| Remembering an Ottoman grand vizier who was far ahead of his times |
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http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/lifestyle/12000970.asp?scr=1  Friday was the birthday of one of the most influential Ottomans of the 19th century. Born July 3, 1823, Ahmet Vefik Paşa is still remembered today more for his translations of Moliere and his support for Turkish theater than for his two terms as grand vizier or his other political activities.His grandfather was the first Muslim to be appointed as one of the imperial court’s translators Ğ usually the translators were Greek. The sultans did not trust their own people enough to employ them and so relied on Greeks, at least up until the revolt by the Greeks in the Peloponnese of mainland Greece in 1821. After his father, Mehmet Ruhuddin, was appointed as translator for the Ottoman ambassador to France, Vefik accompanied his family abroad in 1834 when he was 11 years old. He studied French until he was 14 at Lycee Saint Louis, where he also learned Italian, Latin and Greek. But it seems that he spent as much time as he could at the theater. So from a background of translators and foreign study at a time when only a scattering of Turks were studying in Europe, Vefik incorporated these two streams into his private life and depending on the circumstances it also affected his public life. He returned to Istanbul to work in the Translator’s Bureau in 1837 and in 1840 he was appointed to the Ottoman Embassy in London from where he went to other European cities on various assignments. The renowned scholar Bernard Lewis described him in "The Emergence of Modern Turkey" as leading "a distinguished career as diplomat, statesman, and scholar." Lewis pointed to Vefik’s time as ambassador in Paris, his two turns as a grand vizier and later President of the Chamber of Deputies in the Ottoman parliament of 1877. He also highlights Vefik’s literary and scholarly achievements that included the Lehce-i Osmani, the first serious attempt at a Turkish dictionary by a Turk, and his translations and his adaptations of a group of Moliere’s plays. Lewis also credits Vefik with being the first "to stress that the Turks and their language were not merely Ottoman, but were the western-most branch of a great and ancient family stretching across Asia to the Pacific." Ambassador to Tehran In 1855 Vefik was appointed ambassador to Tehran giving him an opportunity to learn Persian and about the Persian culture. While there he noticed that the custom of hoisting the flag on official holidays was not followed. The Ottoman Embassy in Tehran didn’t do it and reciprocally the Persian Embassy in Istanbuldidn’t either. So despite objections, he raised the flag and essentially declared that the land on which the embassy stood belonged to the Ottoman Empire in keeping with Western practices. Eventually the Persian Embassy in Istanbul did the same. Vefik didn’t get along with the grand vizier of the time, Ali Paşa, and he was recalled. Still Ali Paşa described Vefik as someone who was a living library and someone who would have made a good grand vizier under Sultan Süleyman. In 1861, he was sent as ambassador to Paris where several unusual events occurred, some of which were due to his behavior. Writer Sevim Guray attributes this to his strange temperament, fearlessness and deep sense of national honor. Vefik had a carriage made and painted white, the same color as the carriage used by the French Emperor Napoleon III. This caused confusion among Parisians who would think it was the emperor coming whenever he used his carriage. When a complaint was launched, Vefik pointed out that the French ambassador in Istanbul had a caique (a wooden fishing vessel) made for himself that resembled the Ottoman sultan’s caique. The French ambassador backed down and Vefik had his carriage painted black and the incident was resolved. Later he served as an inspector in Anatolia but proved to be so good at rooting out corruption that he once again courted complaints. It seems that the people of İzmit were so outraged by Vefik and wrote so many petitions to have him removed that they ran out of paper and had to have more brought in from Istanbul. During the times the grand vizier supported him, he was employed in important duties by the state; however, when the grand vizier did not, he spent his free time writing and translating or adapting French works for the stage, such as Moliere’s plays. Over time Vefik was considered to become very autocratic both in public and in his private life. He was given to telling deputies when they were speaking in parliament to shut up and stop speaking nonsense, even going so far as to shout at one of them: "Shut up, you ass!" The following year he was granted the title of "paşa." And then he was appointed governor of Bursa in 1879. His work there was very successful in terms of development and the theater. He built a theater there that today still bears his name. It gave him a chance to try out the six Moliere plays that he adapted as well as the 10 plays that he translated. Vefik’s passion for the theater was extraordinary. He was also deeply committed to teaching theater etiquette, including telling people not to spit, and when to clap or when to rise to their feet and continue clapping, and other means of conduct. Yet his enthusiasm eventually got him into trouble. Three years later Vefik Paşa was removed from office and appointed Grand Vizier again. He lasted only three days before being dismissed, just about the amount of time it would have taken for the people of Bursa to get their complaints against him to Istanbul for review. Many of these complaints involved how he used his position as governor to promote his theater even to the point of using some of the governor’s offices to help sell tickets. He never took up another official government position again. He spent the last nine years of his life in Rumeli Hisari in his home high on the top of Rumeli Hisari with its wood paneling, books and garden overlooking the Bosphorus. Also left in memory to him was his library that for many years was located across the street from Emirgan’s famous old tree and tea garden. When Vefik died, Sultan Abdulhamid II pronounced that he should be buried in the Kayalar Cemetery so that he would continue to hear the bells of Robert College for eternity. The paşa himself had specified that there be no funeral procession and that he not be buried in a mausoleum and since Kayalar Cemetery was the closest to his home, it was there that he wanted to be buried. Actually his illustrious grandfather was also buried at Kayalar although his father was buried in Eyüp. There was more of a connection with Robert College because it seems that Vefik owned the land that the representatives of American interests wanted to purchase to build a "Christian school." At first he refused but later when he had some financial problems, he agreed to the sale. In addition Vefik was the minister of education at the time and could bring his influence to bear on the situation. |
6 Temmuz 2009 Pazartesi
Kayalar mezarlığına gömülen bir ayaklı kütüphane - abdulhamid paşası - bizim kayalarla alakasıolmaz herhalde
1 Temmuz 2009 Çarşamba
Kayılar Urfa Suriye Şam üçgeni ve Farabi
- turkistan'da dogan ve ibni sina'ya onculuk etmis olan aristoteles'ci 10. yuzyil turk-islam dusunuru.
- türk asıllı bir feylesof olan farabi, türkistan'ın farab kentinde doğduğu içün bu adla anılır olmuştur.. zaten asıl adı, pek öyle her daim anılacak türden de değildir: "ebu nasr muhammed bin turhan bin uzluğ" gibi.. tamsayılı zamanların adamı olan farabi bey, gençliğinde bağdat illerine gelerek, felsefe, mantık ve matematik gibi latif ilimler üzerine eğitim görmüş; ruhunu da müzikle eğitmiştir.. nitekim, bu hususta "büyük müzik kitabı" nam zarif bir eseri de mevcuttur..
islam felsefesinin kurucusu olan farabi, tümüyle aristo'cu bir felsefi dizgeyi savunmuştur; bilgiyi en ulu erdem olarak bellerken, aklı da en mühim yetiden saymıştır.. buradan hareketle, ilgilendiği tek mevzuu da epistemoloji olmuştur bittabii.. duyulara ve akla dayalı bilgi sistemlerinden dem vurup durmuştur yaşamı boyunca.. dem vurmuştur amma, bu iki sistemi islam felsefesiyle harmanlamaya davrandığında ise, fazlasıyla kaçak çay içer gibi olup, keskin aromadan ötürü bayılmıştır..
en mühim felsefi eseri olan "fusus-ül hikem"de (bilgeliğin kıymetli taşları), akıl hadisesiyle o kadar çok uğraşmış, ömrünü bu uğurda öylesine tüketmiştir ki, sonunda, "akıl akıl, gel s.." cümlesini tamamlamaya muvaffak olamadan hakkın rahmetine kavuşmuştur farabi bey.. - (bkz: farabi sokak)
- felsefeyle ugrasmis,islam velsevefisinin temelini atan abilerimiz arasinda yer almistir.udun gelisimine onemli katkilarda bulunan amcamiz,turkistanin farab sehrinde dogmustur.
