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Aristotle (sculpture)
Aristotle (sculpture)

Aristotle (Greek Αριστοτέλης Aristotelēs) (384 BCE – March 7, 322 BCE) was a Greek scientist and philosopher. Along with Plato, he is often considered to be one of the two most influential philosophers in Western thought.

Introduction

The three greatest ancient Greek philosophers were Aristotle, Plato (a teacher of Aristotle), and Socrates (c. 470-399BCE), whose thinking deeply influenced Plato. Among them they transformed early (now, presocratic) Greek philosophy into the foundations of Western philosophy as we know it. Socrates--possibly as a result of the reasons articulated against writing philosophy attributed to him in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus--wrote nothing, and his ideas come down to us only indirectly through Plato and a few other ancient writers. writings of Plato and Aristotle form the core of Ancient philosophy.

Their works, although connected in many fundamental ways, are very different in both style and substance. Plato wrote several dozen philosophical dialogues--arguments in the form of conversations, usually with Socrates as a participant--and a few letters. Though the early dialogues are concerned mainly with methods of acquiring knowledge, and most of the last ones with justice and practical ethics, his most famous works expressed a synoptic view of ethics, metaphysics, reason, knowledge, and human life. The predominant ideas were that knowledge gained through the senses is always confused and impure, and that true knowledge is acquired by the contemplative soul that turns away from the world. The soul alone can have knowledge of the Forms, the real essences of things, of which the world we see is but an imperfect copy. Such knowledge has ethical as well as scientific importance. Plato can be called, with qualification, an idealist and a rationalist.

Aristotle, by contrast, placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses, and would correspondingly be better classed among modern empiricists (see materialism and empiricism). Thus, Aristotle set the stage for what would eventually develop into the scientific method centuries later. Although he wrote dialogues early in his career, no more than fragments of these have survived. The works of Aristotle that still exist today are in treatise form and were, for the most part, unpublished texts. These were probably lecture notes, or texts used by his students, and were almost certainly revised repeatedly over the course of years. As a result these works tend to be eclectic, dense, and difficult to read. Among the most important are Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul), and Poetics.

Aristotle is known for being one of the few figures in history who studied almost every subject possible at the time. In science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics,and zoology. In philosophy, Aristotle wrote on aesthetics, economics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, psychology, rhetoric, theology; also education, foreign customs, literature, and poetry. His combined works practically comprise an encyclopedia of Greek knowledge.

History and influence of Aristotle's work

Alfred North Whitehead once commented that the history of philosophy was a series of footnotes to Plato. If anything of the sort is true, then the only other possible candidate would be Aristotle, and in his case it might be more literally true, given the number of commentaries devoted to his works, which were translated into Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Italian, French, Hebrew, German, and English and studied by later Greeks and Byzantines.

The history of Aristotle's works from the time of his death until the 1st century BCE is obscure. Legend has it that Aristotle's personal library, including the manuscripts of his works, was left to his successor Theophrastus and that later it was hidden to avoid confiscation or destruction; finally the manuscripts were rediscovered in 70 BCE. Andronicus of Rhodes then (in fact) edited and published the works. In the interim, however, the works could hardly have been forgotten, as Aristotle's school, the Lyceum, was in operation the whole time.

The majority of Aristotle's work has been lost, some since Classical times. There is a glimpse of what we have lost in the praise given by Cicero to the eloquence of Aristotle's dialogues. The surviving works are known and respected for a plain and unadorned (though not easy) style; not one is a dialogue. Some lost works of Aristotle may have survived in hard-to-restore carbonised form at the Villa of The Papyri in Herculaneum, currently under excavation.

In late antiquity Aristotle fell nearly out of sight. Early Christian writers such as Tertullian rejected philosophy altogether as a pagan study that was made obsolete by the Gospels. In the 5th century Saint Augustine used Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophy in his theology, but had no use for Aristotle. At the end of the century, however, Boethius undertook to translate the works of Aristotle and other Greeks into Latin, as the teaching of Greek was being lost in the West; his translations and commentaries were nearly all that was known of Greek philosophy in the West for several centuries. They were little missed, as the hostility of early Christianity to pagan philosophy continued.

Aristotle's works were read during the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, however, and the Islamic philosopher Averroes commented extensively on it and attempted to fuse it with Islamic theology. Maimonides also tried this with Judaism. By the 12th century there was a great revival of interest in Aristotle in Christian Europe, and the great translator William of Moerbeke worked from both Greek and Arabic manuscripts to produce Latin translations. Aristotle's works were commented on by Thomas Aquinas and became the standard philosophical approach of the high and later middle ages. Aristotle's works were held in such esteem that he was known as The Philosopher.

