UNIT 2 ARISTOTLE

Contents
2. 0. Objectives
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Life
2.3. Works
2.4. Aristotle and Plato
2.5. Aristotle’s Philosophy: Logic
2.6. Philosophy of the World
2.7. First Philosophy
2.8. Philosophy of God
2.9. Philosophy of Human
2.10. Ethics
2.11. Art and Literature
2.12. Slavery
2.13. Let Us Sum Up
2.14. Key Words
2.15. Further Readings and References
2.16. Answers to Check Your Progress

2.0. OBJECTIVES
In this Unit we will be dealing with one of the greatest founding fathers of Western Philosophy,
Aristotle. We will explain his philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and
science, politics and metaphysics. The study of Aristotle’s philosophy is important because
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.

By the end of this Unit you should be able to:

• understand Aristotelian logic, systematisation and definition;

• comprehend his philosophy of the world; and
• clarify his metaphysical and ethical position.

2.1. INTRODUCTION
Together with Plato and Socrates, 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. His works

1
contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which were 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.

2.2. LIFE

The year was 384 B.C. Socrates has been dead for fifteen years; Plato had begun his Academy
three years earlier. In northern Thrace, not far from the boarder of Athens at Stageira, a child
born to a physician in the royal court of Macedonia. This child named Aristotle was destined to
be the second father of Western philosophy. His father Nicomachus was both a doctor and
advisor to Amyntas III king of Macedonia, but the date of his father’s death and, consequently,
the extent of Aristotle’s stay at court are not certain. At the age of eighteen Aristotle was sent for
advanced study to Plato’s Academy at Athens. He spent twenty years (367-347) their imbibing
the spirit of Platonic philosophy. As the death of Socrates has been the catalyst for Plato’s
development as an independent thinker, so the death of Plato signalled the beginning for
Aristotle of a second and more independent period (347-336). He started his own academy at
Assos in Mysia. He 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). She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after
Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip of Macedon to become tutor to Alexander the
Great in 343 B.C. Alexander succeeded to the throne in 335/4 B.C Inspired by Plato and
seasoned by his own teaching experience, Aristotle returned to Athens for third and culminating
period of his life (335-332). He founded the Lyceum. The members of the Lyceum came to be
called the peripatetic, from the peripatos, of covered walk, in which they gathered.

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.

2.3. WORKS
The prodigious dimensions of Aristotle’s works are eloquently manifested by more than two
hundred known titles.
1. Dialogues
a) Brief works: On Rhetoric, On the Soul, and Exhortation to Philosophy etc.
b) Quasi Treatises: On wealth, on Prayer, On Good Birth, On Pleasure, On Friendship, On
Kingship, Alexander (On colonists).
2
 c) Works of more than one book: Politics, On Poets, On Justice, On the Good, On Ideas,
and On Philosophy.
d) On Other philosophers: On Democritus, On the Pythagoreans, and On the Philosophy of
Archytas
e) From Other Philosophers: From Plato’s Laws, From the Republic.
f) Treatises

2. Logic (The “Organon”): Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analysis, Topics, On

Sophisticated Refutation.
3. Natural Philosophy
a. The physical world: physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption,
Meteorology
b. The Living: On the Soul
The history of Animals, Movement of Animals. Progression of Animals, and
Generation of Animals.
4. Metaphysics
5. Ethics: Eudemain Ethics, Nicomachian Ethics, Politics, and Magna Moralia.
6. Poetics: Rhetoric and Poetics.
7. Collection of Facts

During his stay at the Lyceum, Aristotle directed extensive projects of group research, collecting
data in widely diverse fields and wrote the following:
The history of Animals.
The History of Plants.
The Politics, collection of lists of the names of the winners in the Pythian and Olympic
games and collections of the History of Literature.

2.4. ARISTOTLE AND PLATO

Plato was born to an aristocratic family with a long history of participation in political life.
Aristotle’s father was a doctor.

Otherworldliness: For Plato all that is perfect belong to the otherworld but Aristotle is satisfied
with this world.