- ilk turk-islam feylesofu olan adam.
- eskiden tünelde bulunan filateli dükkanı
- (bkz: ideal devlet)
- havanın titreşimlerinden ibaret olan sesin fiziki ilk açıklamasını yapmıştır.
- kanun denilen, bir köşesi kesik dik dörtgen şeklinde üzerinde 72 tane 2li ve 3lü tel bulunan ve dizler üzerinde parmaklar ile çalınan çalgının mucidi.
(bkz: kanun/4)
(bkz: kanun/12)
(bkz: kanun/27)
(bkz: kanun/33) - batıda tanınan tek türk asıllı filozof. ibni sina ya da mevlananın türk olduğu tartışmalıdır.
- bağdat'ta süryani bir hıristiyanın* öğrencisi, süryani bir hıristiyanın* da hocası olmuş türk filozof. arapça yazmıştır ama arapça metinler kaybolursa latince de okunuyor yazdıkları. örneğin elimizde arapça aslı olmayan "didascalia in rethoricam aristotelis"te dallı budaklı aristo mantığını olağanüstü bir tutumlulukla toparlar ve aristo'nun 8 "mantık" kitabına yol haritası sunarken önce bir lego tadı verir ama ardından yaptığı yorumla akılları başlarından alır:
bilgi edinmenin ve aktarmanın yolları neler? yola sözcüklerle ya da kavramlarla başlıyormuşuz. bunlarla bilgi edinilmez, bu düzeyde yanılmak diye bir şey de yok. "kategoriler"in konusu.
sonraki basamak: sonra onları birbirine bağlayıp türlü türlü önermeler elde ederiz ki doğruluk ve yanlışlık da o zaman başlar. bu konuyu "yorum üzerine" işliyor.
bir basamak daha: şimdi bu önermelerden ikisi öncül olur da geçerli bir sonuç verirlerse bu üç önermeli yapıya bilindiği gibi aristo tasım* diyor ve bu çıkarımın geçerlilik düzenini "birinci çözümlemeler"de anlatıyor. (kşz: analitik önerme)
doruk: işte bilgilenmenin en sağlam yolu apaçık öncüllerle geçerli bir tasım yapmak. böyle bir sava "kanıtlayıcı sav" diyor aristo.* kanıtlayıcı savlarla oluşturulan bilgiler bütünü en sağlamıdır ve bu bütüne aristo bilim* diyor. ama ne aristo ne de farâbî bilimden bugün bizim anladığımız şeyleri anlıyor. (bkz: bilim/1) (bkz: roger bacon) çıkarımların geçerliliğini "birinci çözümlemeler"de ele alan aristo, öncüllerin apaçıklığını da "ikinci çözümlemeler"de işliyor. (kşz: kritik der reinen vernunft)
bir basamak aşağı: artık doruktan aşağı iniş başlıyor doğallıkla. çıkarımımız geçerli ama öncüllerimiz yalnızca olası ise, bundan bir "diyalektik sav" elde ederiz ancak. "topikalar"ın konusu bu. (kşz: yanlışlanabilirlik) (kşz: karl popper) (kşz: thomas kuhn) (kşz: sentetik önerme)
bir basamak daha: ama çıkarımımız zaten baştan geçersizse, bundan olsa olsa bir "sofistik sav" olur. "sofistik savların çürütülmesi" bunu inceler. (kşz: protagoras) (kşz: thrasymachus)
bir basamak daha aşağı: çıkarımımız tammış gibi görünüp de tam değilse bu "retorik sav" olur ve doğallıkla "retorik"te işlenmiştir. (kşz: phaidros)
yolun sonu: şiir. bütün bu çıkarımlardan sıkılıp olayları arka arkaya anlatıyorsak* ve konudan konuya olaydan olaya rahatça atlıyorsak, o zaman ya "ilyada"daki gibi bir olay anlatıyoruzdur ya da "odysseia"daki gibi bir yolculuk anlatıyoruzdur. bu da artık "poetika"nın konusu.
işte farâbî'nin aristo mantığının 8 kitabı için çıkarttığı bu yol haritası bir tırmanış ve bir iniş. sağlam bilgiye, bilime ve gerçeğe adım adım yükseliş ve sonra ondan adım adım iniş. hazır gerçeğe ulaşmışken, iniş niye peki? gerçekle ilgili yol haritaları hep bir ilerleme ya da yükselme değil mi? (bkz: onuncu yıl marşı) farâbî'ye göre aslında aristo'nun mantığının izlediği bu çıkışlı-inişli yol, platon'un "devlet"indeki ünlü mağara alegorisinde tutsağın mağaradan çıkıp dışarıda gerçeği* gördükten sonra mağaraya geri inmesine koşuttur. (bkz: mağara alegorisi) (kşz: isa'nın dirilişi) (kşz: miraç)
eğer farâbî haklıysa, yani eğer aristo'nun mantığı aslında mağara alegorisinin çizdiği yolu izliyorsa, o zaman gerçeğin yolu öğeleri anlayıp sonra o öğeleri doğru ve geçerli biçimde eşleştirmekten geçiyor. sonrasında mağaraya dönerken, yeniden insanlar arasına dönerken, insan yanında diyalektik, sofistik ve retorik savlar bulundurmalı ki sokrates gibi pisi pisine öldürülmesin. (bkz: takiyye) (bkz: leo strauss) (bkz: neocon) mağaraya döndüğü zaman bu savlar bile işe yaramıyorsa, insan bir şiir, bir mesel, bir hikaye anlatabilmeli. "mağara öyküsü" gibi bir hikaye örneğin.
(bkz: recursion) - portekizcede "eski, kalın veya sıkıcı kitap" anlamına gelen alfarrábio kelimesi bu üstün zatın isminden türemiştir. demek ki o devirde yaşamış portekizliler felsefeye yahut kitaplara saygısı olmayan boş beleş insanlar imiş.
- dtcfnin en büyük salonunun ismi.
- batı'da alfarabius veya avennasar olarak bilinen islam felsefesinin türk asıllı düşünürü.
- batıda alfarablus dahi denir.
