the Christian State Church in accordance with the emperor Constantine I that speculated the doctrine of "duplex natura" established at the I Nicean Council in 325 A.D., became the ortodox and catholic creed until nowadays!

Also a Neoplatonic mind came from the School of Alexandria ruled by Philo, who teached to Simon Mago from Samaria author of an interpretation that corrupted the ancient vision of Jesus Christ came to separate the religious sphere from the political one (see Julius Caesar), mixing the power structures created by the mysteric Secret Societies born from the ancient gnostic doctrines pondered by the priests of ancient Babylon with the Mitraism movement to define the anti-christian Giudaism that inspired all the eretical religions and phylosofies along the history of european integration until the FreeMasonry of nowadays!

Aristotle had been a student of Plato at the phylosofic school of Athens and was a supporter of the culture of "dualism", too: he put the roots of human life in God (άρχή), the originary Source of cosmis existance and truth, of laws, order and justice, ethernal immutable entity beginning and ending of everything, the indivisible and continuous Absolute, the real voice of the Logos (σοφός). From this word Aristotle founded the "Logic current" followed by the Peripatetic School, master of the rational investigating method of Physis that nowadays correspond to the "rationalism" philosofic way of Modern Sciences. For Aristotle, God is the Sun that makes Humanking move towards the ultimate truth and life (on the way of Jesus Christ...) to realize their nutaral goal. He considered the macedonic and spartan monarchies founded on the king's credit, who anyway was subjected to the polys (πόλις) laws: Aristotle had been the mentor of Alexander "the great" but always refused the absolute monarchy because he thought it possible only with a "special" man owning the divine qualities (άρετή), a superior human being for virtues and ability in confront to all other members of the political community (πολιτεία), so that he could be accepted as the "living law" and holder of the absolute power. Aristotle had those ideas within his vision of the human "political animal" that turned useful in Middle Age, when had been speculated the conceptions of Res Publica Christianitas under the superior persona ficta Imperator head of all the aeternitas enlisted in the Codex (Universitas, Familia, Civitas, Provincia, Regnum, Universum, Imperium). This sense of the State as Corpus politicus of aristotelic conception, animated by mystic nature and ethic/moralistic mission as well as by the "optimus" man living by practicing the human virtues had been derived from his classic book "Politica", that explain the various forms of states and governement known at his age and still accepted nowadays!

To sum up , while Plato believed in a Supreme God creator who leads the Whole existance with his infinte Sapientia, trasmitted through the innate ideas ("archetypes") to his elects, Aristotle though that God was a wise clever source without any concrete powers to intervine on Earth or humankind lives, that indeed should be guided only by the reason or the logic and comprehended only empirically. Then, Plato concerned the human society always to be guided by an illuminated intellighentia (the intellettuals) and a unique great driver, while for Aristo the political and social human life is regulated by people and eventually by his leaders. Plato wrote two books ("Timeo" and "Critia") narrowing about the myth of Atlantis and his position over the Heracles Gate, never precisely identified but probably at the Gibilterra strict, whose name came from the great sea Pelagus that gave its name to the Pelasgians ancient Greeks people.

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