Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Introduction

This Aristotelian report covers the Greek Philosopher, Aristotle, who is considered to be the greatest philosopher of all time with the possible exception of Plato. Aristotle lived and taught in Athens for the majority of his life. He started as a pupil of Plato (who was taught by Socrates), and for some time was a the teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on a great variety of subjects, varying from astronomy to abstract philosophy. Aristotle was the founder of biology. As an educator, and scientist, he was one of the greatest and most influential thinkers in Western and Muslim culture. Much of Aristotle's work was lost after the decline of the Roman Empire, but the notes of his students and Jewish scholars helped reintroduce the lost material to the West. Aristotle and his teacher, Plato are usually considered to be the two most important ancient Greek philosophers.

Aristotle's Life

Aristotle was born in Stagira, a small ancient town of Macedonia in northeast Greece. His father, Nichomachus, was the personal physician of the king of Macedonia who was Amyntas II. Amyntas was the father of Philip of Macedonia and the grandfather of Alexander the Great. Aristotle was probably most influenced by his father who gave him a strong interest in anatomy and the structure of living things in general. His father also gave him the talent for remarkable observation. Aristotle lost his parents when he was a boy and he was then raised by Proxenus. When Aristotle was about 18 years old, he attended Plato's school in Athens, known as the Academy. And remained there for about 20 years. The others attending the Academy were trained in astronomy and mathematics Plato thought that Aristotle was the Academy's brightest and most learned student, and called him the "intelligence of the school" and the "reader". Aristotle did disagree with Plato over the existence of ideal forms. Aristotle believed that forms or ideas, such as truth or good, exist in a realm beyond the material world which is Aristotle's most widely known theory. After Plato died in 347 B.C., Aristotle then left the "Academy" to join a small group of Plato's disciples living with Hermeias, a former student at the Academy. Hermeias was the ruler of coastal towns of Atarneus and Assos. The successor of Plato, Theophrastus brought a more wider range of subjects than the Academy had ever seen. In 343 or 342 B.C., Aristotle was invited by the present king of Macedonia(Phillip II) to teach his son, Alexander. Alexander was a pupil until 336 B.C. when he had to take his father's place as king of because he was killed. This same Alexander conquered all of Greece and overthrew the Persian Empire at the battle of Granicus and Issus. He also Invaded northern India. He was known as Alexander the Great, one of the greatest generals of all time. Around 334 B.C., Aristotle returned to Athens and founded a school called the Lyceum or otherwise known as the Peripatus. Aristotle's school, his philosophy, and his followers were called peripatetic which in Greek means "walking around", because Aristotle taught walking with his students. Around 324 B.C., Aristotle was accused of impiety(the lack of reverence for the gods) Which was also the charge that another great philosopher, Socrates, who had been put to death for it in 399 B.C. Aristotle left immediately for the city of Chalcis so the Athenians would not(in his own words) - "...sin twice against philosophy." Aristotle died in Chalcis after being there for only about one year.

Artistotle's Elements

Earth, Air, Fire, Water

(Shows how the elements and their qualities are arranged and related) All substances were combinations of elements and elemental qualities. The elements are: fire, water, earth, and air. (Aristotle added later another "element" - Ether which was a perfect substance an what the heavenly bodies are composed of) The qualities are: hot, cold, wet, dry. The qualities define the character of "elements". Fire was seen as ideal mixture of hotness & dryness. One element could be changed into another like mixing solutions. Combustion and other chemical reactions were considered a type of motion. Aristotle's elements differed from alchemical elements. He believed that Asenic was actually a kind of sulfer, and it was used in his time to harden copper. Aristotle along with other Greek Philosophers questioned whether matter was composed of divisble or indivisible particles. To Aristotle, all material was made of atoms with the exception of the Prime Mover(God). He also argues that there would be no motion at all unless there is first a force of movement that is itself unmoved, namely God.

Some existing theories about atoms:

Link All existing things were atoms or empty space.
Link Atoms were seen as all being the same size like grains of sand, always in constant motion.
Link Atoms were building blocks while elements were fundamental substances.

Relation of the atom and element was never developed because of early rejection of the atomic concept. The Pythagoreans gave up atomic concept because irrational numbers were involved. Later, during the golden age of Arabic science(the 8th & 11th century), the ideas of Aristotle were modified.

Aristotle's Philosophy

Virtually all of the problems of philosophy were defined by the Greeks Socrates, Plato and Aristotle which were very important in classical(Greek & Roman) philosophy. The branch of philosophy covered most by Aristotle, is metaphysics(literally meaning after-physics) As mentioned earlier, Aristotle's best known philosophical theory is that ideal forms or ideas, such as truth or good exist in a realm not of the material world. The word history comes from the ancient Greek word for knowledge attributed by Aristotle. The earth was considered round(spherical) by Aristotle and Pathagoras. And the first accurate measure was in the 3rd century B.C. A geocentric(literally meaning-earth center) was developed by Aristotle thinking that our earth is the center of the universe. This theory was "disproved" by Copernicus in the 1500's. According to Aristotle, the "golden mean" is the desirable middle ground between any two extremes. Aristotle's logic works are known as the Organon, which means instrument. The Organon includes The Categories, The Prior and Posterior Analytics, The Topics, and On the Interpretation. Aristotle mostly used syllogism as a form of proof and drawing conclusions. However, unlike Socrates and Plato, he replaced dialectic with syllogistic logic(the drawing of conclusions from assumed postulates). He made many logical inferences based on this form of arguement, syllogism. A syllogism can be described best in the following way:
1.) Everybody likes Fridays
2.) Today is Friday
Therefore
3.) Everybody likes today
The more algebraic form is: If a=b and b=c then a=c
Syllogism has played a very important role in philosophy.

Other Work

Charles Darwin regarded Aristotle as the most important contributor to the subject of biology. Aristotle himself wrote around 146 books on the subject In fact, He and Hippocrates(the founder of medicine) believed that the heart is the place of thought and the soul, however neither of them had dissected a human body. Besides science, biology, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and alchemy, Aristotle wrote much about logic, metaphysics(the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of the universe), ethics, natural science, politics, and poetics. His theories and ideas, which had profoundly influenced ancient Western thought, are the foundations of most of our modern science and philosophy.

Email Eric Saltsman esalts@zoomnet.net

Read other theories | The Visitor Pages | The Math/Science Pages

The Enigma Page | The Weekly Topic Page

This window to the Fourth Dimension is hosted by