- ünlü islam filozofu farabi, öğretilerinde aristoteles’in aklı temel alan yöntemlerini kullanarak felsefe ile islam dinini uzlaştırmaya çalışmıştır.
farabi, platon ve aristoteles’in her şeyin üzerindeki tek ve gerçek varlık kavramını islam dinindeki tanrı kavramıyla özdeşleştirmiştir. tanrı sonsuzdur, her şeyin başıdır ve varlığını kendisinden alan tek varlıktır.
farabi’ye göre tanrı ilk önce aklı yaratmıştır. bu nedenle bilgi aklın kendisinde vardır. kimi bilginin ortaya çıkması için deney gereklidir, kimi bilgiye ise yalnızca akılla ulaşılır. farabi’ye göre insanın bilgiye ulaşma sürecinde akıl ve deneyin dışında “nazar” diye tanımladığı üçüncü bir yetisi daha vardır. farklı alanlarda kalp gözü, ilham perisi, üçüncü göz, altıncı his gibi tabirlerle anılan bu yeti, insana bazı dolaylı bilgileri verir.
farabi, duyularla elde edilen bilgilerin bilimsel olmadığını, bu bilgilerin akıl yoluyla bilimsel hale getirildiğini söyler. kesin ve genel geçer bilgilere ancak akıl yoluyla ulaşılır.
farabi’ye göre insanın doğada yaptığı her araştırma tanrı’nın işaretlerini ortaya çıkarma amacını taşır. ona göre insanın varolma nedeni, tanrı’nın evrenin her köşesine gizlediği bilgilere ulaşmaktır. - dokuzuncu nesil çaylak.
- askerdeyken arkadaşıma, "sen farabi yi bilir misin be hey divane" diye sordugumda, yanıt olarak; " s.kerim fahri abi ni şimdi haaa" diye cevap alıp şoklardan şok begenmeme sebep olmuş düşünürün adıdır.
- bestekarlık yönü de bulunan türk bilim adamı. kanun dediğimiz müzik aletini icad etmiştir. 70 kadar eseri vardı ve bunların 20 cilt olanlarıda vardır. uzun zaman mısır'da oturduktan sonra halep'e gelmiştir. halep'teki hemedanoğullarından, seyfüddevle ali adındaki türk beyinden ikramlar görmüştür. sarayda kaldığı süre içersinde saraydaki diğer alimler onu imtihana kalkışmışlar sonunda üstünlüğünü anlayıp büyüklüğünü kabul etmişlerdir. hükümdar yüksek maaş bağlamak istemesine rağmen farabi geçinecek kadar maaş istemiştir. 950 yılında şam'da ölmüştür. babüssagir denilen yere gömülmüştür. babası mehmet adında türk komutandır.
- en az 5-6 dil biliyordu. kısa boylu, köse sakallı, zayıf bünyeliydi, orta asya tarzı türk kıyafeti giyerdi, maddiyata değer vermez, şöhret ve gösterişten nefret ederdi, bir zahit gibi yaşadı, ikram ve ihsanları geri çevirdi, hiç evlenmedi, mal mülk edinmedi.
- "alem büyük insandır, insan küçük alemdir
insan hiçbir şeyin gerçeğini idrak edemez, çünkü onun bilgisinin başlangıcı duygulardır.
aklı aracılığıyla ancak benzeyenleri ve ayrılanları seçebilir."
diyerek insana farklı bir bakış açısı ile yaklaşmıştır. - (bkz: muallim-i sani)
- yazdığı onca eserden sadece yirmibiri kalmıştır günümüze.bunlar;uygarlık politikaları,müzik sanatı,bilimlerin sayımı,aklın anlamları,mutluluk yolu,ideal kent halkının görüşleri onun fikiglerini binyıl sonrasına taşımıştır.
- iki amacı vardı.ilk amacı aristo felsefesi ile platon felsefesi arasındaki çelişkileri ortadan kaldırmaktı.ikincisi ise felsefe ile din arasında köprü kurmaktı.yaptığı çalışmalar felsefe bilginleri ile din alimleri arasındaki sürtüşmeleri bir ölçüde ortadan kaldırırken,mezhepler arasındaki çatışmalarıda yumuşatmıştır.
- ses üzerine çalışmalarının sonucunda aslında türk mûsikisinin doğal ses sistemini ortaya koymaya çalışmış bir nevi müzikologdur aynı zamanda. bestekâr olduğu iddia edilir. klâsik türk müziğinde saz eserleri repertuarında dü şems diye anılan rast peşrevi farabînin bestelediği rivâyet olunur, ayrıca hicazkâr-ı kâdim (bildiğimiz hicazkârdan daha farklı ve çok daha eski) sâkil peşrev de ona atfedilmiştir.(panopticon, 08.07.2008 00:01 ~ 04.10.2008 23:53)
#13598043 !?
- kendisini pek bilmediğimi bildiğim düşünür.
vee, "türküm doğruyum çalışkanım"dan sonra çalan zille koştuğumuz sınıflarda bize anlatılmamış türklerden biri.
niye onla da gurur duymuyoruz madem türk?
(bkz: sürekli soru soran çocuklar) - orumcek adam'la efsanevi bir dovusleri vardir.
- asıl adı muhammed bin tahran bin uzlug olan felsefeci.
- descartes'in fikirlerinin asıl kaynağıdır. descartes farabi'den oldukça etkinlenmiştir.
zorunlu varlık ve mümkün varlık tanımları ile tanrı fikrini açıklamıştır. ona göre varlık ya zorunlu (vacib'ül vücud) ya da mümkün varlık (mümkün'ül vücud) olmak zorundadır. bu durumun dışında üçüncü halin imkansızlığı uyarınca başka bir ihtimal yoktur.
mümkün varlık, var olmak için yaratılmaya ihtiyaç duyan varlıktır. varlık sebebinin bir nedeni vardır. nedenler silsilesi mantıksal olarak bir nedende durmak zorundadır. burası da zorunlu varlığın olduğu yerdir. zorunlu varlık yaratılmaya ihtiyaç duymayan varlıktır. bu yüzden yaratılmamıştır. o ilk nedendir ve ilk nedenin bir nedeni yoktur. varlığı ezelden gelmektedir ve sonsuzdur. var olan her şey ondan "taşmaktadır". onun ne olduğu bilinemez ancak ne olmadığı bilinebilir
ayrıca
(bkz: fazilet şehri) - yerli malı erasmus'a* ismi verilen düşünür.
(bkz: farabi değişim programı)
(bkz: öykünmeci türk eğitim anlayışı) - (bkz: alpharabius)
- taşımaktan son derece memnun olduğum, iki a'sı da uzatılarak söylenmesi gereken (fârâbi) ismim. çocuklar arada "biz sana niye iki kere abi diyoruz farabi abi?" derler, olsun varsın. bir de mükemmel espri yeteneği olan (!) bir arkadaşımın ortaokul döneminde çizdiği "farabi sembolü" vardır ki akıllara ziyan... bir adet araba farı, yanında biri küçük biri büyük çöpten adam (abisi babında)... bazı hocaların gözünde daima bir + puan vardır bu ismi taşımanın ya da bana öyle denk gelmiştir*.
- kendisini pek bilmediğimi bildiğim düşünür.
28 Haziran 2009 Pazar
Felsefenin kurucusu Aristoteles - Kayılar kazası yakınından ; Muhtemelen Kayılar ahalisini bunlarla karışsınlar diye oraya iskan etmiş olabilirler.
