ARISTOTLE

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover several subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Jointly with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the mainly significant founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to make a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics. Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their power extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced through Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest recognized formal revise of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into contemporary formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound power on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to power Christian theology, especially the scholastic custom of the Catholic Church. Aristotle was well recognized in the middle of medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as - "The First Teacher". His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the contemporary advent of virtue ethics. All characteristics of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the substance of active academic revise today. Though Aristotle wrote several elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary approach as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only in relation to the one-third of the original works have survived.

LIFE

Aristotle, whose name means "the best purpose," was born in Stagira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, in relation to the 55 km (34 mi) east of contemporary-day Thessaloniki. His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Although there is little information on Aristotle' childhood, he almost certainly did spend some time then in the Macedonian palace, creation his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At in relation to the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle remained at the academy for almost twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. The traditional story in relation to the his departure reports that he was disappointed with the direction the academy took after manage passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus upon his death, although it is possible that he feared anti-Macedonian sentiments and left before Plato had died. He then traveled with Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. While in Asia, Aristotle traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where jointly they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Hermias's adoptive daughter (or niece) Pythias. She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited through Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC.

Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. Throughout that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest, and his attitude towards Persia was unabashedly ethnocentric. In one well-known instance, he counsels Alexander to be "a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to seem after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants".

Through 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there recognized as the Lyceum. Aristotle mannered courses at the school for the after that twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stagira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus. Just as to the Suda, he also had an eromenos, Palaephatus of Abydus.

It is throughout this era in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is whispered to have composed several of his works. Aristotle wrote several dialogues, only fragments of which survived. The works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the mainly part, planned for widespread publication, as they are usually thought to be lecture aids for his students. His mainly significant treatises contain Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics.

Aristotle not only studied approximately every subject possible at the time, but made important contributions to mainly of them. In physical science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics and zoology. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, economics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. He also studied education, foreign customs, literature and poetry. His combined works constitute a virtual encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. It has been suggested that Aristotle was almost certainly the last person to know everything there was to be recognized in his own time.

Close to the end of Alexander's life, Alexander began to suspect plots against him, and threatened Aristotle in letters. Aristotle had made no secret of his contempt for Alexander's pretense of divinity, and the king had executed Aristotle's grandnephew Callisthenes as a traitor. A widespread custom in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little proof for this.

Upon Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens once again flared. Eurymedon the hierophant denounced Aristotle for not holding the gods in honor. Aristotle fled the municipality to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy," a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates. He died in Euboea of natural causes within the year (in 322 BC). Aristotle named chief executor his student Antipater and left a will in which he asked to be buried after that to his wife.

THOUGHT

Logic

With the Prior Analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest revise of formal logic, and his conception of it was the dominant form of Western logic until 19th century advances in mathematical logic. Kant stated in the Critique of Pure Cause that Aristotle's theory of logic totally accounted for the core of deductive inference.

History

Aristotle "says that 'on the subject of reasoning' he 'had nothing else on an earlier date to speak of'". Though, Plato reports that syntax was devised before him, through Prodicus of Ceos, who was concerned through the correct use of languages. Logic appears to have appeared from dialectics; the earlier philosophers made frequent use of concepts like reductio ad absurdum in their discussions, but never truly understood the logical implications. Even Plato had difficulties with logic; although he had a reasonable conception of a deductive system, he could never actually construct one and relied instead on his dialectic. Plato whispered that deduction would basically follow from premises, hence he focused on maintaining solid premises so that the conclusion would logically follow. Consequently, Plato realized that a method for obtaining conclusions would be mainly beneficial. He never succeeded in devising such a method, but his best effort was published in his book Sophist, where he introduced his division method.

Analytics and the Organon

What we today call Aristotelian logic, Aristotle himself would have labeled "analytics". The term "logic" he reserved to mean dialectics. Mainly of Aristotle's work is almost certainly not in its original form, since it was mainly likely edited through students and later lecturers. The logical works of Aristotle were compiled into six books in relation to the early 1st century AD:

• Categories

• On Interpretation

• Prior Analytics

• Posterior Analytics

• Topics

• On Sophistical Refutations

The order of the books (or the teachings from which they are composed) is not sure, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. It goes from the basics, the analysis of easy conditions in the Categories, the analysis of propositions and their elementary dealings in On Interpretation, to the revise of more intricate shapes, namely, syllogisms (in the Analytics) and dialectics (in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations). The first three treatises form the core of the logical theory stricto sensu: the grammar of the language of logic and the correct rules of reasoning. There is one volume of Aristotle's concerning logic not establish in the Organon, namely the fourth book of Metaphysics.

