Aristotle was an important philosopher for Ancient Greece and for the West in general, since the importance he gave to empirical knowledge and its systematic classifications of knowledge greatly influenced Scholastic and Modern Philosophy and the modern sciences that emerged from the century onwards. XVI.
The Greek philosopher also devoted himself to studies of logic, which yielded good results for argumentation, language and philosophical writing until contemporaneity, when language philosophers developed new ways of understanding and studying the logic.
Who was Aristotle?
Born in the city of Estagira, belonging to the Macedonian Empire, in the year 384 a. C., Aristotle was considered by posterity the most important philosopher of Greece, alongside Plato. Very little is known about his youth, with the exception of the fact that he went to live in Athens, which made it possible for him to meet the thinker who would become his master: Plato.
Aristotle studied at Plato's academy for many years before becoming a professor at the institution. During this period, he delved into Platonic studies on being and the essence of things, on dialectics, on politics and on Socratic ideas. He also studied ethics and deepened his studies in natural sciences, a field of knowledge by which the thinker had a certain predilection - his initial training went very deep in this area when he was more young.
During his intellectual life, Aristotle gradually moved away from his master's ideas, Plato. While Plato considered valid only the intellectual knowledge of the truth obtained through pure essences, that is, a purely intellectual knowledge, Aristotle began to consider the intellectual validity of another type of knowledge: the empirical.
When Plato died, Aristotle expected to receive the position of manager of the Academy, which he did not. Upset with the situation, in 347 a. C., the thinker moved to Artaneus, city in Asia Minor, where he received the post of political adviser.
In the year 343 a. C., Aristotle returned to Macedonia and became the teacher and intellectual mentor of the son of Emperor Philip II: Alexander, who would later become Alexander, the Great. In the year 335 a. C., the thinker founded high school, a philosophical school to teach its disciples. There were many similarities between Aristotle's Lyceum and Plato's Academy.
Read too: The trajectory of Alexander the Great
Video Lesson: Aristotle
Main ideas
Perhaps the greatest legacy that Aristotle left for posterity is the systematic classification of areas of knowledge, logic and the enhancement of empirical knowledge to obtain any practical knowledge about the world. Here are some of the main ideas of the Greek thinker:
→ Democracy
Unlike Plato, who was a critic of the Athenian democratic political system, Aristotle reaffirmed and defended democracy as the fairest way of governing.
→ Systematization
Until then, philosophical studies were disorganized from a systematic perspective. Classifications of modes of knowledge were not common. Aristotle was one of those who affirmed the importance of the classification that separates knowledge about logic, ethics, politics, physics, metaphysics and aesthetics.
→ Metaphysics
Aristotle is one of the main references in studies of metaphysics and, of course, the main reference on the subject in antiquity. Much of what he wrote about metaphysics came from Platonic studies, however, there is an immense load of concepts and ideas that Aristotle added or further clarified.
→ Ethics
In his book Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle presents his moral theories, defending what he called the Eudemian Ethics. The term "Eudemia" derives from the same root as the word daemon, which in the ancient Greek vocabulary would be an entity equivalent to consciousness, that is, a kind of voice that guides our thoughts and actions. Ethics, according to Aristotle, should be guided by prudence and moderation.
According to the philosopher, there was a median (a kind of fair measure) between two moral extremes, which were considered vicious (bad): one for excess of something and the other for lack of something. The just measure would be the moderation of action between the two vices, which would result in virtue. For example, courage would be a virtue in fair measure, comprised between the vice of temerity (excess courage) and cowardice (lack of courage).
→ Logic
Aristotle has written some treatises on logic in which he leaves us a precise method for understanding formal knowledge (of forms) through language. Logic is exact, as is mathematics, and allows judgment of the form of a statement, allowing one to see whether it makes sense or not. Aristotelian logic is mainly composed of the Aristotelian square and the linguistic verification of statements, which today can be done by truth tables. The philosopher also conceptualizes the notions of substance (that which allows a matter to follow a certain shape) and categories (conceptual differences that classify beings, such as quality, quantity, color etc.).
Read too: Substances and Categories in Aristotle
→ Empiricism
It can be said that Aristotle was the first thinker to theorize the importance of practical knowledge for understanding the truth and the world. According to the philosopher and unlike Plato, knowledge of the truth should necessarily pass through two fields of our knowledge: the pure intellect and the senses of the body. Our sensory capacity which is made possible by the sense organs (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste) is responsible for the first and most basic learning of our intellect. Those sensory data that we obtain through the senses, only after being collected, can be purified by the intellect and related to pure concepts.
In the image below, a cutout of the School of Athens, a fresco by Rafael Sanzio, we see Aristotle, on the viewer's right side, in the central plan, and Plato, on the left side. The attitude of the two thinkers in painting is emblematic. She presents the differences between her ideas about empirical and metaphysical knowledge, as Plato points his finger upwards, as if to say that the knowledge is in the world of ideas, while holding his Timaeus dialogue, which speaks of the formation of nature in the ideal and material planes. (imperfect). Aristotle, for his part, with his hand outstretched and holding his Ethics (book of practical philosophy), seems to signal that the practical, sensory and material world should also be looked at.
Plato and Aristotle in a cutout of the central plane of the School of Athens, Renaissance painting by Rafael Sanzio.
Construction
Today we have knowledge of 22 texts left by Aristotle. Most are extensive treatises written by the philosopher himself and, in many cases, divided into several books or volumes. Within his work, there are also some sets of notes that should be used in the philosopher's classes at the Lyceum. It is speculated that some of these notes were taken by his students.
See some of Aristotle's main writings separated by their general subjects:
metaphysical treatise: Metaphysics, a set of writings called Writings on First Philosophy by the philosopher and later gathered and cataloged by Andronicus of Rhodes, is an extensive treatise on a pure philosophy that would be dedicated to understanding what being in its totality is, that is, a kind of general science, master of all Sciences.
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Logic Treaties:
Categories – a small treatise on logic that presents the need to distinguish different categories so that the philosophical expression makes sense. Also presented in this book are the basics of classical logic.
of the interpretation – text that has points in common with the sophist, by Plato. It talks about truth and about the relationship of written words and mental operations, or reasoning.
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Physics Treatises:
Physica – consisting of eight books, the work makes scientific observations about Ancient Physics, noting some notions that the ancients already had about, for example, density and motion.
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Biology Treatises
Aristotle wrote some treatises on biology, analyzing the functioning of animal bodies, classification of plants and insects, and theories about the origin of life. Among his treatises on the subject are:
history of animals
Generation and Corruption
of the animal generation
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Anthropology Treatises
Da Alma – writings on the formation of the soul, which would inhabit and give movement and life to human bodies, in addition to rational capacity. It can also be considered an ancient psychological treatise.
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Treatises on writing (poetry and rhetoric)
Poetics
Rhetoric
Phrases
"Man is, by nature, a political animal."
"Man is a language animal."
"The smallest initial deviation from the truth multiplies to infinity as it goes along."
"The sage never says everything he thinks, but he thinks everything he says."
Summary
Aristotle was born in Stagira, Macedonia;
He had a solid background in Natural Sciences, something that contributed a lot to his philosophy;
He was a disciple of Plato;
He taught at Plato's Academy;
After Plato's death he returned to Macedonia, where he became tutor to Alexander the Great;
He founded the Lyceum, his own school for philosophical teachings;
It systematized and separated the philosophical knowledge of antiquity.
by Francisco Porfirio
Philosophy teacher