Felsefenin kurucusu Aristoteles - Kayılar kazası yakınından ; Muhtemelen Kayılar Rumeliye kendi ahalisini özellikle akrabalarını yerleştiriken Selanik'in doğusuna ve kuzey doğusuna yerleştiriyor muhtemelen bu Aristoteles gibi dahilerle karışsınlar diye oraya iskan etmiş olabilir. Malum ismail Hakkı Bursevi gibi dehalar , şairler, ruh adamlarının çıkması boşuna değil. Her ne kadar ansiklopedik kaynaklar karışmamış dese de ben kısmen karışma olabileceğini değerlendiriyorum.
Aristotle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Aristoteles)
For other uses, see Aristotle (disambiguation).
| Western philosophy Ancient philosophy | |
 Statue of Aristotle (1915) by Cipri Adolf Bermann at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau. | |
| Full name | Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs |
|---|---|
| School/tradition | Peripatetic school Aristotelianism |
| Main interests | Physics, Metaphysics, Poetry, Theatre, Music, Rhetoric, Politics, Government, Ethics, Biology, Zoology |
| Notable ideas | Golden mean, Reason, Logic, Passion |
 |
| Part of a series on Aristotle |
| Aristotelianism · Peripatetic school · Physics · Ethics · Virtue ethics · Golden mean · Four causes · View of God · Potentiality and actuality · Universals · Term logic |
| Corpus Aristotelicum |
| Physics · Organon · Nicomachean Ethics · Politics · Metaphysics · On the Soul · Rhetoric · Poetics |
| Influences and Followers |
| Heraclitus · Democritus · Plato · Alexander the Great · Theophrastus · Avicenna · Averroes · Maimonides · St. Thomas Aquinas · Alasdair MacIntyre |
| Related |
| Platonism · Commentaries on Aristotle · Scholasticism · Conimbricenses |
Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology.
Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. He was the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian Physics. In the biological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the nineteenth century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late nineteenth century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially Eastern Orthodox theology, and the scholastic tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today.
Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.[1]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Life
Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km east of modern-day Thessaloniki.[2]
His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was trained and educated as a member of the aristocracy. At about the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle remained at the academy for nearly twenty years, not leaving until after Plato's death in 347 BC. 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 together 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 by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander the Great in 343 B.C.[3]
Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. In his Politics, Aristotle states that only one thing could justify monarchy, and that was if the virtue of the king and his family were greater than the virtue of the rest of the citizens put together. Tactfully, he included the young prince and his father in that category. Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest, and his attitude towards Persia was unabashedly ethnocentric. In one famous example, he counsels Alexander to be 'a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants'.[4] Near the end of Alexander's life he began to suspect plots, 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 tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this.[5]
By 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stageira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus. According to the Suda, he also had an eromenos, Palaephatus of Abydus.[6]
It is during this period in Athens from 335 B.C. to 323 B.C. when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works.[3] Aristotle wrote many dialogues, only fragments of which survived. The works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the most part, intended for widespread publication, as they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. His most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics.
Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them. In physical science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, economics, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics and zoology. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, 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 probably the last person to know everything there was to be known in his own time.[7]
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 city to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy,"[8] a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates. However, 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 next to his wife.[9]
[edit] Logic
For more details on this topic, see Non-Aristotelian logic.
With the Prior Analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest study 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 Reason that Aristotle's theory of logic completely accounted for the core of deductive inference.
[edit] History
Aristotle "says that 'on the subject of reasoning' he 'had nothing else on an earlier date to speak of'".[10] However, Plato reports that syntax was devised before him, by Prodicus of Ceos, who was concerned by the correct use of words. Logic seems to have emerged 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 deduction system, he could never actually construct one and relied instead on his dialectic.[11] Plato believed that deduction would simply 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 most beneficial. He never succeeded in devising such a method, but his best attempt was published in his book Sophist, where he introduced his division method.[12]
[edit] Analytics and the Organon
What we today call Aristotelian logic, Aristotle himself would have labeled "analytics". The term "logic" he reserved to mean dialectics. Most of Aristotle's work is probably not in its original form, since it was most likely edited by students and later lecturers. The logical works of Aristotle were compiled into six books in about 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 certain, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. It goes from the basics, the analysis of simple terms in the Categories, to the study of more complex forms, namely, syllogisms (in the Analytics) and dialectics (in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations). There is one volume of Aristotle's concerning logic not found in the Organon, namely the fourth book of Metaphysics..[11]
[edit] Aristotle's scientific method
For more details on this topic, see Aristotle's theory of universals.
Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle, however, found the universal in particular things, which he called the essence of things, while Plato 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 Forms (or ideas) to a contemplation of particular imitations of these. For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below). In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive from a priori principles.[13]
In Aristotle's terminology, "natural philosophy" is a branch of philosophy examining the phenomena of the natural world, and includes fields that would be regarded today as physics, biology and other natural sciences. In modern 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 study of the natural world by means of the scientific method. In contrast, Aristotle's philosophical endeavors encompassed virtually all facets of intellectual inquiry.
In the larger sense of the word, Aristotle makes philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also would describe as "science". Note, however, that his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that covered by the term "scientific method". For Aristotle, "all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical" (Metaphysics 1025b25). By practical science, he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; by theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics.
If logic (or "analytics") is regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, the divisions of Aristotelian philosophy would consist of: (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics, Mathematics, (3) Practical Philosophy and (4) Poetical Philosophy.
In the period between his two stays in Athens, between his times at the Academy and the Lyceum, Aristotle conducted most of the scientific thinking and research for which he is renowned today. In fact, most of Aristotle's life was devoted to the study 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, however, perform original research in the natural sciences, e.g., botany, zoology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, and several other sciences.
Aristotle's writings on science are largely qualitative, as opposed to quantitative. Beginning in the sixteenth century, scientists began applying mathematics to the physical sciences, and Aristotle's work in this area was deemed hopelessly inadequate. His failings were largely 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 basic experimental devices, like clocks and thermometers.
His writings provide an account of many scientific observations, a mixture of precocious accuracy and curious errors. For example, in his History of Animals he claimed that human males have more teeth than females[14] and in the Generation of Animals he said the female is as it were a deformed male.[15]
In a similar vein, John Philoponus, and later Galileo, showed by simple experiments that Aristotle's theory that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter object is incorrect.[16] On the other hand, Aristotle refuted Democritus's claim that the Milky Way was made up of "those stars which are shaded by the earth from the sun's rays," pointing out (correctly, even if such reasoning was bound to be dismissed for a long time) that, given "current astronomical demonstrations" that "the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the distance of the stars from the earth many times greater than that of the sun, then...the sun shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them."[17]
In places, Aristotle goes too far in deriving 'laws of the universe' from simple observation and over-stretched reason. Today's scientific method assumes that such thinking without sufficient facts is ineffective, and that discerning the validity of one's hypothesis requires far 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 1500s. From the 3rd century to the 1500s, the dominant view held that the Earth was the center of the universe (geocentrism).
Since he was perhaps the philosopher most respected by European thinkers during and after the Renaissance, these thinkers often took Aristotle's erroneous positions as given, which held back science in this epoch.[18] However, Aristotle's scientific shortcomings should not mislead one into forgetting his great advances in the many scientific fields. 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 studying such changes can provide useful knowledge of underlying constants.