Aristotle's Scientific Method

Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle, though, discovers the universal in scrupulous things, which he calls the essence of things, while Plato discovers that the universal exists separately from scrupulous things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, so, philosophic method implies the ascent from the revise of scrupulous phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato philosophic method means the descent from knowledge of universal Shapes (or thoughts) to a contemplation of scrupulous imitations of these. For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional foundation of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a scrupulous substance. In a sure sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive from a priori principles.

In Aristotle's terminology, "natural philosophy" is a branch of philosophy examining the phenomena of the natural world, and comprises meadows that would be regarded today as physics, biology and other natural sciences. In contemporary times, the scope of philosophy has become limited to more generic or abstract inquiries, such as ethics and metaphysics, in which logic plays a major role. Today's philosophy tends to exclude empirical revise of the natural world through means of the scientific method. In contrast, Aristotle's philosophical endeavors encompassed virtually all facets of intellectual inquiry.

In the superior sense of the word, Aristotle creates philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also would describe as "science". Note, though, that his use of the term science carries a dissimilar meaning than that sheltered through the term "scientific method". For Aristotle, "all science is practical, poetical or theoretical". Through practical science, he means ethics and politics; through poetical science, he means the revise of poetry and the other fine arts; through theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics.

If logic (or "analytics") is regarded as a revise preliminary to philosophy, the divisions of Aristotelian philosophy would consist of:

• Logic;

• Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics and Mathematics;

• Practical Philosophy and

• Poetical Philosophy.

In the era flanked by his two stays in Athens, flanked by his times at the Academy and the Lyceum, Aristotle mannered mainly of the scientific thinking and research for which he is renowned today. In information, mainly of Aristotle's life was devoted to the revise of the objects of natural science. Aristotle's metaphysics contains observations on the nature of numbers but he made no original contributions to mathematics. He did, though, perform original research in the natural sciences, e.g., botany, zoology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, and many other sciences.

Aristotle's writings on science are mainly qualitative, as opposed to quantitative. Beginning in the 16th century, scientists began applying mathematics to the physical sciences, and Aristotle's work in this region was deemed hopelessly inadequate. His failings were mainly due to the absence of concepts like mass, velocity, force and temperature. He had a conception of speed and temperature, but no quantitative understanding of them, which was partly due to the absence of vital experimental devices, like clocks and thermometers.

His writings give an explanation of several scientific observations, a mixture of precocious accuracy and curious errors. For instance, in his History of Animals he claimed that human males have more teeth than females. In a similar vein, John Philoponus, and later Galileo, showed through easy experiments that Aristotle's theory that a heavier substance falls faster than a lighter substance is incorrect. On the other hand, Aristotle refuted Democritus's claim that the Milky Method was made up of "those stars which are shaded through the earth from the sun's rays," pointing out that, given "current astronomical demonstrations" that "the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the aloofness of the stars from the earth several times greater than that of the sun, then... the sun shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them."

In spaces, Aristotle goes too distant in deriving 'laws of the universe' from easy observation and in excess of-stretched cause. Today's scientific method assumes that such thinking without enough facts is ineffective, and that discerning the validity of one's hypothesis requires distant more rigorous experimentation than that which Aristotle used to support his laws.

Aristotle also had some scientific blind spots. He posited a geocentric cosmology that we may discern in selections of the Metaphysics, which was widely accepted up until the 16th century. From the 3rd century to the 16th century, the dominant view held that the Earth was the rotational center of the universe.

Since he was perhaps the philosopher mainly respected through European thinkers throughout and after the Renaissance, these thinkers often took Aristotle's erroneous positions as given, which held back science in this epoch. Though, Aristotle's scientific shortcomings should not mislead one into forgetting his great advances in the several scientific meadows. For instance, he founded logic as a formal science and created foundations to biology that were not superseded for two millennia. Moreover, he introduced the fundamental notion that nature is composed of things that change and that learning such changes can give useful knowledge of underlying constants.

Five Elements

Aristotle proposed a fifth element in addition to the four proposed earlier through Empedocles.

• Earth, which is cold and arid; this corresponds to the contemporary thought of a solid.

• Water, which is cold and wet; this corresponds to the contemporary thought of a liquid.

• Air, which is hot and wet; this corresponds to the contemporary thought of a gas.

• Fire, which is hot and arid; this corresponds to the contemporary thoughts of plasma and heat.

