Aristotle

(b. 384, Stagira, Chalcidice, Greeced. 322 BCE, Chalcis, Euboea)

ristotle, a Greek philosopher and scientist, was one

of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Even after the intellectual revolutions of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, Aristotelian concepts remained embedded in Western thinking. Aristotle was born on the Chalcidic peninsula of Macedonia, in northern Greece. His father, Nicomachus, was the physician of Amyntas III (reigned c. 393c. 370 BCE), king of Macedonia and grandfather of Alexander the Great (reigned 336323 BCE). After his fathers death in 367, Aristotle migrated to Athens, where he joined the Academy of Plato (c. 428c. 348 BCE). He remained there for 20 years as Platos pupil and colleague. When Plato died about 348, his nephew Speusippus became head of the Academy, and Aristotle left Athens. He migrated to Assus, a city on the northwestern coast of Anatolia (in present-day Turkey), where Hermias, a graduate7
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of the Academy, was ruler. Aristotle became a close friend of Hermias and eventually married his ward Pythias. About eight years after the death of Hermias, in 343 or 342, Aristotle was summoned by Philip II to the Macedonian capital at Pella to act as tutor to Philips 13-year-old son, the future Alexander the Great. Little is known of the content of Aristotles instruction. By 326 Alexander had made himself master of an empire that stretched from the Danube to the Indus and included Libya and Egypt. In about 334, Aristotle, now 50 years old, established his own school, called the Lyceum, just outside Athens. When Alexander died in 323, democratic Athens became uncomfortable for Macedonians. Saying that he did not wish the city that had executed Socrates to sin twice against philosophy, Aristotle fled to Chalcis, where he died the following year.

Doctrines
Aristotle rightly claimed to be the founder of logic. His chief

works in this field are the Categories, the De interpretatione, and the Prior Analytics, which deal respectively with words, propositions, and syllogisms. The syllogism, a central method of inference, can be illustrated by familiar examples such as the following:
Every Greek is human. Every human is mortal. Therefore, every Greek is mortal.

Aristotle discusses the various forms that syllogisms can take and identifies which forms constitute reliable inferences. The example above contains three propositions, the third of which Aristotle calls the conclusion. The other two propositions may be called premises, though
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Aristotle does not consistently use any particular technical term to distinguish them. The propositions in the example above begin with the word every; Aristotle calls such propositions universal. Universal propositions may be affirmative, as in this example, or negative, as in No Greek is a horse. Universal propositions differ from particular propositions, such as Some Greek is bearded (a particular affirmative) and Some Greek is not bearded (a particular negative). In the Middle Ages it became customary to call the difference between universal and particular propositions a difference of quantity and the difference between affirmative and negative propositions a difference of quality. In propositions of all these kinds, Aristotle says, something is predicated of something else. The items that enter into predications Aristotle calls terms. It is a feature of terms that they can figure either as predicates or as subjects of predication. This means that they can play three distinct roles in a syllogism. The term that is the predicate of the conclusion is the major term; the term of which the major term is predicated in the conclusion is the minor term; and the term that appears in each of the premises is the middle term. Aristotle also introduced the practice of using schematic letters to identify particular patterns of argument. Thus, the pattern of argument exhibited in the example above can be represented in the schematic proposition:
If A belongs to every B, and B belongs to every C, A belongs to every C.

Because propositions may differ in quantity and quality, and because the middle term may occupy several different places in the premises, many different patterns of syllogistic

inference are possible.

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From late antiquity, these different patterns were called moods of the syllogism. Importantly, some moods correspond to valid arguments and some to invalid ones (an argument is valid if it is impossible for its premises to be true while its conclusion is false). Aristotle sought to determine which moods result in valid inferences, and he set out a number of rules giving necessary conditions for the validity of a syllogism.

Physics and Metaphysics

Aristotle understood physics as equivalent to what would now be called natural philosophy, or the study of nature (physis); in this sense it encompasses not only the modern field of physics but also biology, chemistry, geology, psychology, and even meteorology. Although Aristotle never uses the word metaphysicsit first appeared in the posthumous catalog of his writings as a name for the works listed after the Physicshe does recognize the branch of philosophy now called metaphysics, which he calls it first philosophy. Forms Although Aristotles system makes room for forms, they differ significantly from forms as Plato conceived them. For Aristotle, the form of a particular thing is not separate (chorista) from the thing itselfany form is the form of some thing. In Aristotles physics, form is always paired with matter, and the paradigm examples of forms are those of material substances. When a thing comes into being, neither its matter nor its form is created. But the fact that the forms of things are not created does not mean that they must exist independently of matter, outside space and time, as Plato maintained. The bronze sphere derives its shape not from
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an ideal Sphere but from its maker, who introduces form into the appropriate matter in the process of his work. Likewise, Socrates humanity derives not from an ideal Human but from his parents, who introduce form into the appropriate matter when they conceive him. Causation In several places Aristotle distinguishes four types of cause, or explanation. First, he says, there is that of which and out of which a thing is made, such as the bronze of a statue. This is called the material cause. Second, there is