[edit] Physics
[edit] The five elements
- Fire, which is hot and dry.
- Earth, which is cold and dry.
- Air, which is hot and wet.
- Water, which is cold and wet.
- Aether, which is the divine substance that makes up the heavenly spheres and heavenly bodies (stars and planets).
Each of the four earthly elements has its natural place; the earth at the centre of the universe, then water, then air, then fire. When they are out of their natural place they have natural motion, requiring no external cause, which is towards that place; so bodies sink in water, air bubbles rise up, rain falls, flame rises in air. The heavenly element has perpetual circular motion.
[edit] Causality, The Four Causes
- Material cause describes the material out of which something is composed. Thus the material cause of a table is wood, and the material cause of a car is rubber and steel. It is not about action. It does not mean one domino knocks over another domino.
- The formal cause tells us what a thing is, that any thing is determined by the definition, form, pattern, essence, whole, synthesis or archetype. It embraces the account of causes in terms of fundamental principles or general laws, as the whole (i.e., macrostructure) is the cause of its parts, a relationship known as the whole-part causation. Plainly put the formal cause according to which a statue or a domino, is made is the idea existing in the first place as exemplar in the mind of the sculptor, and in the second place as intrinsic, determining cause, embodied in the matter. Formal cause could only refer to the essential quality of causation. A more simple example of the formal cause is the blueprint or plan that one has before making or causing a human made object to exist.
- The efficient cause is that from which the change or the ending of the change first starts. It identifies 'what makes of what is made and what causes change of what is changed' and so suggests all sorts of agents, nonliving or living, acting as the sources of change or movement or rest. Representing the current understanding of causality as the relation of cause and effect, this covers the modern definitions of "cause" as either the agent or agency or particular events or states of affairs. More simply again that which immediately sets the thing in motion. So take the two dominos this time of equal weighting, the first is knocked over causing the second also to fall over. This is effectively efficient cause.
- The final cause is that for the sake of which a thing exists or is done, including both purposeful and instrumental actions and activities. 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 modern ideas of mental causation involving such psychological causes as volition, need, motivation or motives, rational, irrational, ethical, and all that gives 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 same way or function, the one is as the beginning of change, the other as the goal. (Thus Aristotle first suggested a reciprocal or circular causality as a relation of mutual dependence or influence of cause upon effect). Moreover, Aristotle indicated that the same thing can be the cause of contrary effects; its presence and absence may result in different outcomes. Simply it is the goal or purpose that brings about an event (not necessarily a mental goal). Taking our two dominos, it requires someone to intentionally knock the dominos over as they cannot fall themselves.
Aristotle marked two modes of causation: proper (prior) causation and accidental (chance) causation. All causes, proper and incidental, can be spoken as potential or as actual, particular or generic. The same language refers to the effects of causes, so that generic effects assigned to generic causes, particular effects to particular causes, operating causes to actual effects. Essentially, causality does not suggest a temporal relation between the cause and the effect.
All further investigations of causality will consist of imposing the favorite hierarchies on the order causes, such as final > efficient > material > formal (Thomas Aquinas), or of restricting all causality to the material and efficient causes or to the efficient causality (deterministic or chance) or just to regular sequences and correlations of natural phenomena (the natural sciences describing how things happen instead of explaining the whys and wherefores).
[edit] Optics
Aristotle held more accurate theories on some optical concepts than other philosophers of his day. The earliest known written evidence of a camera obscura can be found in Aristotle's documentation of such a device in 350 BC in Problemata. Aristotle's apparatus contained a dark chamber that had a single small hole, or aperture, to allow for sunlight to enter. Aristotle used the device to make observations of the sun and noted that no matter what shape the hole was, the sun would still be correctly displayed as a round object. In modern cameras, this is analogous to the diaphragm. Aristotle also made the observation that when the distance between the tiny hole and the surface with the image increased, the image was amplified.[19]
[edit] Chance and spontaneity
Spontaneity and chance are causes of effects. Chance as an incidental cause lies in the realm of accidental things. It is "from what is spontaneous" (but note that what is spontaneous does not come from chance). For a better understanding of Aristotle's conception of "chance" it might be better to think of "coincidence": Something takes place by chance if a person sets out with the intent of having one thing take place, but with the result of another thing (not intended) taking place. For example: A person seeks donations. That person may find another person willing to donate a substantial sum. However, 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 by that particular donator a result of chance. It must be unusual that something happens by chance. In other words, if something happens all or most of the time, we cannot say that it is by chance.
There is also more specific kind of chance, which Aristotle names "luck", that can only apply to human beings, since it is in the sphere of moral actions. According to Aristotle, luck must involve choice (and thus deliberation), and only humans are capable of deliberation and choice. "What is not capable of action cannot do anything by chance".[20]
[edit] 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 theologic science."
[edit] Substance, potentiality and actuality
See also: Potentiality and actuality (Aristotle)
Aristotle examines the concept of substance and essence (ousia) in his Metaphysics, Book VII and he concludes that a particular substance is a combination of both matter and form. As he proceeds to the book VIII, he concludes that the matter of the substance is the substratum or the stuff of which it is composed, e.g. the matter of the house are the bricks, stones, timbers etc., or whatever constitutes the potential house. While the form of the substance, is the actual house, namely 'covering for bodies and chattels' or any other differentia (see also predicables). The formula that gives the components is the account of the matter, and the formula that gives the differentia is the account of the form.[21]
With regard to the change (kinesis) and its causes now, as he defines in his Physics and On Generation and Corruption 319b-320a, he distinguishes the coming to be from: 1) growth and diminution, which is change in quantity; 2) locomotion, which is change in space; and 3) alteration, which is change in quality.
The coming to be is a change where nothing persists of which the resultant is a property. In that particular 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 it is not prevented by something else. For example, the seed of a plant in the soil is potentially (dynamei) plant, and if is not prevented by 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 example, the eyes possess the potentiality of sight (innate - being acted upon), while the capability of playing the flute can be possessed by 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, therefore actuality is the end. Referring then to our previous example, we could say that actuality is when the seed of the plant becomes a plant.
" 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."[22]
In conclusion, the matter of the house is its potentiality and the form is its actuality. The formal cause (aitia) then of that change from potential to actual house, is the reason (logos) of the house builder and the final cause is the end, namely the house itself. Then Aristotle proceeds and concludes that the actuality is prior to potentiality in formula, in time and in substantiality.
With this definition of the particular substance (i.e., matter and form), Aristotle tries to solve the problem of the unity of the beings, e.g., what is that makes the man one? Since, according to Plato there are two Ideas: animal and biped, how then is man a unity? However, according to Aristotle, the potential being (matter) and the actual one (form) are one and the same thing.[23]
[edit] 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 look at an apple, for example, we see an apple, and we can also analyze a form of an apple. In this distinction, there is a particular apple and a universal form of an apple. Moreover, we can place an apple next to a book, so that we can speak of both the book and apple as being next to each other.