The objects of knowledge: Plato is a rationalist and a mystic. Mathematics seems to be the ideal
science yet reason is not sufficient to grasp reality so he uses myths and mysticism. Aristotle is
much more down to earth and for him language is quite sufficient to express the truth of things.

Human Nature: For Plato the real person is the soul. For Aristotle the human person is the
rational animal.

Relativism and Scepticism: Plato’s main concern was to refute scepticism. The problem does not
seem to worry Aristotle. For him the problem is to analyse the process by which we attain
knowledge and to set out the basic features of the realities disclosed.

3
Ethics: Plato wants and thinks we can get the same kind of certainty in rules of behaviour that we
have in mathematics. Dialectic, reasoning about the Forms can lead us to moral truths. For
Aristotle in matters of practical decision we cannot get mathematical certainty. Each case has to
be dealt with separately.

2.5. ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY: LOGIC

The Sophist claim to teach pupils “to make the weaker arguments appear stronger” has been
satirized by Aristophanes, scorned by Socrates, and repudiated by Plato. But until Aristotle does
his work on Logic, no one gives a good answer to the question, just what makes an argument
weaker or stronger?

We regard those among us the wisest who know not only what something is but also why it is so.
Wisdom, then, either is or at least involves knowledge. And knowledge involves both statements
(that something is so) and reasons (statements why something is so). Furthermore, for the
possession of such statements to qualify as wisdom, they must be true. As Plato pointed out
falsehood cannot make up knowledge. It is Aristotle’s intention to clarify all this, to sort it out,
put it in order, and show how it works. So he has to do several things. He has to (1) explain the
nature of statements how, for instance, they are put together out of simpler units called terms;
(2) explain how statements can be related to each other so that someone can give “the reason
why” for others; and (3) give an account of what makes statements true or false. These make up
the logic.

Aristotle is a real pioneer in the field of logic. Even today his logic is followed. Logic according
to Aristotle is the art of right thinking and thereby attaining truth. As such it does not have any
special object as do other disciplines, but is their instrument and tool.

SYSTEMATISATION
Aristotle did a lot of systematisation in Logic. He was one the first to notice that the mind has a
certain basic structure and method and tried to detail what those were and how it functioned. The
ultimate elements of the working of the mind were three: concept, judgement and reasoning.

He defined concept as that “into which the premise is resolved, i.e., both the predicate and that of
which it is predicated.” He then went on to reduce the concept to its 10 categories or different
types. Thus a concept may be predicated of a subject so as to indicate its essence, or quantity,
quality, relation, place, time, situation, “habitus”, action or passion.
Substance - man or horse
Quantity - two feet long, three feet long
Quality - white or literate
Relationship - double, half, or greater.
Place - in the Lyceum, in the market place
Time - yesterday, last year.
Posture - reclining at table, sitting down. (situation)

4
 State - having shoes on, being in armour (habitus)
Doing something - cutting, burning (action)
Undergoing something - being cut, being burnt (passion)

He carefully examined what happens when we make a judgement, observed that it alone is the
source of the true or false. Then he investigated their quality (affirmative and negative) quantity
(universal, particular, and singular) and modality (factual, necessity and possibility) He also
studied the convertibility of judgements. As to reasoning, he reduced the syllogisms to their basic
types and exposed the commonest fallacies and reasoning. Finally he sought to explain how
universal premises are formed and how scientific knowledge may be further developed through
induction, dialectic, demonstration and solution of aprioris or difficulties.

DEFINITIONS
Confusion of meaning of terms is one of the factors that had been responsible for disagreements
etc. Aristotle drew up rules for a good definition, and even gave us some very good examples of
this.
Motion: “the fulfilment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially, is
motion.”
Time is “measurement of movement according to before and after.”

2.6. PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD

Aristotle advances several arguments against the theory of subsisting ideas of Plato. According
to Plato’s theory there must be forms of negations and relations. According to Aristotle the
theory of Ideas is useless. It is an impossible theory that the substance and that of which it is the
substance must exist separately.

SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENTS

This is a distinction we make without looking into the metaphysical roots. A substance is that
“which is not predicated of a subject, but of which everything is predicated.” Or to put it another
way, it is “that which is primarily and to which all the other categories of being are referred.”

Accidents are whatever “attaches to something and can truly be asserted, either of necessity or
usually.”

THE THEORY OF ACT AND POTENCY

This theory provides the profound metaphysical basis to answer the difficulties raised by
Parmenides against movement and multiplicity. Parmenides and others would speak of being and
non-being, allowing of no other category and implying that a thing, to exist must, be either pure
and simple being or non-being. Basically, the theory is founded on the situation that a thing can
“be” in two ways: it can be able to be such and such (potency) or it can be such and such. Every

5
change implies, first, that the subject of that change had potency as regards that change. Finally,
a change implies the actualization of the potency in question. Potency, then, is a capacity with
regard to actualization (or act), whereas act (or actualization) is a perfection or quality of some
sort. A potency can be passive, e.g., a sound is capable of being heard, i.e., the passive potency
of being heard. An active potency is a power or capacity to act. (E.g. The ear has an active
potency of hearing). It should be noticed, however, that even a passive potency implies, in some
way, a pre-disposition on the part of the thing concerned.

For example, a sound has a passive potency of being heard, whereas colour has not. This theory
of act and potency has many implications in Aristotelian philosophy.

A being can be pure act, it has no potency yet to be realized; it is perfection itself. Such a being
would be God. At the other end of the spectrum you have mere potency - prime matter. In
between come the mixed acts the beings of our daily experience. These have some perfections
actually realized, but there are also many potencies in them - capacities to acquire or lose
perfections. This is the way out of the difficulties raised by Parmenides and his school against
motion and multiplicity.

THE FOUR CAUSES

The study of the causes involves another application of the theory of act and potency. He feels
that humans can be satisfied only when they have acquired knowledge about a thing when they
can understand “why”. He then points out that everything we observe has four principles or
causes which influence it. First there are two intrinsic causes, so called because they are
inadequately distinct from the effect. These are the material cause (that out of which some thing
is made, e.g. wood of a table) and the formal cause (that which makes a thing to be what it is,
e.g. the form of wood makes wood to be wood). Then there are two extrinsic causes distinct from
their effect. The efficient cause (the one who makes or initiates the effect, e.g., the carpenter with
regard to the table) and the final cause (the reason for which the effect is produced) the carpenter
to get money with regard to the table. Aristotle showed how that material cause is in potency
with regard to the formal cause, as mater and form.

2.7. FIRST PHILOSOPHY

“It is from a feeling of wonder that men start now, and did start in the earliest times, to practice
philosophy.”

Practising philosophy is not the basic activity of human beings. It is for the satisfaction of the
wonderment that one feels. Familiar as we are with the world of nature, we wonder whether that
is all there is. If there is no other substance apart from those that have come together by nature,
natural science will be the first science. But if there is a substance that is immovable, the science
that studies it is prior to natural science and is the first philosophy. It is the business of this
science to study being qua being, and to find out what it is and what are its attributes qua being.
So first philosophy, also called metaphysics, looks for the ultimate principles and causes of all
things. What are they?

NOT PLATO’S FORMS

6
The forms are supposed to be what many individuals of the same kind have in common. Yet they
are supposed to be individual realities on their own. But says Aristotle, these requirements
conflict, if the Forms are indeed individual substances, it makes no sense to think of them as
being shared out among other individual substances. Finally, there is no way to understand how
the Forms, eternally unchanging, account for changes. They are supposed to be the first
principles and causes of whatever happens in the world.

WHAT OF MATHEMATICS?
The most convincing arguments for the forms seem to be mathematical in nature. Is mathematics
dealing with square in itself, triangle in itself? There is no argument, Aristotle holds, from
mathematics to the reality of Platonic Forms independent of the world of nature. Mathematics is
a science, like natural science, has the world of nature as its only subject. But it does not study it
as nature; it studies only certain abstractions from natural things, without supposing that such
abstractions are themselves things. What happens in mathematics or geometry is conceptually
separating attributes for the sake of understanding.

