Aristotle

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) was born in the town of Stagira in Macedonia (Northern Greece). Aristotle's father Nicomachus was the physician for Amyntas III, King of Macedonia.

At The Academy

Aristotle moved to Athens in 367BC to study at the Academy as a pupil of Plato. During this time, Macedonia expanded in influence through skirmishes with other Greek city states and came to dominance under the leadership of Phillip II.

Aristotle spent twenty years studying under Plato at The Academy. During this period Aristotle's writings were in sync with the beliefs of the academy. It is likely that Aristotle spent more time classifying arguments and making direct observation than other members of the academy who were engaged in dialectics.

While Aristotle was clearly influenced by Plato, it is possible that the young Aristotle had a positive affect on Plato's later writings.

In Anatolia

On Plato's death, political control of The Academy passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus. In response to the turn in politics, Plato left Athens for the city of Assus in the Anatolia region of modern Turkey. This was the stomping grounds of the legendary Ionian Greeks.

While in Anatolia, Aristotle engaged in detailed classification of plants and animals. Admirers of Aristotle claim that in this period of his life, he had a profound impact on the emerging science of zoology.

Tutoring the Great

Circa 343 BC, Aristotle moved back to Macedonia to tutor Phillip II's 13 year old son Alexander.

Alexander went on to conquer the known world. He defeated both the Persians and the Ancient Egyptian armies. Alexander established a city on the Delta of the Nile called Alexandria which was to house both a major library and university.

The Lyceum

With the rising of Alexander's star, Aristotle returned to Athens to establish a school called the the Lyceum. The Lyceum contained a group of outstanding scholars called the "peripatetics" who engaged in a high quality exploration of natural philosophy. It is at the Lyceum where Aristotlean thought reached its height.

I strongly suspect that having two major schools in the same city created a sense of competition that dramatically improved the quality of scholarship. For example, it appears that the Lyceum often had lectures presented for public consumption, while the Academy tended to be more closed

Unfortunately, a direct comparison of the works of The Lyceum and The Academy is difficult as much of the work of the two schools has been lost.

There is one really odd aspect of history. Apparently, Aristotle and Plato both produced published works for public consumption and lecture notes for use within the school. Plato's lecture notes were lost with time, but his published works survived. Aristotle's lecture notes survive, but his published works were lost.

When reading Aristotle, it is important to realize that you are reading lecture notes, and not polished works intended for consumption. Literary comparisons between Aristotle and Plato are mired by the difference between the style of the writing (lecture notes are terse and incomplete).

Categorically Speaking

Aristotle invested a great deal of time directly observing and categorizing aspects of nature and philosophical thought. The lecture notes are relatively dry writings where Aristotle tries to find attributes to classify thoughts or physical matter.

The process of observing and categorizing is a fundamental aspect of quality science, but is also very tedious.

Aristotle's greatest contribution to Western History came through his painstaking categorizations of aspects of the human language.

Both the Sophists and the Platonic Academy had engaged in studies of the Greek language. The Sophists seemed more intent on finding tricks for winning arguments. The Academy would have been interested in language in so far as it helped in the process of uncovering Forms.

Aristotle's investigation seems geared toward wanting to develop a fuller understanding of the way that ideas and language work. Aristotle's system of investigation came to be known as "analysis."

The Rise of the Analytical Mind

Aristotle's system of analysis was later given the name "logic." As Aristotle was deeply interested in Platonic Forms, the system is sometimes referred to as "formal logic." In Aristotle's later writings, the philosopher seems more interested in the structure of the investigation than in the forms uncovered by the investigation. As such, some writers capitalize the term "Form" when used in reference to Plato, but leave it is lower case when referring to Aristotle.

A center piece of Aristotelian logic is a structure called a "syllogism." A syllogism. A syllogism is a simple structure containing a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion. For example the major premise may be "All men are mortal." The minor premise is "Socrates is a man." The conclusion is that "Socrates is mortal."

There is a lot more to the syllogism than I present here. I simply wish to point out that one can build surpriselingly complex logical structures from relatively simple logical constructs.

The Dialectical Argument

Aristotle's analytics preserves the dialectical argument as a means for defining terms and choosing postulates. The dialectical argument, however, is no longer the central focus of reason. The central focus or reason is the logical model that one is building. Philosophers would use dialectical to test aspects of their larger logical models.

The placement of the dialectical argument is a central theme of Rich Theory. I use the term Foundational Dialectics to refer to philosophical methods that make the dialectical argument the central focus of reasoning. With Aristotle we see the emergence of a more robust rational style where one uses dialectical arguments as part of an effort to build an analytical framework.

In a related vein. Aristotle found little use in the endless prattling about paradox that dominated earlier Greek thought. Aristotle made a few stabs at resolving paradoxes, but discouraged their use.

Legacy of Aristotle

In the work Aristotle's Children, Richard Rubenstein puts forward the argument that cultures that hold Aristotlean logic in high esteem tend to thrive, while those that reject Aristotelean logic tend to wane.

Ancient Greece entered its golden years following the innovation of Aristotle's analytics. The Muslim world had a brief flirtation with Aristotlean logic during which the Islamic world came to dominate the Middle East and North Africa.

The Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the founding of the United States all shared an esteem for logic. Whereas many of the darker ages in Western history shared a disregard for logic.

What Links Here

Internal References

The following list shows "internal" pages that link to this page.

• Rich Theory: Enter Aristotle

External References

The following lists shows links to external articles that link to this page.

• Britannica - Aristotle (added 2008-07-12 by Britannica) The Encyclopedia Britanica has an in depth professionally edited article on Aristotle.
• Wikipedia - Aristotle (added 2008-07-12 by wiki) Wikipedia offers a group edited article on Aristotle.

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