Each of the four earthly elements has its natural lay. All that is earthly tends toward the center of the universe, i.e., the center of the Earth. Water tends toward a sphere nearby the center. Air tends toward a sphere nearby the water sphere. Fire tends toward the lunar sphere. When elements are moved out of their natural lay, they naturally move back towards it. This is "natural motion"—motion requiring no extrinsic cause. So, for instance, in water, earthy bodies sink while air bubbles rise up; in air, rain falls and flame rises. Outside all the other spheres, the heavenly, fifth element, manifested in the stars and planets, moves in the perfection of circles.

Motion

Aristotle defined motion as the actuality of a potentiality as such. Aquinas suggested that the passage be understood literally; that motion can indeed be understood as the active fulfillment of a potential, as a transition toward a potentially possible state. Because actuality and potentiality are normally opposites in Aristotle, other commentators either suggest that the wording which has come down to us is erroneous, or that the addition of the "as such" to the definition is critical to understanding it.

Causality, The Four Causes

Aristotle suggested that the cause for anything coming in relation to the can be attributed to four dissimilar kinds of simultaneously active causal factors:

Material cause describes the material out of which something is composed. Therefore the material cause of a table is wood, and the material cause of a car is rubber and steel. It is not in relation to the action. It does not mean one domino knocks in excess of another domino.

The formal cause is its form, i.e., the arrangement of that matter. It tells us what a thing is, that any thing is determined through the definition, form, pattern, essence, whole, synthesis or archetype. It embraces the explanation of causes in conditions of fundamental principles or common laws, as the whole is the cause of its parts, a connection recognized as the whole-part causation. Plainly put the formal cause is the thought existing in the first lay as exemplar in the mind of the sculptor, and in the second lay as intrinsic, determining cause, embodied in the matter. Formal cause could only refer to the essential excellence of causation. A more easy instance of the formal cause is the blueprint or plan that one has before creation or causing a human made substance to exist.

The efficient cause is "the primary source", or that from which the change or the ending of the change first starts. It identifies 'what creates of what is made and what causes change of what is changed' and so suggests all sorts of mediators, nonliving or livelihood, acting as the sources of change or movement or rest. On behalf of the current understanding of causality as the relation of cause and effect, this covers the contemporary definitions of "cause" as either the agent or agency or scrupulous events or states of affairs. More basically again that which immediately sets the thing in motion. So take the two dominos this time of equal weighting, the first is knocked in excess of causing the second also to fall in excess of. This is effectively efficient cause.

The final cause is its purpose, or that for the sake of which a thing exists or is done, including both purposeful and instrumental actions and behaviors. The final cause or telos is the purpose or end that something is supposed to serve, or it is that from which and that to which the change is. This also covers contemporary thoughts of mental causation involving such psychological causes as volition, require, motivation or motives, rational, irrational, ethical, and all that provides purpose to behavior.

Additionally, things can be causes of one another, causing each other reciprocally, as hard work causes fitness and vice versa, although not in the similar method or function, the one is as the beginning of change, the other as the goal. Moreover, Aristotle indicated that the similar thing can be the cause of contrary effects; its attendance and absence may result in dissimilar outcomes. Basically it is the goal or purpose that brings in relation to the event. Taking our two dominos, it requires someone to intentionally knock the dominos in excess of as they cannot fall themselves.

Aristotle marked two manners of causation: proper causation and accidental causation. All causes, proper and incidental, can be spoken as potential or as actual, scrupulous or generic. The similar language refers to the effects of causes, so that generic effects assigned to generic causes, scrupulous effects to scrupulous causes, operating causes to actual effects. Essentially, causality does not suggest a temporal relation flanked by the cause and the effect.

Optics

Aristotle held more accurate theories on some optical concepts than other philosophers of his day. The earliest recognized written proof of a camera obscura can be establish in Aristotle's documentation of such a device in 350 BC in Problemata. Aristotle's tools contained a dark chamber that had a single small hole, or aperture, to allow for sunlight to enter. Aristotle used the device to create observations of the sun and noted that no matter what form the hole was, the sun would still be correctly displayed as a round substance. In contemporary cameras, this is analogous to the diaphragm. Aristotle also made the observation that when the aloofness flanked by the aperture and the surface with the image increased, the image was magnified.

Chance and Spontaneity

Just as to Aristotle, spontaneity and chance are causes of some things, distinguishable from other kinds of cause. Chance as an incidental cause lies in the realm of accidental things. It is "from what is spontaneous". For a better understanding of Aristotle's conception of "chance" it might be better to think of "coincidence": Something takes lay through chance if a person sets out with the intent of having one thing take lay, but with the result of another thing taking lay. For instance: A person seeks donations. That person may discover another person willing to donate a substantial sum. Though, if the person seeking the donations met the person donating, not for the purpose of collecting donations, but for some other purpose, Aristotle would call the collecting of the donation through that scrupulous donator a result of chance.