SUBSTANCE AND FORM

Substance is what is in the basic, fundamental, primary sense. What is it that makes a given
object a substance? Natural things are composed of matter and form. Could it be matter that
makes an object a substance? No. Matter, considered apart from form, is merely potentially
something. Prime matter cannot be anything at all on its won. It cannot have an independent
existence, it exists as formed. So it cannot be matter what makes a thing what it is. Could it be
the form? According to Aristotle it is.

The form responsible for the substantiality of substances he calls the essence of the thing.
Essences are expressed by definitions telling us what things are. So form is the substance of
things. But substance is what can exist independently and as an individual entity. This raises a
very interesting possibility. Might there be substances that are no compounds of matter and
form? Might there be substances that are pure form? All of nature is made up of material
substances in which matter is made into something definite by the presence of form within it.

2.8. PHILOSOPHY OF GOD

In the world of nature, the best things would be those that come closest to these ideals. Aristotle
believes these are the heavenly bodies that move eternally in great circles. But even such eternal
motion is not self-explanatory. In Metaphysics Aristotle says that there is something that is
always being moved in an incessant movement, and this movement is circular...and so the first
heaven will be eternal. There must then, be something that moves it. But since that is moved, as
well as moving things, is intermediate, there must be something that moves without being
moved, will be something eternal, it will be a substance, and it will be an actuality.

In the world of nature, containing the eternal movements of the heavenly bodies is there an
eternal and ultimate mover? There must be, Aristotle argues, otherwise we could not account for
the movement of anything at all. Not all movers can be “intermediate” movers. If they were, that

7
series would go on to infinity, but there cannot be any actually existing collection of infinitely
many things. There must, then, be ‘something that moves things without being moved.”

Moreover, we can know certain facts about it. It must itself be eternal, since it must account for
the eternal movement of the heavenly bodies and so cannot be less extensive than they. It must
be a substance, for what other substances depend on cannot be less basic than they. And, of
course, it must be fully actual; otherwise, its being what it is would cry out for further
explanation - for a mover for it. For Aristotle, this mover is the final cause. This conclusion is
driven home by an analogy.

Now, the object of desire and the object of thought moves things in this way: they move things
without being moved. The ultimate cause of all things is a final cause; it is what all other things
love. Their love for it puts them in motion. As the final cause and the object of the “desire” in all
things it must be the best. So God must enjoy this life in the highest degree. God then, is an
eternally existing, living being who lives a life of perfect thought.

Aristotle called his first mover God. In his view there is no divine providence. He does not create
the universe, for it is eternal. It is true that he cause motion, but only as a beautiful picture might
cause a man to purchase it. For Aristotle God is a metaphysical necessity, but not an object of
worship.

Check Your Progress I

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer.
b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.
1) Discuss the contribution of Aristotle to Logic.
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...
1.) How does Aristotle establish the necessity of a first cause?
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...

2.9. PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN

Aristotle seems to have started with Plato’s ideas concerning human beings. There are three
types of psyche:
1. The nutritive psyche
2. The sensitive psyche
3. The rational psyche

8
The soul of animals is characterised by two faculties (a) the faculty of discrimination which is
the work of thought and sense, and (b) the faculty of originating local movement.

(1) Mind is that which calculates means to an end, i.e. mind practical (it differs from mind
speculative in the character of its end);
(2) appetite is in every form of it, relative to an end; for that which is the object of appetite is the
stimulant of the mind practical; and that which is last to the process of thinking is the beginning
of the action,

• Objects are experienced by animals not simply as neutral but also as good and bad, as objects
of avoidance or pursuit.
• The motion in lower animals by a sense object is relatively stereotypic.
• For the lower animals the good is identical with pleasure, the bad with pain. For them there is
no consideration other than present satisfaction.
• For the animal there is usually, in any given situation, only one thing to do.
• Humans usually perceive alternatives. They must make choices and that means that they
should make use of some criteria for choices.

