Aristotle

384 B.C. TO 322B.C.

The Roman philosopher
Cicero said that

"If Plato's prose was silver, Aristotle's

was a flowing river of gold."
 Early Life of Aristotle
• Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagira in northern Greece. Both of his
parents were members of traditional medical families, and his father,
Nicomachus, served as court physician to King Amyntus III of Macedonia.
• His parents died while he was young, and he was likely raised at his
family’s home in Stagira.
• At age 17 he was sent to Athens to enroll in Plato’s Academy. He spent 20
years as a student and teacher at the school, emerging with both a great
respect and a good deal of criticism for his teacher’s theories.
• Plato’s own later writings, in which he softened some earlier positions,
likely bear the mark of repeated discussions with his most gifted student
• When Plato died in 347, control of the Academy passed to his
nephew Speusippus.
• Aristotle left Athens soon after, though it is not clear whether
frustrations at the Academy or political difficulties due to his
family’s Macedonian connections hastened his exit.
• In 342 Aristotle was summoned to Macedonia by King Philip II to
tutor his son, the future Alexander the Great—a meeting of great
historical figures that, in the words of one modern commentator,
“Made remarkably little impact on either of them.”
 Aristotle and the Lyceum
• Aristotle returned to Athens in 335 B.C.
• As an alien, he couldn’t own property so he rented space in the
Lyceum, a former wrestling school outside the city.
• Like Plato’s Academy, the Lyceum attracted students from
throughout the Greek world and developed a curriculum centered
on its founder’s teachings.
• In accordance with Aristotle’s principle of surveying the writings
of others as part of the philosophical process, the Lyceum
assembled a collection of manuscripts that comprised one of the
world’s first great libraries
 Aristotle’s Works

• It was at the Lyceum that Aristotle probably composed most of his approximately
200 works, of which only 31 survive.
• In style, his known works are dense and almost jumbled, suggesting that they
were lecture notes for internal use at his school.
• The surviving works of Aristotle are grouped into four categories.
• The “Organon” is a set of writings that provide a logical toolkit for use in any
philosophical or scientific investigation.
• Next come Aristotle’s theoretical works, most famously his treatises on animals,
cosmology, the “Physics” (a basic inquiry about the nature of matter and change)
and the “Metaphysics” (a quasi-theological investigation of existence itself).
• Third are Aristotle’s so-called practical works, notably the
“Nicomachean Ethics” and “Politics,” both deep
investigations into the nature of human flourishing on the
individual, familial and societal levels.
• Finally, his “Rhetoric” and “Poetics” examine the finished
products of human productivity, including what makes for
a convincing argument and how a well-wrought tragedy
can instill cathartic fear and pity
• Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosopher,
making contribution to logic, metaphysics, mathematics,
biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine,
dance and theater.
 ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY OF
NATURE
• Aristotle sees the universe as a scale lying between the two extremes:
• form without matter is on one end, and matter without form is on the
other end.
• The passage of matter into form must be shown in its various stages
in the world of nature. To do this is the object of Aristotle’s physics, or
philosophy of nature. It is important to keep in mind that the passage
from form to matter within nature is a movement towards ends or
purposes.
• Everything in nature has its end and function, and nothing is without
its purpose. Everywhere we find evidences of design and rational plan.
 ARISTOTLE’S THE SOUL AND
PSYCHOLOGY
•  Soul is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or
realization of a natural body.
• From this definition it follows that there is a close
connection between psychological states, and
physiological processes.
• Body and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an
impression stamped on it are unified.
 ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS
• Ethics, as viewed by Aristotle, is an attempt to find out our
chief end or highest good: an end which he maintains is
really final.
• Though many ends of life are only means to further ends,
our aspirations and desires must have some final object or
pursuit. Such a chief end is universally called happiness.
But people mean such different things by the expression
that he finds it necessary to discuss the nature of it for
himself.
 ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS :-
•  Aristotle does not regard politics as a separate science
from ethics, but as the completion, and almost a
verification of it.
• The moral ideal in political administration is only a
different aspect of that which also applies to individual
happiness.
• Humans are by nature social beings, and the possession of
rational speech (logos) in itself leads us to social union.
 Philosophy
• Aristotle’s work on philosophy influenced ideas from late antiquity
all the way through the Renaissance.
• One of the main focuses of Aristotle’s philosophy was his systematic
concept of logic.
• Aristotle’s objective was to come up with a universal process of
reasoning that would allow man to learn every conceivable thing
about reality.
• The initial process involved describing objects based on their
characteristics, states of being and actions.
• In his philosophical treatises, Aristotle also discussed how
man might next obtain information about objects through
deduction and inference.
• To Aristotle, a deduction was a reasonable argument in
which
“when certain things are laid down, something else
follows out of necessity in virtue of their being so.”
• His theory of deduction is the basis of what philosophers
now call a syllogism, a logical argument where the
conclusion is inferred from two or more other premises of
a certain form.
 Legacy
• In the century following Aristotle’s death, his works fell out of use, but
they were revived during the first century.
• Over time, they came to lay the foundation of more than seven
centuries of philosophy.
• Aristotle’s influence on Western thought in the humanities and social
sciences is largely considered unparalleled, with the exception of his
teacher Plato’s contributions, and Plato’s teacher Socrates before him.
• The two-millennia-strong academic practice of interpreting and
debating Aristotle’s philosophical works continues to endure.