Plato argued that there are some universal forms that are not a part of particular things. For example, it is possible that there is no particular good in existence, but "good" is still a proper universal form. Bertrand Russell is a contemporary philosopher that agreed with Plato on the existence 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. According to Aristotle, if a universal exists, either as a particular or a relation, then there must have been, must be currently, or must be in the future, something on which the universal can be predicated. Consequently, according to Aristotle, if it is not the case that some universal can be predicated to an object that exists at some period of time, then it does not exist.
One way for contemporary philosophers to justify this position is by asserting the eleatic principle.
In addition, Aristotle disagreed with Plato about the location of universals. As Plato spoke of the world of the forms, a location where all universal forms subsist, Aristotle maintained that universals exist within each thing on which each universal is predicated. So, according to Aristotle, the form of apple exists within each apple, rather than in the world of the forms.
[edit] Biology and medicine
In Aristotelian science, most 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 and his ideas on how the human body works have been almost entirely superseded.
[edit] 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 surrounding seas and neighbouring areas. The works that reflect this research, such as History of Animals, Generation of Animals, and Parts of Animals, contain some observations and interpretations, along with sundry myths and mistakes. The most striking passages are about the sea-life visible from observation on Lesbos and available 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 description of the hectocotyl arm was about two thousand years ahead of its time, and widely disbelieved until its rediscovery in the nineteenth century. He separated the aquatic mammals from fish, and knew that sharks and rays were part of the group he called Selachē (selachians).[24]
Another good example 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.[25]
[edit] Classification of living things
Aristotle's classification of living things contains some elements which still existed in the nineteenth century. What the modern zoologist would call vertebrates and invertebrates, Aristotle called 'animals with blood' and 'animals without blood' (he was not to know that complex invertebrates do make use of haemoglobin, but of a different kind 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 respects, this incomplete classification is better than that of Linnaeus, who crowded the invertebrata together into two groups, Insecta and Vermes (worms).
For Charles Singer, "Nothing is more remarkable than [Aristotle's] efforts to [exhibit] the relationships of living things as a scala naturae"[24] Aristotle's History of Animals classified organisms in relation to a hierarchical "Ladder of Life" (scala naturae), placing them according to complexity of structure and function so that higher organisms showed greater vitality and ability to move.[26]
Aristotle believed that intellectual purposes, i.e., formal causes, guided all natural processes. 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 same time, both tusks and horns," and "a single-hooved 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 a multiple stomachs and weak teeth, he supposed the first was to compensate for the latter, with Nature trying to preserve a type of balance.[27]
In a similar fashion, Aristotle believed that creatures were arranged in a graded scale of perfection rising from plants on up to man, the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being.[28] His system had eleven grades, arranged according "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, dry, and in thick eggs.
Aristotle also held that the level of a creature's perfection was reflected in its form, but not preordained by that form. Ideas like this, and his ideas about souls, are not regarded as science at all in modern times.
He placed emphasis on the type(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.[29]
Aristotle, in contrast to earlier philosophers, but in accordance with the Egyptians, placed the rational soul in the heart, rather than the brain.[30] Notable is Aristotle's division of sensation and thought, which generally went against previous philosophers, with the exception of Alcmaeon.[31]
[edit] Successor: Theophrastus
Aristotle's successor at the Lyceum, Theophrastus, wrote a series of books on botany—the History of Plants—which survived as the most important contribution of antiquity to botany, even into the Middle Ages. Many of Theophrastus' names survive into modern 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 between natural and artificial processes, 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 discovery was lost in later ages.[32]
[edit] Influence on Hellenistic medicine
For more details on this topic, see Medicine in ancient Greece.
After Theophrastus, the Lyceum failed to produce any original work. Though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly.[33] It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again found.
The first medical teacher at Alexandria Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between veins and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not.[34] Though a few ancient atomists such as Lucretius challenged the teleological viewpoint of Aristotelian ideas about 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."[35] Aristotle's ideas of natural history and medicine survived, but they were generally taken unquestioningly.[36]
[edit] Practical philosophy
[edit] Ethics
Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical science, i.e., one mastered by doing rather than merely reasoning. Further, Aristotle believed that ethical knowledge is not certain knowledge (such as metaphysics or epistemology) but is general knowledge. He wrote several treatises on ethics, including most notably, Nichomachean Ethics, in which he outlines what is commonly called virtue ethics.
Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function 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 man must have a function uncommon to anything else, and that this function must be an activity of the soul. Aristotle identified the best activity of the soul as eudaimonia: a happiness or joy that pervades the good life. Aristotle taught that to achieve the good life, one must live a balanced life and avoid excess. This balance, he taught, varies among different persons and situations, and exists as a golden mean between two vices - one an excess and one a deficiency.
[edit] Politics
In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled Politics. Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner.[37] Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community. Moreover, he considered the city to be prior to the family which in turn is prior to the individual, i.e., last in the order of becoming, but first in the order of being . He is also famous for his statement that "man is by 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.
It should be noted that the modern understanding of a political community is that of the state. However, the state was foreign to Aristotle. He referred to political communities as cities. Aristotle understood a city as a political "partnership" and not one of a social contract (or compact) or a political community as understood by Niccolò Machiavelli. Subsequently, a city is created not to avoid injustice or for economic stability , but rather to live a good life: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together" . This can be distinguished from the social contract theory which individuals leave the state of nature because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences."[38]
[edit] Rhetoric and poetics
Aristotle considered epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry and music to be imitative, each varying in imitation by media, object, and manner.[39] For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation - through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama.[40] Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankind's advantages over animals.[41]
While it is believed 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, style, spectacle, and lyric poetry.[42] 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 effect the catharsis of those same 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, possibly possesses additional attributes such as spectacle and music, is more unified, and achieves the aim of its mimesis in shorter scope, it can be considered superior to epic.[43]
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.[44]
[edit] Loss of his works
According to a distinction that originates with Aristotle himself, his writings are divisible into two groups: the "exoteric" and the "esoteric".[45] Most scholars have understood this as a distinction between works Aristotle intended for the public (exoteric), and the more technical works (esoteric) intended for the narrower audience of Aristotle's students and other philosophers who were familiar with the jargon and issues typical of the Platonic and Aristotelian schools. Another common assumption is that none of the exoteric works is extant - that all of Aristotle's extant writings are of the esoteric kind. Current knowledge of what exactly the exoteric writings were like is scant and dubious, though many of them may have been in dialogue form. (Fragments of some of Aristotle's dialogues have survived.) Perhaps it is to these that Cicero refers when he characterized Aristotle's writing style as "a river of gold";[46] it is hard for many modern readers to accept that one could seriously so admire the style of those works currently available to us.[47] However, some modern scholars have warned that we cannot know for certain that Cicero's praise was reserved specifically for the exoteric works; a few modern scholars have actually admired the concise writing style found in Aristotle's extant works.[48]
One major question in the history of Aristotle's works, then, is how were the exoteric writings all lost, and how did the ones we now possess come to us?[49] The story of the original manuscripts of the esoteric treatises is described by Strabo in his Geography and Plutarch in his Parallel Lives.[50] 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 first century BC, when Apellicon of Teos discovered and purchased the manuscripts, bringing them back to Athens. According to the story, Apellicon tried to repair some of the damage that was done during the manuscripts' stay in the basement, introducing a number of errors into the text. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla occupied Athens in 86 BC, he carried off the library of Apellicon to Rome, where they were first published in 60 BC by the grammarian Tyrannion of Amisus and then by philosopher Andronicus of Rhodes.