2.10. ETHICS
Ethics is the science of conduct (what are the criteria for the good life? corresponding to logic
(what are the criteria for correct thinking?) It is not a mere science of knowing but also practical.
It deals not merely with ‘What is the good?’ but also ‘How can I be good?’ But ethics is not
psychology though connected with it. Ethics grows out of the need of choosing among the
multiple courses of behaviour that the human soul perceives as options at any given time. The
good, whatever it is, is the good for man and therefore can be ascribed only by discovering what
man is. The study of psychology is valuable in pedagogy and especially in the learning of good
behaviour and attitudes.

For Aristotle there is one end for man, happiness. Happiness is something everyone chooses for
its own sake; it is not a means to something else. Happiness then is something final and self-
sufficient; it is the end of action. Happiness is the name for that longer-range, more complete,
more stable satisfaction that reason gives men the possibility of achieving, but whose
achievement it at the same time is more difficult because of the alternatives men have. This
possibility is undreamed by the relatively simple sensitive souls The possibility of more
ignominious failure than any animal is capable of is the risk the rational soul must run for the
possibility of much greater fulfilment.

CONTEMPLATION IS PERFECT HAPPINESS

Happiness, then, is what we experience when we are living at our best and fullest, when we are
functioning in accordance with our nature, whenever end is realising itself without impediment,
when our form is being actualised. And since man’s activities are many, the best and highest
activity, that is, the activity that most completely, expresses and realise human nature is the
activity of contemplation. In contemplation - in the cognition of the supreme truths about the
universe - lies the greatest happiness of which man is capable.

9
TRANSITION FROM ETHICS TO POLITICS

No one is sufficient to oneself; humans cannot live well without community. Thus human beings
live in committees, cities. In his work on ethics, Aristotle addressed the individual; in Politics he
deals with life in the City. Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one
of the first to conceive of the city in this manner. 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.

VIRTUES
Aristotle speaks of intellectual and moral virtues. The intellectual virtues are those that help us to
attain truth, ultimately the highest of all truths, the Truth - God. However, to reach this sublime
Goal, we must cultivate the moral virtues. These help us in this and in so far as they, by keeping
in check our passions, enable us to perform right actions. In this context it is clear how Aristotle
came to the conclusion that a moral virtue is “a mean between two vices that which depends on
excess and which depends on defect”.

2.11. ART AND LITERATURE

In his Poetics, Aristotle answered, in effect, Plato’s criticism of tragedy and his desire to outlaw
poets from his republic, on the grounds that they would disturb and weaken the will-power and
moral strength of the statesmen and warriors preying on their emotions. Aristotle made use of the
famous theory of catharsis to show that through the emotions of pity and fear (aroused by
tragedy), the soul and its passions would be replaced and purified. This would bring about a
certain feeling of pleasure and peace.

2.12. SLAVERY
According to Aristotle every state is a community of some kind, and every community is
established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they
think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is
the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any
other, and at the highest good. The state is made up of households and households are made of
master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. Some hold that the rule of a master over
slaves is contrary to nature, and that the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law
only, and not by nature; and being an interference with nature is therefore unjust. Aristotle
argues that property is apart of the household and a slave is a living possession, an instrument
which takes precedence of all other instruments. The master is only the master of the slave, he
does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs

10
to him. And a possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the
possessor.

But is there any one intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such condition is expedient
and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? In living creatures the soul rules over
the body, the body appears to rule over the soul in corrupt ones. Again, male is by nature
superior, and the female inferior, and the one rule, and the other is ruled in principle, of
necessity, extends to all mankind. Where there is such a difference as that between soul and
body, or between men and animals. Slaves are those whose business is to use their body, because
they can do nothing better, the lowest sort are by nature slaves and it is better for them as for all
inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master. For he who can be, therefore is, anther’s,
and he who participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have such a
principle, is a slave by nature.

2.13. LET US SUM UP

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. 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.

Aristotle is referred to as "The Philosopher" by Scholastic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas. See
Summa Theologica. 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 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.