It necessity be unusual that something happens through chance. In other languages, if something happens all or mainly of the time, we cannot say that it is through chance.

There is also more specific type of chance, which Aristotle names "luck‖ that can only apply to human beings, since it is in the sphere of moral actions. Just as to Aristotle, luck necessity involve choice and only humans are capable of deliberation and choice. "What is not capable of action cannot do anything through chance".

Metaphysics

Aristotle defines metaphysics as "the knowledge of immaterial being," or of "being in the highest degree of abstraction." He refers to metaphysics as "first philosophy", as well as "the theological science."

Substance, Potentiality and Actuality

Aristotle examines the concepts of substance and essence (ousia) in his Metaphysics, and he concludes that a scrupulous substance is a combination of both matter and form. In book VIII, he distinguishes the matter of the substance as the substratum, or the stuff of which it is composed. For instance, the matter of a home is the bricks, stones, timbers etc., or whatever constitutes the potential home, while the form of the substance is the actual home, namely 'covering for bodies and chattels' or any other differentia that let us describe something as a home. The formula that provides the components is the explanation of the matter, and the formula that provides the differentia is the explanation of the form.

With regard to the change and its causes now, as he defines in his Physics and On Generation and Corruption 319b-320a, he distinguishes the coming to be from:

Growth and diminution, which is change in quantity; Locomotion, which is change in legroom; and Alteration, which is change in excellence.

The coming to be is a change where nothing persists of which the resultant is a property. In that scrupulous change he introduces the concept of potentiality (dynamis) and actuality (entelecheia) in association with the matter and the form.

Referring to potentiality, this is what a thing is capable of doing, or being acted upon, if the circumstances are right and it is not prevented through something else. For instance, the seed of a plant in the soil is potentially (dynamei) plant, and if is not prevented through something, it will become a plant. Potentially beings can either 'act' (poiein) or 'be acted upon' (paschein), which can be either innate or learned. For instance, the eyes possess the potentiality of sight (innate – being acted upon), while the capability of playing the flute can be possessed through learning (exercise – acting).

Actuality is the fulfillment of the end of the potentiality. Because the end (telos) is the principle of every change, and for the sake of the end exists potentiality, so actuality is the end. Referring then to our previous instance, we could say that an actuality is when a plant does one of the behaviors that plants do.

"For that for the sake of which a thing is, is its principle, and the becoming is for the sake of the end; and the actuality is the end, and it is for the sake of this that the potentiality is acquired. For animals do not see in order that they may have sight, but they have sight that they may see."

In summary, the matter used to create a home has potentiality to be a home and both the action of structure and the form of the final home are actualities, which is also a final cause or end. Then Aristotle proceeds and concludes that the actuality is prior to potentiality in formula, in time and in substantiality.

With this definition of the scrupulous substance (i.e., matter and form), Aristotle tries to solve the problem of the unity of the beings, for instance, "what is it that creates a man one"? Since, just as to Plato there are two Thoughts: animal and biped, how then is man a unity? Though, just as to Aristotle, the potential being (matter) and the actual one (form) are one and the similar thing.

Universals and Particulars

Aristotle's predecessor, Plato, argued that all things have a universal form, which could be either a property, or a relation to other things. When we seem at an apple, for instance, we see an apple, and we can also examine a form of an apple. In this distinction, there is a scrupulous apple and a universal form of an apple.

Plato argued that there are some universal shapes that are not a part of scrupulous things. For instance, it is possible that there is no scrupulous good in subsistence, but "good" is still a proper universal form. Bertrand Russell is a modern philosopher who agreed with Plato on the subsistence of "uninstantiated universals".

Aristotle disagreed with Plato on this point, arguing that all universals are instantiated. Aristotle argued that there are no universals that are unattached to existing things. Just as to Aristotle, if a universal exists, either as a scrupulous or a relation, then there necessity have been, necessity be currently, or necessity be in the future, something on which the universal can be predicated. Consequently, just as to Aristotle, if it is not the case that some universal can be predicated to a substance that exists at some era of time, then it does not exist.

In addition, Aristotle disagreed with Plato in relation to the site of universals. As Plato spoke of the world of the shapes, a site where all universal shapes subsist, Aristotle maintained that universals exist within each thing on which each universal is predicated. So, just as to Aristotle, the form of apple exists within each apple, rather than in the world of the shapes.

