(Originally written November 2, 2006 in Book 10)
OK. So, I haven't really done any reading here for this second test. It's in four hours. God please help me!
Aristotle
Ch. 6 - Aristotle: Metaphysics, Natural Science, Logic
Life
Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Stagira in Thrace.
He went to Plato's Academy in Athens at age seventeen. He was at the academy for twenty years.
His earliest works were very Platonic. He gradually reformulated Plato's theory through his life.
Aristotle's primary interest was:
1. To affirm the existence of a public and knowable reality
2. What is the good life for man?
After leaving the Academy Aristotle became a tutor for the young Alexander the Great.
Alexander's creation of the world empire and intermixing Greeks and Orientals ran directly counter to Aristotle's teachings.
But, Alexander always shipped exotic flora back to Aristotle from wherever he was so Aristotle could classify it.
Aristotle returned to Athens and established his own school, the Lyceum, around 335 BC.
Aristotle's works were most likely produced during his time at the Lyceum. The reason for their odd structure and choppy nature is unknown. One plausible explanation for this could be that they Aristotle's lecture notes.
When Alexander died, the anti-Macedonian feeling caused Aristotle to flee from Athens. He died one year later.
Aristotle's Aim
"He wanted to discover what is real" (Jones, 216).
Aristotle rejected the materialist view of reality and Plato's reality of forms.
Aristotle wanted to establish a conception of reality that allowed both values and sense objects to be real. Any satisfactory account of reality had to resolve the problem of change.
The nature of reality
Plato used the term 'form' as equated with reality. Aristotle used the term 'form' in another way.
Plato was a perfectionist, an idealist and was dominated by Utopian ideal. His practical applications wouldn't work because of his idealism and the lack of perfection in the world.
"Plato was otherworldly and idealistic, Aristotle was practical and empirical" (Jones, 218).
Plato was rooted in mathematics; Aristotle was rooted in biology.
Mathematics is perfect, but lifeless. Biology is imperfect, but has life. This caused major differences in conception of reality between Plato and Aristotle.
One's own temperamental basis will determine fi one is more Platonic or Aristotelian. "Those who are moved by Plato's 'lofty idealism' will probably feel that Aristotle by comparison is pedestrian and uninspiring" (Jones, 218). Plato and Aristotle shared some similar positions, but Aristotle was more Platonic than Plato was Aristotelian.
Aristotle's revision of Plato's Forms
Plato held forms to be separate and distinct from particulars; Aristotle held them to be embedded in the particulars.
Aristotle rejected Plato's dualism; he rejected the notion of two distinct worlds. He held there is only this, actual world.
In Aristotle, form is a characteristic of this world. It is distinguishable in the mind, like color or shape, but indistinguishable in fact.
He claimed that holding forms as separate and distinct was a problem of confusing intellectual analysis and ontological status.
Plato's forms are merely abstractions to Aristotle, not the whole of reality.
Individual substances compose reality.
Every given thing, at any given time has two aspects:
1) Whatness - common and shared properties or characteristics (ex. Socrates is what? a man, a greek, etc.)
2) Thingness - makes it a particular thing
Substances have a whiteness and a thingness, "Every individual is a member of a class, but it is also this particular member o its class.
Form and Matter
Generally, every thing has its specific form because of the purpose it is to server or the function it was made to do.
Form is teleological.
Form is the "overall plan of an object" (Jones, 221)
Function Determines Form
A thing's function gives it its unity.
It is a "whole" or thing rather than an aggregate of characteristics because of its function.
Form - "the purpose, or use, anything serves" (Jones, 221)
Matter - "the possibility of serving a purpose, the possibility of being of use" (Jones, 221).
With these conceptions, Aristotle produces a world view that makes the reality world as "an ordered hierarchy of individuals related to one another in such a way that each individual is at the same time the fulfillment of the purpose inherent in some other individual and the basis for a further development beyond itself" (Jones, 221).
Each individual thing has matter and form. Individually, matter and form are mere abstractions and not the totality of reality.
Whatness - Properties that make it what it is
Thingness - Every individual thing is just this particular thing and not another thing
Substances develop through time. Substances change, but endure. This is the problem of change Aristotle has to deal with.
Matter and form must be looked at as potentiality and actuality.
Take an acorn/oak for example:
1. This particular acorn
2. This particular acorn is different from all other acorns because it is this particular acorn (thingness)
3. But all acorn grow into oak trees (if planted)
4. The form of this acorn is an oak tree because it is its potentiality
5. The acorn's thingness is its matter or material composition. Its form or potential is an oak tree.
For Aristotle each individual thing is itself a life. Life is process.
A form, initially, is merely potentiality. It operates on the existent matter, shaping it and molding it until form moves from potentiality to actuality.
Form is a driving force working towards fulfillment.
"Entelechy" is Aristotle's word for this process. "Growth" is merely the visible result of form at work.
This is the end of Book 10. It may be one of the quickest I have finished yet and an extremely important one.
8/30/06 - 11/02/06
Chris Linehan
(continued in Book 11)
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