| Plato | Aristotle |
|---|---|
| Student of Socrates | Student of Plato |
| Reality: World of Forms — unchanging, eternal ideas | Reality found in the physical world we see and touch |
| Knowledge comes from reason | Knowledge comes from experience and logic |
| Change = illusion or less real | Change = essential to understanding reality |
| The soul pre-exists the body | The soul is the form of the body |
| Influenced by Eleatics (Parmenides, Zeno) | Influenced by Ionians (Thales, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus) |