Indeed, the views of Aristotle became the dogma of scholastic philosophy. It was this dogma that was rejected by the philosophers of the early modern period, such as Galileo and Descartes.

Aristotle's theories about drama, in particular the idea of the dramatic unities, also influenced later playwrights, especially in France. He claimed to be describing the Greek theater, but his work was taken as prescriptive. In more recent times there has been a new revival of interest in Aristotle. His ethical views in particular remain influential.

See also: Aristotle's theory of universals, accidental properties

The article Aristotelian logic discusses the influence of Aristotle's Organon. See also the article Term Logic that outlines the system of traditional logic based on the Organon, that survived until the twentieth century.

Biography

Aristotle was born at Stageira, a Greek colony on the Macedonian peninsula Chalcidice in 384 BCE. His father, Nicomachus, was court physician to King Amyntas III of Macedon. It is believed that Aristotle's ancestors held this position under various kings of Macedonia. Aristotle was probably influenced by his father's medical knowledge; when he went to Athens at the age of 18, he was likely already trained in the investigation of natural phenomena.

From the ages of 18 to 37 Aristotle remained in Athens as a pupil of Plato and distinguished himself at the Academe. The relations between Plato and Aristotle have formed the subject of various legends, many of which depict Aristotle unfavourably. No doubt there were divergences of opinion between Plato, who took his stand on sublime, idealistic principles, and Aristotle, who even at that time showed a preference for the investigation of the facts and laws of the physical world. It is also probable that Plato suggested that Aristotle needed restraining rather than encouragement, but not that there was an open breach of friendship. In fact, Aristotle's conduct after the death of Plato, his continued association with Xenocrates and other Platonists, and his allusions in his writings to Plato's doctrines prove that while there were conflicts of opinion between Plato and Aristotle, there was no lack of cordial appreciation or mutual forbearance. Besides this, the legends that reflect Aristotle unfavourably are traceable to the Epicureans, who were known as slanderers. If such legends were circulated widely by patristic writers such as Justin Martyr and Gregory Nazianzen, the reason lies in the exaggerated esteem Aristotle was held in by the early Christian heretics, not in any well-grounded historical tradition.

After the death of Plato (347 BCE), Aristotle went with Xenocrates to the court of Hermias, ruler of Atarneus in Asia Minor, and married his niece and adopted daughter, Pythia. In 344 BCE, Hermias was murdered in a rebellion, and Aristotle went with his family to Mytilene. Then, one or two years later, he was summoned to his native Stageira by King Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor of Alexander the Great, who was then 13.

Plutarch wrote that Aristotle not only imparted to Alexander a knowledge of ethics and politics, but also of the most profound secrets of philosophy. We have much proof that Alexander profited by contact with the philosopher, and that Aristotle made prudent and beneficial use of his influence over the young prince (although Bertrand Russell disputes this). Due to this influence, Alexander provided Aristotle with ample means for the acquisition of books and the pursuit of his scientific investigation, and it is quite likely that Alexander the Great's renowned military ability can be traced, at least in part, to his relationship with Aristotle.

According to sources such as Plutarch and Diogenes, Philip had Aristotle's hometown of Stageira burned during the 340's BCE, and Aristotle successfully requested that Alexander rebuild it.

In about 335 BCE, Alexander departed for his Asiatic campaign, and Aristotle, who had served as an informal adviser (more or less) since Alexander ascended the Macedonian throne, returned to Athens and opened his own school of philosophy. He may, as Aulus Gellius says, have conducted a school of rhetoric during his former residence in Athens; but now, following Plato's example, he gave regular instruction in philosophy in a gymnasium dedicated to Apollo Lyceios, from which his school has come to be known as the Lyceum. (It was also called the Peripatetic School because Aristotle preferred to discuss problems of philosophy with his pupils while walking up and down -- peripateo -- the shaded walks -- peripatoi -- around the gymnasium.)

During the thirteen years (335 BCE-322 BCE) which he spent as teacher of the Lyceum, Aristotle composed most of his writings. Imitating Plato, he wrote "Dialogues" in which his doctrines were expounded in somewhat popular language. He also composed the several treatises (which will be mentioned below) on physics, metaphysics, and so forth, in which the exposition is more didactic and the language more technical than in the "Dialogues". These writings show to what good use he put the resources Alexander had provided for him. They show particularly how he succeeded in bringing together the works of his predecessors in Greek philosophy, and how he pursued, either personally or through others, his investigations in the realm of natural phenomena. Pliny claimed that Alexander placed under Aristotle's orders all the hunters, fishermen, and fowlers of the royal kingdom and all the overseers of the royal forests, lakes, ponds and cattle-ranges, and Aristotle's works on zoology make this statement more believeable. Aristotle was fully informed about the doctrines of his predecessors, and Strabo asserted that he was the first to accumulate a great library.

