By Samuel Gugliotta
For Variety

THE Romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), in the work, "Table Talk," noted the following: "Every man is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist. I do not think it possible that anyone born an Aristotelian can become a Platonist; and I am sure no born Platonist can ever change into an Aristotelian. They are two classes of men, beside which it is next to impossible to conceive a third."
So here we are, once again, smack in the middle of the problem of opposites and deep dichotomies; or, what Carl Jung called "the problem of types." Accordingly, if we are ever to achieve an intellectual understanding of who we are, and from whence we came, it is imperative that we assimilate the meaning of this deep dichotomy, unwinding and intertwining in so many intricate ways throughout the labyrinthine journey of the butterfly soul.
We may begin at home. Are you a Platonist or an Aristotelian? With the assistance of William James, Carl Jung, and others, I will list pairs of opposites to help you decide. The first member in each pair belongs to the "Platonist" category, and the second member to the Aristotelian:
(1) Other-worldly vs. This worldly; (2) Tender-minded vs. Tough-minded; (3) Rationalist vs. Empiricist; (4) Thinking vs. Doing; (5) Idealistic vs. Materialistic; (6) Intellectualistic vs. Sensationalistic; (7) Monistic vs. Pluralistic; (8) Universals vs. Particulars; (9) Realism vs. Nominalism; (10) Introvert vs. Extrovert; (11) Ideas vs. Facts; (12) Mind vs. Body; (13) Solitary vs. Social; (14) Individual vs. Society; (15) Inward vs. Outward; (16) Mystical vs. Practical; (17) Internal vs. External; (18) Romantic vs. Classical.
Perhaps this is enough to give you a feel of the two types of attitudes or temperaments which we are calling "Platonistic" and opposed to "Aristotelian". In my opinion, it seems that the majority of humans today are Aristotelian, in that they are geared to material objects and socially orientated. In other words, many people appear to be extroverts.
Platonic people, on the other hand, are inward-turning. They tend to be loners, living in their own heads. They are given to thinking more than doing, and revel in abstractions more than concrete particulars. They are the dreamers, the introverts.
Platonists are from Saturn, Aristotelians are from Jupiter.
On the other hand, even though humans may tend towards one extreme or the other, we may discern a kind of dipolar movement between Platonism and Aristotelianism in the general and specific rhythms of our lives. Children, for example, are Platonic in that they are concerned with their own thoughts and images often to the exclusion of all else. As we age, we give more attention to external reality and practical economics, but then, as we get older still, we may return to more spiritual considerations as we ponder what our life means. Each day, each moment, has the same Plato-Aristotle-Plato, or PAP, movement. For we wake from the Platonic world of dream to live out the Aristotelian day of doing, and return again at night to the Platonic twilight of reflection.
One philosopher, Robert Brumbaugh, described the two points-of-view this way: "A difference between Platonic and Aristotelian logic arises over the question of whether types and kinds are generalizations from sets of particulars, or particulars are as they are because they instantiate general kinds or types."
To understand this, consider one of my previous examples- the idea of a tree. For Aristotle, the individual trees come first; the particular object is the primary substance. Then, after experiencing various particular trees, we abstract the class concept of a tree, or the attribute treeness. The form of the tree is realized in the matter of the tree, and has no existence independent of its material realization.
For Plato, however, the 'idea' or 'form' of the tree is primary, and the individual tree, the sensible tree has being only to the extent in which it partakes in the independently existing form. True being for Plato is a world of eternal, intelligible forms, as opposed to the sensible world of becoming and passing away.
Plato's world is from top to down, from the intelligible to the sensible, from Mind to Body, from Eternity to Time. Aristotle's world goes the other way, from the bottom to the top, from the sensible to the conceptual, from Time to Eternity, from Body to Mind. Plato puts the ultimately Real at the Top, and Aristotle puts it at the Bottom.
You may recognize the play between Platonic, rational deduction and Aristotelian empirical generalization; the play from the general or universal to the particular vs. the upward movement from the particular to the general.
Indeed, in the "Timaeus" Plato envisions humans as inverted trees insofar as our divine minds which have their source in heaven are our roots, and also located in our heads. So we are walking on our branches. But Aristotle, thinking this was structurely unsound turned the tree right-side-up. Just as Marx turned Hegel upside down many centuries later.
The philosopher George Santayana expresses eloquently this opposition between the "naturalistic" and "ideal" insofar as he holds, in his classic work, "The Life of Reason," that everything possesses a natural basis and that everything natural has an ideal development. For example, in regard to the subject of love, he remarks, "Love, to the lover, is a noble and immense inspiration; to the naturalist it is a thin veil and prelude to the self assertion of lust.... In popular feeling…the tendency is to imagine that love is an absolute, non-natural energy which...lights upon particular persons, and rests there eternally.... In other words, it makes the origin of love divine and its object natural: which is the exact opposite of the truth."
Puzzles
1. If it were three hours later than it is now, it would be twice as long until midnight as it would be if it were four hours later. What time is it now?
2. Can you unscramble the following word: TESIALLEC?
3. Given P7, H4, O6, N6, what number goes with E?
Answers to last week's puzzles
1. When O'Henry wrote the story, the U. S. had two and three-cent coins. So one two-cent coin and 4 three cent coins would suffice to explain the statement.
2. "The number of words in this statement is not nine."
3. One thousand feet.