Biology and Medicine

In Aristotelian science, mainly especially in biology, things he saw himself have stood the test of time better than his retelling of the reports of others, which contain error and superstition. He dissected animals but not humans; his thoughts on how the human body works have been approximately entirely superseded.

Empirical Research Program

Aristotle is the earliest natural historian whose work has survived in some detail. Aristotle certainly did research on the natural history of Lesbos, and the nearby seas and neighboring regions. The works that reflect this research, such as History of Animals, Generation of Animals, and Parts of Animals, contain some observations and interpretations, beside with sundry myths and mistakes. The mainly striking passages are in relation to the sea-life visible from observation on Lesbos and accessible from the catches of fishermen. His observations on catfish, electric fish (Torpedo) and angler-fish are detailed, as is his writing on cephalopods, namely, Octopus, Sepia (cuttlefish) and the paper nautilus (Argonauta argo). His account of the hectocotyli arm was in relation to the two thousand years ahead of its time, and widely disbelieved until its rediscovery in the 19th century. He separated the aquatic mammals from fish, and knew that sharks and rays were part of the group he described Selachē (selachians).

Another good instance of his methods comes from the Generation of Animals in which Aristotle describes breaking open fertilized chicken eggs at intervals to observe when visible organs were generated.

He gave accurate descriptions of ruminants' four-chambered fore-stomachs, and of the ovoviviparous embryological development of the hound shark Mustelus mustelus.

Classification of Livelihood Things

Aristotle's classification of livelihood things contains some elements which still lived in the 19th century. What the contemporary zoologist would call vertebrates and invertebrates, Aristotle described 'animals with blood' and 'animals without blood' (he was not to know that intricate invertebrates do create use of hemoglobin, but of a dissimilar type from vertebrates). Animals with blood were divided into live-bearing (humans and mammals), and egg-bearing (birds and fish). Invertebrates ('animals without blood') are insects, crustacea (divided into non-shelled – cephalopods – and shelled) and testacea (molluscs). In some compliments, this partial classification is better than that of Linnaeus, who crowded the invertebrate jointly into two groups, Insecta and Vermes (worms).

For Charles Singer, "Nothing is more extra ordinary than [Aristotle's] efforts to [exhibit] the relationships of livelihood things as a scala naturae" Aristotle's History of Animals classified organisms in relation to a hierarchical "Ladder of Life" (scala naturae), placing them just as to complexity of structure and function so that higher organisms showed greater vitality and skill to move.

Aristotle whispered that intellectual purposes, i.e., final causes, guided all natural procedures. Such a teleological view gave Aristotle cause to justify his observed data as an expression of formal design. Noting that "no animal has, at the similar time, both tusks and horns," and "a single-hooded animal with two horns I have never seen," Aristotle suggested that Nature, giving no animal both horns and tusks, was staving off vanity, and giving creatures faculties only to such a degree as they are necessary. Noting that ruminants had multiple stomachs and weak teeth, he supposed the first was to compensate for the latter, with Nature trying to preserve a kind of balance.

In a similar fashion, Aristotle whispered that creatures were arranged in a graded level of perfection rising from plants on up to man, the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being. His system had eleven grades, arranged just as "to the degree to which they are infected with potentiality", expressed in their form at birth. The highest animals laid warm and wet creatures alive, the lowest bore theirs cold, arid, and in thick eggs.

Aristotle also held that the stage of a creature's perfection was reflected in its form, but not preordained through that form. Thoughts like this, and his thoughts in relation to the souls, are not regarded as science at all in contemporary times.

He placed emphasis on the kind(s) of soul an organism possessed, asserting that plants possess a vegetative soul, responsible for reproduction and growth, animals a vegetative and a sensitive soul, responsible for mobility and sensation, and humans a vegetative, a sensitive, and a rational soul, capable of thought and reflection.

Aristotle, in contrast to earlier philosophers, but in accordance with the Egyptians, placed the rational soul in the heart, rather than the brain. Notable is Aristotle's division of sensation and thought, which usually went against previous philosophers, with the exception of Alcmaeon.

Successor: Theophrastus

Aristotle's successor at the Lyceum, Theophrastus, wrote a series of books on botany—the History of Plants—which survived as the mainly significant contribution of antiquity to botany, even into the Middle Ages. Several of Theophrastus' names survive into contemporary times, such as carpos for fruit, and pericarpion for seed vessel.

