Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher and scientist, who, with fellow Greek philosophers Plato and Socrates, is considered one of the most famous ancient thinkers. Born at Stagira, in Macedonia, Aristotle went to Athens to study under Plato when he was 17. He remained at Plato's Academy for about 20 years, as a student and then as a teacher. When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle moved to Assos, where he counseled his friend, the ruler Hermias, and married Hermias's adopted daughter, Pythias. After Hermias was captured and executed by the Persians in 345 BC, Aristotle went to Pella, where he tutored the king's young son Alexander, later known as Alexander the Great. In 335 BC, when Alexander became king, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his own school, the Lyceum. After Alexander died in 323 BC, Aristotle retired to an estate in Euboea (Évvoia).

Aristotle regarded the world as being made up of individuals occurring in fixed natural kinds (species). Each individual possesses an innate pattern of development and grows toward self-realization according to that pattern. Growth, purpose, and direction are thus built into nature. One of Aristotle's most distinctive philosophic contributions was a new notion of causality. Each thing or event, he believed, has more than one "reason" explaining its existence. Aristotle proposed four explanatory causes: the material cause, the matter out of which a thing is made; the efficient cause, the source of motion or change; the formal cause, which is the species, kind, or type; and the final cause, the full development of an individual, or the intended function of a construction or invention. Thus, a young lion is made up of tissues and organs, its material cause; the efficient cause is its parents, who generated it; the formal cause is its species, lion; and its final cause is its built-in drive toward becoming a mature specimen. Aristotle thought this causal pattern was the ideal key for organizing knowledge.

Aristotle explored many fields of thought. In astronomy he proposed a finite, spherical universe, with the earth at its center. The central region is made up of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water, each with its proper place. The heavens consist of a fifth, superior element, called aither. In zoology, Aristotle proposed a fixed set of natural kinds (species), each reproducing according to type. The species form a scale from simple (worms and flies at the bottom) to complex (human beings at the top), but evolution is not possible.

For Aristotle, psychology was a study of the soul. He considered the soul to be essentially associated with the body. An individual's moral and intellectual aspects are developed through the soul. His system of ethics was elitist: Full excellence could only be realized by the mature male adult of the upper class. He considered politics an examination of the way that ideals, laws, customs, and property interrelate in actual cases. In logic, Aristotle developed rules for reasoning that included syllogisms: pairs of propositions that give a new, valid conclusion. For example, "All humans are mortal" and "All Greeks are humans" yield the conclusion "All Greeks are mortal." In metaphysics, Aristotle argued for the existence of a divine being, described as the Prime Mover, who is responsible for the unity and purposefulness of nature. Other movers exist as well, such as the intelligent movers of the planets and stars.

Aristotle's works were lost in the West after Rome's decline. His reputation rests on the existence of carefully outlined lecture notes collected and arranged by later editors. Among the texts are treatises on logic, called Organon. His works on natural science include Physics, which includes a vast amount of information on astronomy, meteorology, plants, and animals. Metaphysics includes writings on the nature, scope, and properties of being. His work on ethics, called the Nicomachean Ethics, was dedicated to his son, Nicomachus. Other essential works include Rhetoric, and two incomplete works—Poetics and Politics. Aristotle's pervasive influence helped shape modern language and common sense. His doctrine of the Prime Mover played an important role in theology. Until the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century), and even later, astronomers and poets alike admired his concept of the universe. Zoology rested on Aristotle's work until British scientist Charles Darwin modified the doctrine of the changelessness of species in the 19th century. Until the 20th century, logic meant Aristotle's logic. In the 20th century a new appreciation developed for Aristotle's thought and its relevance to education, literary criticism, and political analysis.