Aristotle & Plato.

[Gaius Octavius]

Both of these philosophers are accepted by parts of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox faiths. How much 'faith' should be put in their views?

[ASCLEPIADES]

Both of these philosophers are accepted by parts of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox faiths. How much 'faith' should be put in their views?

Salve, GO.

 

As non-believers, these philosophers were only accepted, as you rightly stated it.

 

Their considerations were not included among the Christian Dogma, ie they are not articles of faith for any Christian denomination that I am aware of.

 

What might be considered dogmatic, at least for the Catholic, are the Church's (especially Pope's) commentaries about such texts. Anyway, I'm not sure about any specific instance.

 

For example, the famous case against Galileo Galilei was not based on Aristotle, but on biblical references, like the Psalm 104:5, "[the Lord] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved" or Ecclesiastes 1:5,"the sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises".

[M. Porcius Cato]

No faith should be put in any view. That said, of Plato and the "nous" of his Academy, Aristotle was by far the more original thinker, and he is undoubtedly the one more responsible for the development of logic, the sciences, secular humanism, natural rights, and literary criticism. Moreover, the rediscovery and popularization of Aristotle by Albertus Magnus probably had a larger influence on European history and the emergence of the Renaissance than any other single event (including even the discovery of Cicero's letters by Petrarch). Through Albertus Magnus, Aquinas and Maimonides, Aristotle's thinking almost single-handedly elevated Europe from the abyss of faith and force to a world that was safe for what John Herman Randall. called the "passionate search for passionless truth".

[ASCLEPIADES]

Here come some excerpts of the articles about both philosophers from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

 

With the advent of neo-Platonism founded by Ammonius and developed by Plotinus, Platonism definitely entered the cause of Paganism against Christianity.

 

Nevertheless, the great majority of the Christian philosophers down to St. Augustine were Platonists. They appreciated the uplifting influence of Plato's psychology and metaphysics, and recognized in that influence a powerful ally of Christianity in the warfare against materialism and naturalism.

 

These Christian Platonists underestimated Aristotle, whom they generally referred to as an "acute" logician whose philosophy favoured the heretical opponents of orthodox Christianity.

 

The exceptions to be found were John of Damascus, who in his "Source of Science" epitomizes Aristotle's "Categories" and "Metaphysics", and Porphyry's" Introduction"; Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa, who in his "Nature of Man" follows in the footsteps of John of Damascus; and Boethius, who translated several of Aristotle's logical treatises into Latin.

 

These translations and Porphyry's "Introduction" were the only Aristotelean works known to the first of the Schoolmen, that is to say, to the Christian philosophers of Western Europe from the ninth to the twelfth century.

 

The Middle Ages completely reversed this verdict. The first scholastics knew only the logical treatises of Aristotle, and, so far as they were psychologists or metaphysicians at all, they drew on the Platonism of St. Augustine.

[Ursus]

I think modern science is rather indebted to Aristotle, as MPC notes, and requires little faith.

 

As far as ethics, ontology, cosmology, theology, eschatology .... I have little use for either of them, especially Plato.

 

But I'm not a practicing Christian, and how Christians from the High Churches view the matter is their own affair.