Rather than focus on formal causes, as Aristotle did, Theophrastus suggested a mechanistic scheme, drawing analogies flanked by natural and artificial procedures, and relying on Aristotle's concept of the efficient cause. Theophrastus also recognized the role of sex in the reproduction of some higher plants, though this last detection was lost in later ages.

Power on Hellenistic Medicine

After Theophrastus, the Lyceum failed to produce any original work. Though interest in Aristotle's thoughts survived, they were usually taken unquestioningly. It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again establish.

The first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and linked the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished flanked by veins and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not. Though a few ancient atomists such as Lucretius challenged the teleological viewpoint of Aristotelian thoughts in relation to the life, teleology (and after the rise of Christianity, natural theology) would remain central to biological thought essentially until the 18th and 19th centuries. Ernst Mayr claimed that there was "nothing of any real consequence in biology after Lucretius and Galen until the Renaissance." Aristotle's thoughts of natural history and medicine survived, but they were usually taken unquestioningly.

Psychology

Aristotle's psychology, given in his treatise On the Soul, posits three types of soul ("psyches"): the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul. Humans have a rational soul. This type of soul is capable of the similar powers as the other types: Like the vegetative soul it can grow and nourish itself; like the sensitive soul it can experience sensations and move in the vicinity. The unique part of the human, rational soul is its skill to receive shapes of other things and compare them.

For Aristotle, the soul (psyche) was a simpler concept than it is for us today. Through soul he basically meant the form of a livelihood being. Since all beings are composites of form and matter, the form of livelihood beings is that which endows them with what is specific to livelihood beings, e.g. the skill to initiate movement (or in the case of plants, growth and chemical transformations, which Aristotle considers kinds of movement).

Practical Philosophy

Ethics

Aristotle measured ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical revise, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote many treatises on ethics, including mainly notably, the Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function (ergon) of a thing. An eye is only a good eye in so much as it can see, because the proper function of an eye is sight. Aristotle reasoned that human‘s necessity have a function specific to humans, and that this function necessity be an action of the psuchē (normally translated as soul) in accordance with cause (logos). Aristotle recognized such an optimum action of the soul as the aim of all human deliberate action, eudaimonia, usually translated as "happiness" or sometimes "well being". To have the potential of ever being happy in this method necessarily requires a good character, often translated as moral (or ethical) virtue (or excellence).

Aristotle taught that to achieve a virtuous and potentially happy character requires a first stage of having the fortune to be habituated not deliberately, but through teachers, and experience, leading to a later stage in which one consciously chooses to do the best things. When the best people come to live life this method their practical wisdom (phronesis) and their intellect (nous) can develop with each other towards the highest possible human virtue, the wisdom of an accomplished theoretical or speculative thinker, or in other languages, a philosopher.

Politics

In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the municipality in his work titled Politics. Aristotle measured the municipality to be a natural society. Moreover, he measured the municipality to be prior in importance to the family which in turn is prior to the individual, "for the whole necessity of necessity be prior to the part". He also famously stated that "man is through nature a political animal." Aristotle conceived of politics as being like an organism rather than like a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which can exist without the others. Aristotle's conception of the municipality is organic, and he is measured one of the first to conceive of the municipality in this manner.

The general contemporary understanding of a political society as a contemporary state is quite dissimilar to Aristotle's understanding. Although he was aware of the subsistence and potential of superior empires, the natural society just as to Aristotle was the municipality (polis) which functions as a political "society" or "partnership". The aim of the municipality is not presently to avoid injustice or for economic stability, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts: "The political partnership necessity be regarded, so, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of livelihood jointly." This is distinguished from contemporary approaches, beginning with social contract theory, just as to which individuals leave the state of nature because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences."

Rhetoric and Poetics

Aristotle measured epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry and music to be imitative, each varying in imitation through medium, substance, and manner. For instance, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The shapes also differ in their substance of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the shapes differ in their manner of imitation – through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama. Aristotle whispered that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankind's advantages in excess of animals.

While it is whispered that Aristotle's Poetics comprised two books – one on comedy and one on tragedy – only the portion that focuses on tragedy has survived. Aristotle taught that tragedy is composed of six elements: plot-structure, character, approach, thought, spectacle, and lyric poetry. The characters in a tragedy are merely a means of driving the story; and the plot, not the characters, is the chief focus of tragedy. Tragedy is the imitation of action arousing pity and fear, and is meant to affect the catharsis of those similar emotions. Aristotle concludes Poetics with a discussion on which, if either, is superior: epic or tragic mimesis. He suggests that because tragedy possesses all the attributes of an epic, perhaps possesses additional attributes such as spectacle and music, is more unified, and achieves the aim of its mimesis in shorter scope, it can be measured superior to epic.

Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he and his school had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop.

Views on Women

Aristotle's analysis of procreation describes an active, ensiling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive female element. On this ground, feminists have accused Aristotle of misogyny and sexism. Though, Aristotle gave equal weight to women's happiness as he did to men's, and commented in his Rhetoric that a society cannot be happy unless women are happy too.

LOSS AND PRESERVATION OF HIS WORKS

Contemporary scholarship reveals that Aristotle's "lost" works stray considerably in characterization from the surviving Aristotelian corpus. Whereas the lost works appear to have been originally written with intent for subsequent publication, the surviving works do not appear to have been so. Rather the surviving works mostly resemble lecture notes unintended for publication. The authenticity of a portion of the surviving works as originally Aristotelian is also today held suspect, with some books duplicating or summarizing each other, the authorship of one book questioned and another book measured to be unlikely Aristotle's at all.

Some of the individual works within the corpus, including the Constitution of Athens, are regarded through mainly scholars as products of Aristotle's "school," perhaps compiled under his direction or supervision. Others, such as On Colors, may have been produced through Aristotle's successors at the Lyceum, e.g., Theophrastus and Straton. Still others acquired Aristotle's name through similarities in doctrine or content, such as the De Plantis, perhaps through Nicolaus of Damascus. Other works in the corpus contain medieval palmistries and astrological and magical texts whose connections to Aristotle are purely fanciful and self-promotional.

Just as to a distinction that originates with Aristotle himself, his writings are divisible into two groups: the "exoteric" and the "esoteric". Mainly scholars have understood this as a distinction flanked by works Aristotle planned for the public (exoteric), and the more technological works planned for use within the school (esoteric). Contemporary scholars commonly assume these latter to be Aristotle's own (unpolished) lecture notes (or in some cases possible notes through his students). Though, one classic scholar offers an alternative interpretation. The 5th century Neo-Platonist Ammonius Hermiae writes that Aristotle's writing approach is deliberately obscurantist so that "good people may for that cause stretch their mind even more, whereas empty minds that are lost through carelessness will be put to flight through the obscurity when they encounter sentences like these." Another general assumption is that none of the exoteric works is extant – that all of Aristotle's extant writings are of the esoteric type. Current knowledge of what exactly the exoteric writings were like is scant and dubious, though several of them may have been in dialogue form. Perhaps it is to these that Cicero refers when he characterized Aristotle's writing approach as "a river of gold"; it is hard for several contemporary readers to accept that one could seriously so admire the approach of those works currently accessible to us. Though, some contemporary scholars have warned that we cannot know for sure that Cicero's praise was reserved specifically for the exoteric works; a few contemporary scholars have actually admired the concise writing approach establish in Aristotle's extant works.

One major question in the history of Aristotle's works, then, is how the exoteric writings all were lost, and how did the ones we now possess come to us? The story of the original manuscripts of the esoteric treatises is described through Strabo in his Geography and Plutarch in his Parallel Lives. The manuscripts were left from Aristotle to his successor Theophrastus, who in turn willed them to Neleus of Scepsis. Neleus supposedly took the writings from Athens to Scepsis, where his heirs let them languish in a cellar until the 1st century BC, when Apellicon of Teos exposed and purchased the manuscripts, bringing them back to Athens. Just as to the story, Apellicon tried to repair some of the damage that was done throughout the manuscripts' stay in the basement, introducing a number of errors into the text. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla occupied Athens in 86 BC, he accepted off the library of Apellicon to Rome, where they were first published in 60 BC through the grammarian Tyrannion of Amisus and then through the philosopher Andronicus of Rhodes.

Carnes Lord attributes the popular belief in this story to the information that it gives "the mainly plausible explanation for the rapid eclipse of the Peripatetic school after the middle of the third century, and for the absence of widespread knowledge of the dedicated treatises of Aristotle throughout the Hellenistic era, as well as for the sudden reappearance of a flourishing Aristotelianism throughout the first century B.C." Lord voices a number of reservations concerning this story, though. First, the condition of the texts is distant too good for them to have suffered considerable damage followed through Apellicon's inexpert effort at repair. Second, there is "incontrovertible proof ," Lord says, that the treatises were in circulation throughout the time in which Strabo and Plutarch suggest they were confined within the cellar in Scepsis. Third, the definitive edition of Aristotle's texts appears to have been made in Athens some fifty years before Andronicus supposedly compiled his. And fourth, ancient library catalogues predating Andronicus' intervention list an Aristotelian corpus quite similar to the one we currently possess. Lord sees a number of post-Aristotelian interpolations in the Politics, for instance, but is usually confident that the work has come down to us relatively intact.

