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The Great Thinkers of Western Philosophy |
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Aristotle (picture) was born at Stagira, a Greek colony of Thrace, in the year 384 B.C. His father, a Macedonian named Nicomachus, was a physician in the court of Amyntas II, King of Macedonia. After the death of his parents, Aristotle's education was directed by Proxenus of Atarneus. In his eighteenth year, Aristotle went to Athens and entered the Academy of Plato, remaining there about twenty years, until the death of the master. During Plato's last years, Aristotle collaborated with the master in the revision of his works. After Plato's death, Aristotle went to Assus, a city of the Troad, where he lived for three years. His friendship with Hermias, ruler of the city, led to his marriage to Pythias, the ruler's niece and adopted daughter. About 343 B.C. Aristotle withdrew to Mitylene; during the same year he was summoned by King Philip to the court of Macedonia to educate Prince Alexander, then a youth of thirteen years. Aristotle remained there for three years, until the beginning of the famous Asiatic expedition. Alexander was grateful for the education received, and supplied his master with the financial means to form a library and to assemble a museum of natural history with which Aristotle enriched his school. Aristotle had returned to Athens in the year 335. B.C., and there had opened a school in the gardens dedicated to Apollo Lyceios. The school was hence called the Lyceum, and also the Peripatetic School, probably from Aristotle's custom of teacher, discussing and conversing with his pupils while walking along the shady lanes of the garden. He taught in the Lyceum for twelve or thirteen years, and composed the greater part of his books during that time. In 323 B.C., upon the death of Alexander, there was reawakened in Athens conflict between the followers of the Macedonian party and the enemies of Alexander. The national reactionaries were led by the great Greek orator Demosthenes. Aristotle, as a Macedonian sympathizer, was accused of impiety, which meant that he would be called to judgment to hear the sentence of death passed upon himself. He anticipated the condemnation and voluntarily retired to Chalcis, where he possessed a villa inherited from his mother. It is said that while departing for exile he uttered these words, referring to the condemnation of Socrates: "I do not wish that Athens should sin twice against philosophy." His school, including the library and the museum of natural history, went to his disciple Theophrastus. Aristotle died in 322. B.C., at Chalcis in Euboea.
Aristotle, whom Plato is said to have surnamed "The Intellect," certainly had the loftiest mind ever known in Greece, and perhaps in the entire human race. He is the type of true philosopher who, not allowing himself to be distracted by practical and political motives, lives entirely engrossed in his speculations. The books edited by him and comprising all the knowledge of his day number about a thousand. Of these works, some were destined for the public, and some for Aristotle's school. The greater part of his works has been lost, but some important parts have been preserved, that is, those works destined for his school and representing the philosophic thought of this greatest of philosophers. The complete edition was published for the first time by Andronicus of Rhodes about the middle of the last century before Christ. Following the classification of Andronicus of Rhodes and passing over the scientific books which have no direct connection with philosophy, the works of Aristotle comprise the following groups: 1. Logic The works on logic were called the Organon, that is, an instrument of learning. The Organon includes the following:
2. Physics The works on physics comprise the body of doctrine which is today embraced by cosmology and anthropology:
3. Metaphysics Aristotle's Metaphysics is usually divided into fourteen books. These are a compilation made after the death of Aristotle and are based on manuscript notes referring to general metaphysics and theology. The name "metaphysics" is due to the position of these works in the collection edited by Andronicus; they appeared "after the works on physics." 4. Ethics and Politics
5. Rhetoric and Poetry
These books, of course, are only a part of the works of Aristotle.
III. Introduction to Aristotle's Doctrine Plato had split reality into two worlds:
Plato had been induced to divide the world of reality because he believed that only by such a separation could he give metaphysical foundation to the concept of Socrates without denying Heraclitus' doctrine of "fluent reality" -- the object of immediate experience. How can Ideas be causes of the motion and change in the visible world if Ideas are separate from things? Plato had held that Ideas are patterns or models of things. Aristotle holds that to say this "is to use empty phrases and poetical metaphors; for what is it that fashions things on the model of Ideas?" (2) Since Ideas are separated from reality and are themselves immutable, unchangeable, they cannot be the cause of the motion and of change in sensible things. Nor does the teaching of separate Ideas help toward the knowledge of other things, for Ideas are not the substance of particulars, but are separated from them. Hence, how would it be possible to have any knowledge of sensible substances if what constitutes these substances (Ideas) is really separated from them? The cause of motion and change, according to Aristotle, must be sought in the thing itself as an immanent element of the reality. Only when an understanding of the factor or factors of motion is had can we have a true knowledge of things; for these factors of motion are the key to understanding the concept of Socrates. Thus any investigation must start from things which begin to be, develop, and then pass away. Although sensible reality is in continuous "becoming," the "factors" of this becoming are unchangeable, immutable. Only when the causes of motion are grasped as intrinsic factors of motion itself will we have a true understanding of reality, i.e., knowledge by causes. In other words, the intelligibility of sensible things must be sought in the things themselves, and not in a separate world of Ideas, as Plato believed. References: (1) Metaphysics, XIII, 1079b.
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