FREE ESSAY ON ARISTOTLE

ARISTOTLE

ARISTOTLE 
Aristotle was born in 384 BC and lived until 322 BC. He was a Greek philosopher and
scientist, 
who shares with Plato being considered the most famous of ancient philosophers. He was
born at 
Stagira, in Macedonia, the son of a physician to the royal court. When he was 17, he went
to Athens 
to study at Plato's Academy. He stayed for about 20 years, as a student and then as a
teacher.
When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle moved to Assos, a city in Asia Minor, where a friend

of his named Hermias was the ruler. He counseled Hermias and married his niece and
adopted 
daughter, Pythias (wierd names, huh). After Hermias was captured and executed by the
Persians, 
Aristotle went to Pella, Macedonia's capital, and became the tutor of the king's young
son 
Alexander, later known as Alexander the Great. In 335, when Alexander became king,
Aristotle 
went back to Athens and established his own school, the Lyceum.Since a lot of the lessons

happenned when teachers and students were walking, it was nicknamed the Peripatetic
school 
(Peripatetic means walking). When Alexander died in 323 BC, strong anti-Macedonian
feeling 
was felt in Athens, and Aristotle went to a family estate in Euboea. He died there the
following 
year. 
Aristotle, like Plato, used his dialogue in his beginning years at the Academy. Apart
from a 
few fragments in the works of later writers, his dialogues have been wholly lost.
Aristotle also wrote 
some short technical writings, including a dictionary of philosophic terms and a summary
of the 
doctrines of Pythagoras (the guy from the Pythagorean Theorem). Of these, only a few
short pieces 
have survived. Still in good shape, though, are Aristotle's lecture notes for carefully
outlined courses 
treating almost every type of knowledge and art. The writings that made him famous are
mostly these, 
which were collected by other editors. .
Among the writings are short informative lectures on logic, called Organon 
(which means instrument), because they provide the means by which positive knowledge is
to be 
attained(They're not my words, I'm quoting him). His writing on natural science include
Physics, 
which gives a huge amount of information on astronomy, meteorology, plants, and animals.
His 
writings on the nature, scope, and properties of being, (I know what one of them means!)
which 
Aristotle called First Philosophy (to him it was Prote philosophia), were given the title
Metaphysics 
in the first published version of his works (around 60 BC), because in that edition they
followed 
Physics. His belief of the Prime Mover, or first cause, was pure intellect, perfect in
unity,
immutable, 
and, as he said, the thought of thought, is given in the Metaphysics. Other famous works
include his 
Rhetoric, his Poetics (which we only have incomplete pieces of), and his Politics (also
incomplete). 
Because of the influence of his father's medical profession, Aristotle's philosophy was
mainly stressed 
on biology, the opposite of Plato's emphasis on mathematics. Aristotle regarded the world
as made 
up of individuals (substances) occurring in fixed natural kinds (species) (more confusing
quotes, 
yippey!). He said each individual has its built-in specific pattern of development and
grows toward 
proper self-realization as a specimen of its type. Growth, purpose, and direction are
thus built into 
nature. Although science studies many things, according to Aristotle, these things find
their existence 
in particular individuals. Science and philosophy must therefore balance, not simply
choose between, 
the claims of empiricism (observation and sense experience) and formalism (rational
deduction).
One of the most famous of Aristotle's contributions was a new notion of causality. Each
thing or 
event, he thought, has more than one 'reason' that helps to explain what, why, and where
it is. 
Earlier Greek thinkers thought that only one sort of cause can explain itself; Aristotle
said four. (The 
word Aristotle uses, aition, a responsible, explanatory factor is not th same as the word
cause now.)
These four causes are the material cause, (the matter out of which a thing is made); the
efficient 
cause, (the source of motion, generation, or change); the formal cause, (the species,
kind, or type); 
and the final cause, (the goal, or full development, of an individual, or the intended
function of a 
construction or invention.) Although I don't know what these mean, they sound
philosiphical.an 
example he gave is a young lion is made up of tissues and organs, its material cause; the
efficient 
cause is its parents, who generated it; the formal cause is its species, lion; and its
final cause is its
built-
in drive toward maturity. Another example he gave is the material cause of a statue is
the marble 
from which it was carved; the efficient cause is the sculptor; the formal cause is the
shape the sculptor 
realized Hermes, perhaps; and the final cause is its function, to be a work of fine art.
In each wy, Aristotle says that something can be better understood when its causes can be
said in 
specific terms rather than in general terms. So it is more informative to know that a
sculptor made 
the statue than to know that an artist made it; and even more informative to know that
Polycleitus 
chiseled it rather than simply that a sculptor did so.
In astronomy, Aristotle proposed a finite, spherical universe, with the earth at its
center. The 
center is made up of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. In Aristotle's physics,
all of these
four 
elements has a right place, determined by its relative heaviness, its specific gravity.
Each moves 
naturally in a straight line. Earth goes down, fire up toward its proper place, where it
will be at rest.
So 
Earth's motion is always in a line and always comes to a halt. The heavens, though, move
naturally 
and endlessly in a complex circular motion. The heavens, according to, must be made of a
fifth, and 
different element, which he called aither. The strongest element, aither can't change
other than 
change of place in a circle movement. Aristotle's theory that linear motion always takes
place through 
a resisting medium is actually true for all planets that we can see motions. 
Honestly, to me it seems like Aristotle was crazy. Many of his theories were completely
false, 
and I don't really understand why he is so famous. If I started saying the things he says
now, I'd be 
thrown into a mental hospital.