On the one hand, the surviving texts of Aristotle do not derive from finished literary texts, but rather from working drafts used within Aristotle's school, as opposed, on the other hand, to the dialogues and other "exoteric" texts which Aristotle published more widely throughout his lifetime. The consensus is that Andronicus of Rhodes composed the esoteric works of Aristotle's school which lived in the form of smaller, separate works, distinguished them from those of Theophrastus and other Peripatetics, edited them, and finally compiled them into the more cohesive, superior works as they are recognized today.

LEGACY

More than twenty-three hundred years after his death, Aristotle remnants one of the mainly influential people who ever existed. He contributed to approximately every field of human knowledge then in subsistence, and he was the founder of several new meadows. Just as to the philosopher Bryan Magee, "it is doubtful whether any human being has ever recognized as much as he did". In the middle of countless other achievements, Aristotle was the founder of formal logic, pioneered the revise of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method. Despite these achievements, the power of Aristotle's errors is measured through some to have held back science considerably. Bertrand Russell notes that "approximately every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine". Russell also refers to Aristotle's ethics as "repulsive", and calls his logic "as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy". Russell notes that these errors create it hard to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembers how big of an advance he made upon all of his precursors.

Later Greek Philosophers

The immediate power of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school. Aristotle's notable students incorporated Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, Demetrius of Phalerum, Eudemos of Rhodes, Harpalus, Hephaestion, Meno, Mnason of Phocis, Nicomachus, and Theophrastus. Aristotle's power in excess of Alexander the Great is seen in the latter's bringing with him on his expedition a host of zoologists, botanists, and researchers. He had also learned a great deal in relation to the Persian customs and traditions from his teacher. Although his respect for Aristotle was diminished as his travels made it clear that much of Aristotle's geography was clearly wrong, when the old philosopher released his works to the public, Alexander complained "Thou hast not done well to publish thy acroamatic doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men's general property?"

Power on Byzantine Scholars

Greek Christian scribes played a crucial role in the preservation of Aristotle through copying all the extant Greek language manuscripts of the corpus. The first Greek Christians to comment extensively on Aristotle were John Philoponus, Elias, and David in the sixth century, and Stephen of Alexandria in the early seventh century. John Philoponus stands out for having attempted a fundamental critique of Aristotle's views on the eternity of the world, movement, and other elements of Aristotelian thought. After a hiatus of many centuries, formal commentary through Eustratius and Michael of Ephesus reappears in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, apparently sponsored through Anna Comnena.

Power on Islamic Theologians

Aristotle was one of the mainly revered Western thinkers in early Islamic theology. Mainly of the still extant works of Aristotle, as well as a number of the original Greek commentaries, were translated into Arabic and studied through Muslim philosophers, scientists and scholars. Averroes, Avicenna and Alpharabius, who wrote on Aristotle in great depth, also influenced Thomas Aquinas and other Western Christian scholastic philosophers. Alkindus measured Aristotle as the outstanding and unique representative of philosophy and Averroes spoke of Aristotle as the "exemplar" for all future philosophers. Medieval Muslim scholars regularly described Aristotle as the "First Teacher". The title "teacher" was first given to Aristotle through Muslim scholars, and was later used through Western philosophers who were influenced through the custom of Islamic philosophy.

In accordance with the Greek theorists, the Muslims measured Aristotle to be a dogmatic philosopher, the author of a closed system, and whispered that Aristotle shared with Plato essential tenets of thought. Some went so distant as to credit Aristotle himself with neo-Platonic metaphysical thoughts.

Post-Enlightenment Thinkers

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken almost all of his political philosophy from Aristotle. Though implausible this is, it is certainly the case that Aristotle's rigid separation of action from manufacture, and his justification of the subservience of slaves and others to the virtue – or arete – of a few justified the ideal of aristocracy. It is Martin Heidegger, not Nietzsche, who elaborated a new interpretation of Aristotle, planned to warrant his deconstruction of scholastic and philosophical custom. Ayn Rand accredited Aristotle as "the greatest philosopher in history" and cited him as a major power on her thinking. More recently, Alasdair MacIntyre has attempted to reform what he calls the Aristotelian custom in a method that is anti-elitist and capable of disputing the claims of both liberals and Nietzscheans.

LIST OF WORKS

The works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are composed in the Corpus Aristotelicum. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technological philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made just as to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's Royal Prussian Academy edition, which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works.