Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in APA Style - Essay Example

Plato founded the Academy (approximately in 385 b.c.) in Akademeia, Greece where Aristotle studied. Plato used Socrates as a character in many of his dialogue writings. There is an issue known as the "Socratic problem" as it is not known in Plato's dialogue writings how much of the content is from the point of view of Socrates or from Plato since Socrates was not a writer. Plato was greatly influenced by Socrates' teachings and ideas so many of his dialogues were most likely borrowed or adapted for these teachings.

Aristotle was a student of Plato. He taught what he knew to Alexander the Great. Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates were the three most well known influential ancient Greek philosophers. They laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Aristotle wrote on subjects such as poetry, physics, logic, government, ethics, zoology, politics, etc. Currently, the fields of mathematics, computer science, and law are more likely considered as branches of logic. (Wikipedia, Last Modified 2006.) The definition also includes "As a formal science, logic investigates and classifies the structure of statements and arguments, both through the study of formal systems of inference and through the study of arguments in natural language.

The scope of logic can, therefore, be very large, ranging from core topics such as the study of fallacies and paradoxes to specialized analyses of reasoning such as probability, correct reasoning and arguments involving causality. Logic has been known as a set of rules that make up correct thinking. Logic is also commonly used today in argumentation theory." There have been many disputes regarding the true nature of logic. As there are many different philosophies, there are many discussions relating to this topic and because philosophies have many different views, arguments usually arise.

An argument is defined as "a connected series of statements or propositions, some of which are intended to provide support, justification or evidence for the truth of another statement or proposition.