Aristotle was a product of his time. We cannot accept his justification of slavery nor the inferior
position he assigns to women. Martin Heidegger 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. Ayn Rand
considered Aristotle to be her only significant influence. According to Whitehead everyone is

11
either, by temperament a Platonist (the mystical, contemplative type) or an Aristotelian (the
scientific, active type).

Check Your Progress II

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer.
b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.
1) Explain Aristotle’s philosophy of human beings.
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...
2) Discuss the ethical philosophy of Aristotle.
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...
………………………………………………………………………………………...

2.14. KEY WORDS

Pedagogy: Pedagogy is the art or science of being a teacher. The term generally refers to
strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. Pedagogy is also sometimes referred to as the
correct use of teaching strategies.

Syllogism: A syllogism is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion)
is inferred from the two others (the premises) of a certain form.

2.15. FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

Ackrill, J.L. Aristotle the Philosopher. London: London University Press, 1981.
Allen, D.J. The Philosophy of Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Barnes, J. A Very Short Introduction to Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Barnes, J., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1995.
Bostock, David. Aristotle’s Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000

12
Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy, Vol. I, Part II. New York: Image Books, 1962.
Lear, J. Aristotle: The Desire to Understand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Lloyd, G.E.R. Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Mckenon, Richard, ed. Introduction to Aristotle, 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1973.
Melchert, Norman, The Great Conversation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Category Books,
1995.
Mortimer J, Adler. Aristotle for Everyone. New York: Collier Books, 1978.
Natali, Carlo. The Wisdom of Aristotle. Tr. Gerald Parks. New York: State University of New
York Press, 2001.
Randall Jr & John Herman. Aristotle. New York: Colombia University Press, 1960.

2.16. ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Check Your Progress I

1) Logic according to Aristotle is the art of right thinking and thereby attaining truth.
Wisdom at least involves knowledge. And knowledge involves both statements (that
something is so) and reasons (statements why something is so). Furthermore, for the
possession of such statements to qualify as wisdom, they must be true. To clarify all this,
he has to (1) explain the nature of statements how, for instance, they are put together out
of simpler units called terms; (2) explain how statements can be related to each other so
that someone can give “the reason why” for others; and (3) give an account of what
makes statements true or false. These make up the logic.

2) Aristotle believes these are the heavenly bodies that move eternally in great circles.
There must then, be something that moves it. But since that is moved, as well as moving
things, is intermediate, there must be something that moves without being moved, will be
something eternal, it will be a substance, and it will be an actuality.

In the world of nature, containing the eternal movements of the heavenly bodies is there
an eternal and ultimate mover? There must be, Aristotle argues, otherwise we could not
account for the movement of anything at all. Not all movers can be “intermediate”
movers. If they were, that series would go on to infinity, but there cannot be any actually
existing collection of infinitely many things. There must, then, be ‘something that moves
things without being moved.”

Check Your Progress II

1) According to Aristotle there are three types of psyche: The nutritive psyche, the sensitive
psyche, and the rational psyche. The soul of animals is characterised by two faculties (a)
the faculty of discrimination which is the work of thought and sense, and (b) the faculty
of originating local movement.

13
 Objects are experienced by animals not simply as neutral but also as good and bad, as
objects of avoidance or pursuit. The motion in lower animals by a sense object is
relatively stereotypic. For the lower animals the good is identical with pleasure, the bad
with pain. For them there is no consideration other than present satisfaction. For the
animal there is usually, in any given situation, only one thing to do. Humans usually
perceive alternatives. They must make choices and that means that they should make use
of some criteria for choices.

2) Ethics is the science of conduct (what are the criteria for the good life? corresponding to
logic (what are the criteria for correct thinking?) It is not a mere science of knowing but
also practical. It deals not merely with ‘What is the good?’ but also ‘How can I be good?’
For Aristotle there is one end for man, happiness. But the achievement it is more difficult
because of the alternatives men have. In contemplation - in the cognition of the supreme
truths about the universe - lies the greatest happiness of which man is capable.

14