Carnes Lord attributes the popular belief in this story to the fact that it provides "the most 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 specialized treatises of Aristotle throughout the Hellenistic period, as well as for the sudden reappearance of a flourishing Aristotelianism during the first century B.C."[51] Lord voices a number of reservations concerning this story, however. First, the condition of the texts is far too good for them to have suffered considerable damage followed by Apellicon's inexpert attempt at repair. Second, there is "incontrovertible evidence," Lord says, that the treatises were in circulation during the time in which Strabo and Plutarch suggest they were confined within the cellar in Scepsis. Third, the definitive edition of Aristotle's texts seems to have been made in Athens some fifty years before Andronicus supposedly compiled his. And fourth, ancient library catalogues predating Andronicus' intervention list an Aristotelean corpus quite similar to the one we currently possess. Lord sees a number of post-Aristotelean interpolations in the Politics, for example, but is generally confident that the work has come down to us relatively intact.
As the influence of the falsafa grew in the West, in part due to Gerard of Cremona's translations and the spread of Averroism, the demand for Aristotle's works grew. William of Moerbeke translated a number of them into Latin. When Thomas Aquinas wrote his theology, working from Moerbeke's translations, the demand for Aristotle's writings grew and the Greek manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe, and ultimately revitalizing European thought through Muslim influence in Spain to fan the embers of the Renaissance.
[edit] Legacy
Twenty-three hundred years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived. He was the founder of formal logic, pioneered the study of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method.[52][53] Despite these accolades, many of Aristotle's errors held back science considerably. Bertrand Russell notes that "almost 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 make it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembers how large of an advance he made upon all of his predecessors.[3] Of course, the problem of excessive devotion to Aristotle is more a problem of those later centuries and not of Aristotle himself.
The immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school. Aristotle's notable students included Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, Demetrius of Phalerum, Eudemos of Rhodes, Harpalus, Hephaestion, Meno, Mnason of Phocis, Nicomachus, and Theophrastus. Aristotle's influence over 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 about 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 common property?"[54]
Aristotle is referred to as "The Philosopher" by Scholastic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas. See Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 3, etc. These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. It required a repudiation of some Aristotelian principles for the sciences and the arts to free themselves for the discovery of modern scientific laws and empirical methods. The medieval English poet Chaucer describes his student as being happy by having
- at his beddes heed
- Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed,
- Of aristotle and his philosophie,[55]
The Italian poet Dante says of Aristotle in the first circles of hell,
- I saw the Master there of those who know,
- Amid the philosophic family,
- By all admired, and by all reverenced;
- There Plato too I saw, and Socrates,
- Who stood beside him closer than the rest.[56]
Aristotle believed that women are colder than men and thus a lower form of life.[57] His assumption unfortunately carried forward unexamined to Galen and others for almost two thousand years until the sixteenth century.[58] He also believed that females could not be fully human.[59] His analysis of procreation is frequently criticized on the grounds that it presupposes an active, ensouling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive, lumpen female element; it is on these grounds that Aristotle is considered by some feminist critics to have been a misogynist.[60]
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken nearly all of his political philosophy from Aristotle.[61] However implausible this is, it is certainly the case that Aristotle's rigid separation of action from production, 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, intended to warrant his deconstruction of scholastic and philosophical tradition. More recently, Alasdair MacIntyre has attempted to reform what he calls the Aristotelian tradition in a way that is anti-elitist and capable of disputing the claims of both liberals and Nietzscheans.[62]
[edit] List of works
[edit] See also
- Aristotelian ethics
- Aristotelian physics
- Aristotelian view of God
- List of writers influenced by Aristotle
- List of teachings attributed to Aristotle
- Corpus Aristotelicum
- Conimbricenses
- Hylomorphism
- Philia
- Phronesis
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Jonathan Barnes, "Life and Work" in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (1995), p. 9.
- ^ McLeish, Kenneth (1999). Aristotle: The Dancing Queen, The Great Philosophers. Routledge. p. 5. ISBN 0-415-92392-1.
- ^ a b c Bertrand Russell, "A History of Western Philosophy", Simon & Schuster, 1972
- ^ Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 1991 University of California Press, Ltd. Oxford, England. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, p.58-59
- ^ Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 1991 University of California Press, Ltd. Oxford, England. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, p.379,459
- ^ William George Smith,Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 3, p. 88
- ^ Neill, Alex; Aaron Ridley (1995). The Philosophy of Art: Readings Ancient and Modern. McGraw Hill. p. 488. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0070461929/.
- ^ Jones, W.T. (1980). The Classical Mind: A History of Western Philosophy. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 216. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0155383124/., cf. Vita Marciana 41.
- ^ Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt by Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang HaaseAristotle's Will
- ^ Bocheński, I. M. (1951). Ancient Formal Logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
- ^ a b Bocheński, 1951.
- ^ Rose, Lynn E. (1968). Aristotle's Syllogistic. Springfield: Charles C Thomas Publisher.
- ^ Jori, Alberto (2003). Aristotele. Milano: Bruno Mondadori Editore.
- ^ Aristotle, History of Animals, 2.3.
- ^ Aristotle, 1943 (1953). Generation of animals. Harvard University Press via Google Books.
- ^ "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy". Plato.stanford.edu. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philoponus/#2.2. Retrieved on 2009-04-26.
- ^ Aristotle, Meteorology 1.8, trans. E.W. Webster, rev. J. Barnes.
- ^ Burent, John. 1928. Platonism, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 61, 103-104.
- ^ Michael Lahanas. "Optics and ancient Greeks". Mlahanas.de. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Optics.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-26.
- ^ Aristotle, Physics 2.6
- ^ Aristotle, Metaphysics VIII 1043a 10-30
- ^ Aristotle, Metaphysics IX 1050a 5-10
- ^ Aristotle, Metaphysics VIII 1045a-b
- ^ a b Singer, Charles. A short history of biology. Oxford 1931.
- ^ Emily Kearns, "Animals, knowledge about," in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1996, p. 92.
- ^ Aristotle, of course, is not responsible for the later use made of this idea by clerics.
- ^ Mason, A History of the Sciences pp 43-44
- ^ Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, pp 201-202; see also: Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being
- ^ Aristotle, De Anima II 3
- ^ Mason, A History of the Sciences pp 45
- ^ Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy Vol. 1 pp. 348
- ^ Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, pp 90-91; Mason, A History of the Sciences, p 46
- ^ Annas, Classical Greek Philosophy pp 252
- ^ Mason, A History of the Sciences pp 56
- ^ Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, pp 90-94; quotation from p 91
- ^ Annas, Classical Greek Philosophy, p 252
- ^ Ebenstein, Alan; William Ebenstein (2002). Introduction to Political Thinkers. Wadsworth Group. p. 59.
