Aristotle384-322

The Master of those who know

The Philosopher

The Foal

Pupil of Plato, Preceptor of Alexander

• 150 books, 1/5 known

• Stagira

• 367-347 Academy

• 347 Atarneus

• 343-335 Mieza

• 335-322 Lyceum

• Chalcis

Plato used to call Aristotle the Foal. What did

he mean by this name? Clearly it was known

that foals kick their mothers when they have

had enough milk.

Aelian, Varia Historica 4, 9

A “naturalist”, “physicist”, astronomer, philosopher, logician, theologian,

moralist ...

• [Gryllus, Protrepticus], Rhetoric

• Prior Analytics

• Posterior Analytics

• Heavens, Meteorology

• 347-335 History of Animals, [Dissections]

More than a collection: A Philosophy of sciences

• Unity and coherence of sciences

• The logic is a tool for knowing the world

• Search for causes (efficient, material,

formal, final)

• Ontology

• Epistemology

Classifying

• "all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical" (Metaphysics 1025b25)

• By practical science, he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; by theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics.

The system

A tree

Theoretical------- Practical-------ProductiveTheol., Ethics, Politics Art, Rhetoric

Maths,

Natural Sciences

Met, Logic /Arithm, Geom./Biology, Botany, Chemistry

An order

If logic (or "analytics") is regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, the divisions of Aristotelian philosophy would consist of: (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics, Mathematics, (3) Practical Philosophy and (4) Poetical Philosophy.

The path: logic

• Inductive (inductive reasoning) : a type of reasoning which involves moving from a set of specific facts to a general conclusion.

• Deductivea type of argument where the truth of the conclusion is purported to follow necessarily or be a logical consequence of the premises

Ways to knowledge: logic

• All propositions are simple or compounded of simples.

• Every proposition contains 2 terms, predicate and subject.

• Every prop. is either affirmative or negative.• Every prop. is either universal or particular.• Every prop. is assertoric, apodeitic or

problematic.

A sullogismos is an argument in which,

certain things being assumed,

something different from the things

assumed follows from necessity by the

fact they hold.

Prior Analytics 1, 1 24b18

Posterior Analytics: Causes!

We think we know a thing, when we think we know both the cause because of which the thing is (and know that this is its cause) and also that it is not possible for it to be otherwise.

1, 2 71b9

The Four Causes• Material cause : the material out of

which something is composed. It is not about action.

• The formal cause tells us what a thing is, (blueprint)

• The efficient cause immediately sets the thing in motion.

• The final cause or telos is the purpose or end that something is supposed to serve.

Logic, metaphysics, reality

• The ten classes of predicates

• From things classified to the things into which they are classified: ten categories

• 10 classes or categories of things.

• The class of substances

Thus things are said in many ways to exist, but all with reference to one starting-point. For some are said to exist because they are substances, others because they are affections of substances, others because they are paths to substance or destructions or privations or qualities or producers or creators of substances or of things said to exist by reference to substance, or are negations of these or of substance.

Met 4, 2, 1003a33

A thing is a substance if it is both an

individual and a separable entity.

The rupture with Platonic Forms, but not

the rejection: Logic and Observation

supplant Mathematics and Dialectic.

Tradition, reputation, common sense enter philosophy...

Reliance on experience, observation, reports, witnesses, books...

A collection, but within a system and with laws for thinking, describing, classifying

The reconciliation between unity and diversity: the classification

The “discovery” of the world, rather than the reminiscence of the lost knowledge

The trust (reason, reality, knowledge)

Procedure of reliance on previous works

for * all men by nature seek truth,

* nature would not have given a desire impossible to satisfy

* consequently, if men generally believe something, then that is a sign that it is more likely to be true than false.

In all cases of discovery, when work is taken

over from others who have earlier laboured on

the matter, gradual progress is later made by

the hands of those who have taken it over,

whereas what is discovered at the very

beginning customarily makes but little advance

at first. And yet this is far more useful than the

later increase which depends upon it.

Sophistical Refutations, 34, 183b18

The father of tradition...

We have given sufficient consideration to this subject in the Physics; nevertheless, let us also set down the views of those who have preceded us in the enquiry into existing things and in the philosophical investigation of reality; for it is plain that they too say that there are certain principles and causes.

Metaphysics, 1, 3, 983 a 33

And this, as we proceed, will be useful to

our present enquiry: for either we shall

find some further kind of cause or else we

shall be more firmly convinced about

those we have just mentioned.

The joyful certainty of science

All animals have an innate capacity ot make discriminations, which is called perception and if perception is present in them, in some animals the percept is retained, and in others it is not.

Now for those in which it is not

retained... there is no knowledge

outside perception. But for some

perceivers it is possible to hold the

percept in their minds; and when many

such things have come about there is a

further difference, and some animals,

from the retention of such things come

to possess a general account, while

others do not.

Thus from perception, comes memory as we

call it; and from memory (when it occurs often

in connection with the same thing) experience

— for memories that are many in number form

a single experience; and from experience, or

from the whole universal that has come to rest

in the mind ... there comes a principle of skill

and knowledge.

Second Analytics, 2, 19 99b35

First let us consider the parts of men; for just

as people test currency by referring it to the

standard most familiar to them, so it is in other

cases too — and men are of necessity the sort

of animal most familiar to us.

History of Animals, 1, 6, 491 a19

Now the parts of men are clear enough to perception; nevertheless, in order that we may not break the proper sequence, and in order that we may rely on reason as well as perception, we must describe their parts, first the organic parts, then the uniform parts. Now the chief parts into which the body as a whole divides are these: head, neck, torso, two arms, two legs.

History of Animals, 1, 6, 491 a 19

The octopus uses its tentacles both as feet

and as hands: it draws in the food with the

two that are placed over its mouth; and the

last of its tentacles, which is very pointed and

the only one of them which is whitish and

bifurcated at the tip (…) this it uses for

copulation.

History of Animals, 4, 1, 524 a3