Aristotle's view on women seemed to go along with the past views
of women--being of little importance, whereas Plato's views are seen more
today. Women today are seen as pretty much equal to men. Women are more
independent than ever before today. The way that Aristotle viewed women was
just as having a certain job and not being worth anything beyond that. He saw
women as wives and mothers. Womens only importance to some people such as
Aristotle was to have children. It was not until way later that women started
to be viewed as their own person and not just the wife of their husband.
In Gaarder's
history, the philosopher that most stood out to me was Plato. Plato believed
that women were equal to men. Instead of focusing on how much better men were,
Plato chose to think about how both males and females actually acted and
studied the way that both of them felt. Plato believed in certain classes of
people. These classes were made up of what he believed to be the three most
common virtues--wisdom, temperance, and courage. He believed that men and women
both were capable of these virtues and could make a difference in the world
which helped him see them as equal.
In the book, most of the characters
that hold some sort of authority are men. In this time period women were not
seen nearly as powerful as men were. Aristotle, along with most other
philosophers of this time, believed that women were only there to care for
their children and their husbands. The fact that most authority holding people
were men is kind of disappointing because no one ever had a chance to
see what women would have been able to bring to the table.
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