- ^ For a different reading of social and economic processes in the Nicomacean Ethics and Politics see Polanyi, K. (1957) "Aristotle Discovers the Economy" in Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi ed. G. Dalton, Boston 1971, 78-115
- ^ Aristotle, Poetics I 1447a
- ^ Aristotle, Poetics III
- ^ Aristotle, Poetics IV
- ^ Aristotle, Poetics VI
- ^ Aristotle, Poetics XXVI
- ^ Temple, Olivia, and Temple, Robert (translators), The Complete Fables By Aesop Penguin Classics, 1998. ISBN 0140446494 Cf. Introduction, pp. xi-xii.
- ^ Jonathan Barnes, "Life and Work" in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (1995), p. 12; Aristotle himself: Nichomachean Ethics 1102a26-27. Aristotle himself never uses the term "esoteric" or "acroamatic". For other passages where Aristotle speaks of exōterikoi logoi, see W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics (1953), vol. 2, pp. 408-410. Ross defends an interpretation according to which the phrase, at least in Aristotle's own works, usually refers generally to "discussions not peculiar to the Peripatetic school", rather than to specific works of Aristotle's own.
- ^ Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106BC-43BC). ""flumen orationis aureum fundens Aristoteles"". Academica. http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/gutenberg/1/4/9/7/14970/14970-h/14970-h.htm#BkII_119. Retrieved on 25 January 2007.
- ^ Barnes, "Life and Work", p. 12.
- ^ Barnes, "Roman Aristotle", in Gregory Nagy, Greek Literature, Routledge 2001, vol. 8, p. 174 n. 240.
- ^ The definitive, English study of these questions is Barnes, "Roman Aristotle".
- ^ "Sulla."
- ^ Lord, Carnes (1984). Introduction to the Politics, by Aristotle. Chicago: Chicago University Press. p. 11.
- ^ "Aristotle (Greek philosopher) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/34560/Aristotle. Retrieved on 2009-04-26.
- ^ Durant, Will (1926 (2006)). The Story of Philosophy. United States: Simon & Schuster, Inc.. p. 92. ISBN 9780671739164.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Alexander
- ^ Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, lines 295-295
- ^ vidi ’l maestro di color che sanno
seder tra filosofica famiglia.
Tutti lo miran, tutti onor li fanno:
quivi vid’ïo Socrate e Platone
che ’nnanzi a li altri più presso li stanno;
Dante, L’Inferno (Hell), Canto IV. Lines 131-135 - ^ Lovejoy, Arthur (1964). The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674361539.
- ^ Tuana, Nancy (1993). The Less Noble Sex: Scientific, Religious and Philosophical Conceptions of Women's Nature. Indiana University Press. pp. 21, 169. ISBN 0-253-36098-6.
- ^ Tuana, The Less Noble Sex p. 19, and footnote 8 p. 176
- ^ Harding, Sandra; Merrill B. Hintikka (31 December 1999). Discovering Reality,: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science. Springer. p. 372. http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/9027714967/.
- ^ Durant, p. 86
- ^ Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy, Polity Press, 2007, passim.
[edit] Further reading
The secondary literature on Aristotle is vast. The following references are only a small selection.
- Ackrill J. L. 2001. Essays on Plato and Aristotle, Oxford University Press, USA
- Adler, Mortimer J. (1978). Aristotle for Everybody. New York: Macmillan. A popular exposition for the general reader.
- Bakalis Nikolaos. 2005. Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing ISBN 1-4120-4843-5
- Barnes J. 1995. The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, Cambridge University Press
- Bocheński, I. M. (1951). Ancient Formal Logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
- Bolotin, David (1998). An Approach to Aristotle's Physics: With Particular Attention to the Role of His Manner of Writing. Albany: SUNY Press. A contribution to our understanding of how to read Aristotle's scientific works.
- Burnyeat, M. F. et al. 1979. Notes on Book Zeta of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Oxford: Sub-faculty of Philosophy
- Chappell, V. 1973. Aristotle's Conception of Matter, Journal of Philosophy 70: 679-696
- Code, Alan. 1995. Potentiality in Aristotle's Science and Metaphysics, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76
- Frede, Michael. 1987. Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
- Gill, Mary Louise. 1989. Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity. Princeton: Princeton University Press
- Guthrie, W. K. C. (1981). A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. 6. Cambridge University Press.
- Halper, Edward C. (2007) One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Volume 1: Books Alpha — Delta, Parmenides Publishing, ISBN 978-1-930972-21-6
- Halper, Edward C. (2005) One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Volume 2: The Central Books, Parmenides Publishing, ISBN 978-1-930972-05-6
- Irwin, T. H. 1988. Aristotle's First Principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press
- Jori, Alberto. 2003. Aristotele, Milano: Bruno Mondadori Editore (Prize 2003 of the "International Academy of the History of Science") ISBN 88-424-9737-1
- Knight, Kelvin. 2007. Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Polity Press.
- Lewis, Frank A. 1991. Substance and Predication in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Lloyd, G. E. R. 1968. Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of his Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., ISBN 0-521-09456-9.
- Lord, Carnes. 1984. Introduction to The Politics, by Aristotle. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
- Loux, Michael J. 1991. Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Ζ and Η. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
- Owen, G. E. L. 1965c. The Platonism of Aristotle, Proceedings of the British Academy 50 125-150. Reprinted in J. Barnes, M. Schofield, and R. R. K. Sorabji (eds.), Articles on Aristotle, Vol 1. Science. London: Duckworth (1975). 14-34
- Pangle, Lorraine Smith (2003). Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aristotle's conception of the deepest human relationship viewed in the light of the history of philosophic thought on friendship.
- Reeve, C. D. C. 2000. Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle's Metaphysics. Indianapolis: Hackett.
- Rose, Lynn E. (1968). Aristotle's Syllogistic. Springfield: Charles C Thomas Publisher.
- Ross, Sir David (1995). Aristotle (6th ed.). London: Routledge. A classic overview by one of Aristotle's most prominent English translators, in print since 1923.
- Scaltsas, T. 1994. Substances and Universals in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Strauss, Leo. "On Aristotle's Politics" (1964), in The City and Man, Chicago; Rand McNally.
- Swanson, Judith (1992). The Public and the Private in Aristotle's Political Philosoophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Taylor, Henry Osborn (1922). "Chapter 3: Aristotle's Biology". Greek Biology and Medicine. http://web.archive.org/web/20060327222953/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/medicine/0051.html.
- Veatch, Henry B. (1974). Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation. Bloomington: Indiana U. Press. For the general reader.
- Woods, M. J. 1991b. "Universals and Particular Forms in Aristotle's Metaphysics." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy supplement. 41-56
[edit] External links
Definitions from Wiktionary
Learning resources from Wikiversity- The Catholic Encyclopedia (general article)
- The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (general article)
- Scholarly surveys of focused topics from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: articles on Aristotle, Aristotle in the Renaissance, Biology, Causality, Commentators on Aristotle, Ethics, Logic, Mathematics, Metaphysics, Natural philosophy, Non-contradiction, Political theory, Psychology, Rhetoric
Collections of works
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology - primarily in English
- P. Remacle's collection - primarily Greek texts
- Project Gutenberg - English texts
- Tufts University - at the Perseus Project, in both English and Greek
- University of Adelaide - primarily in English
Other
- Works by or about Aristotle in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Timeline of Aristotle's life
This article incorporates material from Aristotle on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the GFDL.
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