the form or pattern of a thing, which may be expressed in its definition; Aristotles example is the proportion of the length of two strings in a lyre, which is the formal cause of one notes being the octave of another. The third type of cause is the origin of a change or state of rest in something; this is often called the efficient cause. Aristotle gives as examples a person reaching a decision, a father begetting a child, a sculptor carving a statue, and a doctor healing a patient. The fourth and last type of cause is the end or goal of a thingthat for the sake of which a thing is done. This is known as the final cause. The way in which Aristotle seeks to show that the universe is a single causal system is through an examination of the notion of movement, which finds its culmination in Book XI of the Metaphysics. Motion, for Aristotle, refers to change in any of several different categories. Aristotles fundamental principle is that everything that is in motion is moved by something else, and he offers a number of (unconvincing) arguments to this effect. He then argues that there cannot be an infinite series of moved movers. If it is true that when A is in motion, there must be some B that moves A; then if B is itself in motion, there must be some C moving B, and so on. This series cannot go on forever, and so it must come to a halt in some X that
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is a cause of motion but does not move itselfan unmoved mover. Aristotle is prepared to call this unmoved mover God.

Ethics
The surviving works of Aristotle include three treatises on moral philosophy: the Nicomachean Ethics in 10 books, the Eudemian Ethics in 7 books, and the Magna moralia (Latin: Great Ethics). Aristotles approach to ethics is teleological. If life is to be worth living, he argues, it must surely be for the sake of something that is an end in itselfi.e., desirable for its own sake. If there is any single thing that is the highest human good, therefore, it must be desirable for its own sake, and all other goods must be desirable for the sake of it. The term that Aristotle uses to designate the highest human good is happiness, by which he means well-being or flourishing, not a feeling of contentment. Aristotle argues that human beings must have a function, because particular types of humans (e.g., sculptors) do, as do the

parts and organs of individual human beings. This function must be unique to humans; it must therefore involve the peculiarly human faculty of reason. The highest human good, happiness, is the same as good human functioning, and good human functioning is the same as the good exercise of the faculty of reasonthat is to say, the activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue. There are two kinds of virtue: moral and intellectual. Moral virtues are exemplified by courage, temperance, and liberality; the key intellectual virtues are wisdom, which governs ethical behaviour, and understanding, which is expressed in scientific endeavour and contemplation. Peoples virtues are a subset of their good qualities. Moral virtue is expressed in actions that avoid both excess
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and defect. A temperate person, for example, will avoid eating or drinking too much, but he will also avoid eating or drinking too little. Virtue chooses the mean, or middle ground, between excess and defect. Besides purpose and action, virtue is also concerned with feeling. One may, for example, be excessively concerned with sex or insufficiently interested in it. While all the moral virtues are means of action and passion, it is not the case that every kind of action and passion is capable of a virtuous mean. There are some actions of which there is no right amount, because any amount of them is too much; Aristotle gives murder and adultery as examples. The virtues, besides being concerned with means of action and passion, are themselves means in the sense that they occupy a middle ground between two contrary vices. Thus, the virtue of courage is flanked on one side by foolhardiness and on the other by cowardice. The intellectual virtue of wisdom is inseparably linked with the moral virtues of the affective part of the soul. Only if an agent possesses moral virtue will he endorse an appropriate recipe for a good life. Only if he is gifted with intelligence will he make an accurate assessment of the circumstances in which his decision is to be made. It is impossible, Aristotle says, to be really good without wisdom or to be really wise without moral virtue. Only when correct reasoning and right desire come together does truly virtuous action result. Action and contemplation Plato had posed the question of whether the best life consists in the pursuit of pleasure or the exercise of the intellectual virtues. Aristotles answer is that, properly understood,

the two are not in competition with each other. The exercise of the highest form of virtue is the very same thing as the truest form of pleasure; each is identical with the other
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and with happiness. The highest virtues are the intellectual ones, wisdom and understanding. To the question of whether happiness is to be identified with the pleasure of wisdom or with the pleasure of understanding, Aristotle gives different answers in his main ethical treatises. In the Nicomachean Ethics perfect happiness, though it presupposes the moral virtues, is constituted solely by the activity of philosophical contemplation, whereas in the Eudemian Ethics it consists in the harmonious exercise of all the virtues, intellectual and moral.