During the last years of Aristotle's life the relations between him and Alexander the Great became very strained, owing to the disgrace and punishment of Callisthenes whom Aristotle had recommended to Alexander. Nevertheless, Aristotle continued to be regarded at Athens as a friend of Alexander and a representative of Macedonia. Consequently, when Alexander's death became known in Athens, and the outbreak occurred which led to the Lamian war, Aristotle shared in the general unpopularity of the Macedonians. The charge of impiety, which had been brought against Anaxagoras and Socrates, was now, with even less reason, brought against Aristotle. He left the city, saying (according to many ancient authorities) that he would not give the Athenians a chance to sin a third time against philosophy. He took up residence at his country house at Chalcis, in Euboea, and there he died the following year, 322 BCE. His death was due to a disease from which he had long suffered. The story that his death was due to hemlock poisoning, as well as the legend that he threw himself into the sea "because he could not explain the tides," is without historical foundation.

Very little is known about Aristotle's personal appearance except from hostile sources. The statues and busts of Aristotle, possibly from the first years of the Peripatetic School, represent him as sharp and keen of countenance, and somewhat below the average height. His character (as revealed by his writings, his will (which is undoubtedly genuine), fragments of his letters and the allusions of his unprejudiced contemporaries) was that of a high-minded, kind-hearted man, devoted to his family and his friends, kind to his slaves, fair to his enemies and rivals, grateful towards his benefactors. When Platonism ceased to dominate the world of Christian speculation, and the works of Aristotle began to be studied without fear and prejudice, the personality of Aristotle appeared to the Christian writers of the 13th century, as it had to the unprejudiced pagan writers of his own day, as calm, majestic, untroubled by passion, and undimmed by any great moral defects, "the master of those who know".

Methodology

Aristotle defines philosophy in terms of essence, saying that philosophy is "the science of the universal essence of that which is actual". Plato had defined it as the "science of the idea", meaning by idea what we should call the unconditional basis of phenomena. Both pupil and master regard philosophy as concerned with the universal; the former however, finds the universal in particular things, and calls it the essence of things, while the latter finds that the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, philosophic method implies the ascent from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato philosophic method means the descent from a knowledge of universal ideas to a contemplation of particular imitations of those ideas. In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive.

In Aristotle's terminology, the term natural philosophy corresponds to the phenomenon of the natural world,which include: motion, light, the laws of physics. Many centuries later these subjects would later become the basis of modern science, as studied through the scientific method. The term philosophy is distinct from metaphysics, which is what moderns term philosophy.

In the larger sense of the word, he makes philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also called "science". Note, however, that his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that which is covered by the scientific method. "All science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical." By practical science he understands ethics and politics; by poetical, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; while by theoretical philosophy he means physics, mathematics, and metaphysics.

The last, philosophy in the stricter sense, he defines as "the knowledge of immaterial being," and calls it "first philosophy", "the theologic science" or of "being in the highest degree of abstraction." If logic, or, as Aristotle calls it, Analytic, be regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, we have as divisions of Aristotelian philosophy (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics, Mathematics, (3) Practical Philosophy; and (4) Poetical Philosophy.

Aristotelian science

Aristotelian discussions about science had only been qualitative, not quantitative. By the modern definition of the term, Aristotelian philosophy was not science, as this worldview did not attempt to probe how the world actually worked through experiment. Rather, based on what one's senses told one, Aristotelian philosophy then depended upon the assumption that man's mind could elucidate all the laws of the universe, based on simple observation (without experimentation) through reason alone.

One of the reasons for this was that Aristotle held that physics was about changing objects with a reality of their own, whereas mathematics was about unchanging objects without a reality of their own. In this philosophy, he could not imagine that there was a relationship between them.

In contrast, today the term science refers to the position that thinking alone often leads people astray, and therefore one must compare one's ideas to the actual world through experimentation; only then can one see if one's ideas are based in reality.

Aristotle's critics

Aristotle has been criticised on several grounds.

  1. At times the objections that Aristotle raises against the arguments of his own teacher Plato, appear to rely on faulty interpretations of those arguments.
  2. Although Aristotle advised, against Plato, that knowledge of the world could only be obtained through experience, he frequently failed to take his own advice. Aristotle conducted projects of careful empirical investigation, but often drifted into abstract logical reasoning, with the result that his work was littered with conclusions that were not supported by empirical evidence; for example his assertion that objects of different mass fall at different speeds under gravity, which was later refuted by Galileo.
  3. In the middle ages, roughly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the philosophy of Aristotle became firmly established dogma. Although Aristotle himself was far from dogmatic in his approach to philosophical inquiry, two aspects of his philosophy might have assisted its transformation into dogma. His works were wide ranging and systematic so that they could give the impression that no significant matter had been left unsettled. He was also much less inclined to employ the skeptical methods of his predecessors, Socrates and Plato.

