How Did Plato Shaped Aristotle's Philosophy?

Some of the ways in which Plato shaped Aristotle’s philosophy is that Plato believed the cosmos to be made up of four elements that are earth, air, fire, and water. Aristotle agreed that the cosmos was made up of these four elements. Although, some of the ways in which Aristotle deviated from Plato was that Plato deduced that the four elements are made of atoms, which are made from triangles, Aristotle disagreed with this. Even though Aristotle agreed on the four elements he disagree on the theory of atoms and void space, he believed that the earth was “full” (Lindberg 54). Also, concerning the “sensible objects” and its relation to the “theory of forms” (Lindberg 46) Plato “diminished the reality of the material world observed by the senses,” (Lindberg 46). While, Aristotle disagrees with this he believes that “they must exist fully and independently” and
Plato “diminished the reality of the material world observed by the senses.” For Plato reality can be obtained in the “eternal forms,” and are reliant on “nothing else for their existence.” Objects in the practical world get their characteristics and “their very being from the forms,” that “sensible objects” only live “dependently” (Barnes 46). He states that forms are the reality, the ideas that live in the outer material world and the senses are an illusion, which is the mathematical approach. While Aristotle disagrees with this, he believes that “they must exist fully and independently” and they are “what make up the real world” (Barnes 46) pertaining to “sensible objects.” For Aristotle, the characteristics that make up an independent object’s nature do not have previous reality based on the forms, but “belong to the object itself” (Barnes 46). This allows individual objects to be the reality itself that have properties that consist of “form and matter” (Lindberg 47), which relates to Aristotle’s natural