I was pretty inspired by Plato’s idea of opposing the Cosmos to Chaos, and the philosophy built on this is that ideas are the basis of knowledge as the need to look for common things in things to know them. At the same time, even though sensory knowledge, according to Plato, has quite religious grounds, this philosopher brought much critical scientific theory to be political and legal sciences. These views are in line with the philosophy of Aquinas, who believed in the creation of the world from a divine idea (Pasnau and Shields 45). Although the basis of the ideas of the four philosophers may be different regarding God, it is similar in terms of the creation of the world and, in my opinion, differs only in terminology and emphasis on various things. Augustine relied more broadly on the concept of God, while, for example, Aristotle preferred to use the term “nature.”
For me, this position Aristotle was surprising is that the only source of knowledge is sensory knowledge. At the same time, he also claims that the mind can see the general in particular, only based on the form. In my opinion, this process of analyzing what has been seen is differentiated from pure cognition at the level of feelings. Based on knowledge, the ideas that Plato spoke about appear, and their structure is consonant with the thoughts of Aristotle – they are also formed when standard features are found in some objects.
Nevertheless, I am close to Augustine’s views on the soul and God. He is the creator of everything, including the laws of nature; therefore, in cognition, we, first of all, approach God, and our souls have the same infinite nature as God too. In constant interaction and coexistence, we become dependent on God.
Work Cited
Pasnau, Robert, and Christopher Shields. The philosophy of Aquinas. Routledge, 2019.