Aristotle was called not a great philosopher, but "The Philosopher" by Scholastic thinkers. Scholastic thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. It required a repudiation of Aristotelian principles for the sciences and the arts to free themselves for the discovery of modern scientific laws and empirical methods.

The Western mind is "Aristotelian". By this we mean that it formats the external world into factual and "scien"-tific categories. (By "Scien"-tific we mean that something is knowable or known.)

Under the premise of external categorization, the Aristotelian mind has come to equate "experience" with the unified chronical and spatial ontological structure that is the "external" universe -- visible, audible and sensible by the handful of our common, well identified senses.

By so equating the two, the Aristotelian mind is fully confident, or fully "positive" of the meanings of its utterances and the purposes of all actions. That is to say, it dismisses the possibility of dubious meanings as interpreted by subjects that are at variance in perspectives or phenomenology, and it dismisses the importance of anything other than an objectively defined "purpose" to an action.

Therefore the Aristotelian mind assumes that, when subject A utters "I am X," he/she is referring to the same experience and is expressing the same purpose as subject B who also utters "I am X."

Bibliography

The most complete recent translation of Aristotle's extant works is published by Princeton University Press:

  • The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (2 Volume Set; Bollingen Series, Vol. LXXI, No. 2), edited by Jonathan Barnes ISBN 0-691-09950-2

Oxford University Press publishes scholarly editions in the Clarendon Aristotle Series. The hardbound series Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard University Press, publishes Aristotle's extant works in Greek, with English translations on facing pages. Their volumes are listed below:

  • Volume I. Categories. On Interpretation. Prior Analytics ISBN 0-674-99359-4
  • Volume II. Posterior Analytics. Topica ISBN 0-674-99430-2
  • Volume III. On Sophisticated Refutations. On Coming-to-be and Passing Away. On the Cosmos ISBN 0-674-99441-8
  • Volume IV. Physics, Books 1-4 ISBN 0-674-99251-2
  • Volume V. Physics, Books 5-8 ISBN 0-674-99281-4
  • Volume VI. On the Heavens ISBN 0-674-99372-1
  • Volume VII. Meteorologica ISBN 0-674-99436-1
  • Volume VIII. On the Soul. Parva Naturalia. On Breath ISBN 0-674-99318-7
  • Volume IX. History of Animals, Books 1-3, ISBN 0-674-99481-7
  • Volume X. History of Animals, Books 4-6 ISBN 0-674-99482-5
  • Volume XI. History of Animals, Books 7-10 ISBN 0-674-99483-3
  • Volume XII. Parts of Animals. Movement of Animals and Progression of Animals ISBN 0-674-99357-8
  • Volume XIII. Generation of Animals ISBN 0-674-99403-5
  • Volume XIV. Minor Works: On Colours. On Things Heard. Physiognomics. On Plants. On Marvellous Things Heard. Mechanical Problems. On Indivisible Lies. The Situations and Names of Winds. On Melissus. Xenophanes. Georgias. ISBN 0-674-99338-1
  • Volume XV. Problems, Books 1-21. ISBN 0-674-99349-7
  • Volume XVI. Problems, Books 22-38. Rhetorica ad Alexandrum ISBN 0-674-99350-0
  • Volume XVII. Metaphysics, Books 1-9 ISBN 0-674-99299-7
  • Volume XVIII. Metaphysics, Books 10-14. Oeconomica. Magna Moralia ISBN 0-674-99317-9
  • Volume XIX. Nichomachean Ethics ISBN 0-674-99081-1
  • Volume XX. Athenian Constitution. Eudemian Ethics. Virtues and Vices ISBN 0-674-99315-2
  • Volume XXI. Politics ISBN 0-674-99291-1
  • Volume XXII. The Art of Rhetoric ISBN 0-674-99212-1
  • Volume XXIII. Poetics. On the Sublime. On Style ISBN 0-674-99563-5

The following works are also available individually in paperback

  • The Politics
  • The Nichomachean Ethics (also sometimes titled as The Ethics)
  • Posterior Analytics
  • The Rhetoric / The Art of Rhetoric / Treatise on Rhetoric
  • Physics
  • Metaphysics
  • Poetics
  • The Categories
  • De Anima / On The Soul
  • The Athenian Constitution / The Constitution of Athens

The rest of his work can be found in anthologies or other collections of two or more works.

Online texts

This is a list of links to translations of several works which still exist. Please update any links that you find to be broken.

Named after Aristotle

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