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    Summary of Aristotle

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    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who studied many areas including logic, metaphysics, ethics and politics. He contributed greatly to the development of empiricism and the scientific method. Aristotle believed virtue and living well could be achieved through reason and balancing one's emotions according to different situations. He proposed an ideal state called Koinonia that promoted rule of law, a middle class, and distributive justice.

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    Summary of Aristotle

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    11 views2 pages
    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who studied many areas including logic, metaphysics, ethics and politics. He contributed greatly to the development of empiricism and the scientific method. Aristotle believed virtue and living well could be achieved through reason and balancing one's emotions according to different situations. He proposed an ideal state called Koinonia that promoted rule of law, a middle class, and distributive justice.

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    SUMMARY OF ARISTOTLE

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    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who studied many areas including logic, metaphysics, ethics and politics. He contributed greatly to the development of empiricism and the scientific method. Aristotle believed virtue and living well could be achieved through reason and balancing one's emotions according to different situations. He proposed an ideal state called Koinonia that promoted rule of law, a middle class, and distributive justice.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    11 views2 pages

    Summary of Aristotle

    Uploaded by

    yhffh8wgb8
    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who studied many areas including logic, metaphysics, ethics and politics. He contributed greatly to the development of empiricism and the scientific method. Aristotle believed virtue and living well could be achieved through reason and balancing one's emotions according to different situations. He proposed an ideal state called Koinonia that promoted rule of law, a middle class, and distributive justice.

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    of 2

    POLITICAL THEORY - ASYNC ASSIGNMENT 2

    SUMMARY OF ARISTOTLE

    Aristotle was born in Stagira and was the son of a court physician which influenced a lot of
    his philosophy. At age 17, he was sent to Athens to study at Plato’s academy. He also
    served as the tutor for Alexander the Great when he was young. He then returned to Athens
    and started his own school called ‘The Lyceum.’ His followers were called Peripatetics. He
    contributed to Logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics,
    agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was the first to classify areas of human
    knowledge into distinct disciplines. He has written many treatises and was a prolific writer.
    He started the philosophy of Empiricism which is the idea that to understand the universe,
    you need to observe it and measure it and try to really look at it. It is the basis of the modern
    scientific method that all scientists use today. He also started the doctrine of causes where
    to know a thing thoroughly, is to know its cause, or what is responsible for making a being
    who or what it is. There are three questions to be asked
     Why does this thing exist?
     How can it exist?
     Why and how can that thing cease to exist?
    Aristotle's 4 causes:
    1. Material Causes
    2. Formal Causes
    3. Efficient Causes
    4. Final Cause
    He also bought out the concept of Eudaimonia which means fulfilment or living well. Aristotle
    considers it to be an activity - a way of living one’s life. It is a practice of virtue or excellence.
    Virtue refers to excellence, whatever we do, we do it excellently. He elaborated on the 3
    types of souls;
    1. Vegetative soul: Quality is to eat, grow and reproduce, is seen in plants.
    2. Sensitive soul: It also has vegetative souls’ characteristics, apart from that it also has
    mobility and sensation.
    3. Rational soul: It incorporates vegetative and sensitive soul and along with that human
    have rational souls’ characteristics. They have a sense of reasoning and can think
    and ponder.
    Aristotle’s 3 kinds of virtue:
    1. Nutritional virtue: It should display its virtue excellently in growing or reproducing.
    2. Moral virtue: Showing/displaying the emotions and desires
    3. Intellectual virtue: Where it exhibits the rational soul’s characteristics properly, we
    can call it intellectual virtue.
    Thus, Eudaimonia can only be achieved through humans or a rational soul. It can be
    achieved if we display our virtue well. We should have desire-regulating traits which come
    from habits. He explained the concept of ‘Golden Mean’ which states that we should not
    have an excess of any emotion/characteristic, instead we should have the ability to balance
    it. We should be in a position to counter or resist irrational pressures. He gives the concept
    of autonomy of will which is the ability to restrain our will. If we have will power, we will be
    able to resist or counter those irrational characteristics and will be able to balance things
    according to the situation and we must have the right motive.
    Aristotle’s ideal state called ‘Koinonia’ was a state that helped people to attain Eudaimonia.
    According to him, the state is a natural and an ethical institution. Some of the qualities he
    wanted in a state were:
     Rule of law should prevail irrespective of who you are.
     Predominance of the middle class as they have qualities of both rich and poor.
     State should be self-sufficient in agriculture and have its own military.
     External Relations with neighbouring cities and economic accessibility.
     Access to land and sea
     State should have sufficient water resources
     Private ownership rights should be given to everyone
     Citizenship should not be given to slaves and foreigners as they wont have loyalty
    towards the state
    Aristotle studied 156 different constitutions and classified it into 6 types.
     If it is ruled by one person and if it is ruled well, he calls it kingship. But if it is ruled
    badly, he calls it a tyranny.
     If it is ruled by few people with the interest of others in mind, he calls it aristocracy,
    but if few people rule in their own interest, he calls it oligarchy.
     If it is ruled by many people who are exclusively middle class, he calls it polity and if it
    is ruled by many people who are poor and inclusivity is present, he calls it
    democracy.
    According to Aristotle, justice can mean either lawfulness or fairness. There are 2 kinds of
    justice:
    1. Distributive Justice: Hands out honours and rewards according to merits of the
    recipients.
    2. Corrective Justice: Takes no account of the position of the parties concerned, but
    simply secures equality b/w the two by taking away from the advantaged one and
    adding it to the disadvantage of others
    According to him, Revolution had 2 categories of causes:
    1. General Causes: Failure to maintain order
    2. Specific Causes:
     Desire for gain and profit
     Concentration of power
     Favouritism
     Disproportionate wealth in any part of the state
     Election intrigues and moral degradation
     Dynastic quarrels and conflicts
    The remedies for revolution lie in the causes:
     Abundant political power should not be concentrated in the hands of one man or one
    class of men.
     Avoid discrimination of various classes
     Honour’s and rewards should be distributed fairly
     Political offices should be within reach of every individual
     Government should be vigilantly organized
     Bribes and other kinds of illegal gratification should be made impossible
     Proper education should be imparted
     Political stability and internal stability
    After the fall of Macedonian power, Aristotle was charged for impiety due to which he ran
    away and died a year later.

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