Aristotle

Master of Knowledge

The divine Aristotle’s name is a byword for knowledge and being learned: there is no thinker as influential on all kinds of disciplines that exist. He taught and contributed to knowledge in more than thirty subjects, exhibiting understanding of supernatural and mysterious caliber. For that reason, he is known as the Master of Knowledge.

At least one hundred and forty complete works full of his knowledge existed in Antiquity, reflecting his intensively legendary productive nature and prodigiousness. Even in the fallen world inaugurated by Christianity and Islam, Aristotle was simply named ‘the Philosopher’ by the majority of learned people, being indispensable to all kinds of disciplines.

THE DIVINE YOUTH

He was born in Stageira, a city on the coast of Macedonia founded by Ionian settlers. Legend has it that Aristotle was descended directly from Asclepius via his father Nicomachus’ side. It is known both of Aristotle’s parents died young; after this, he became the ward of Proxenus of Atarneus, his brother-in-law. During his later teenage years, Aristotle went to Pella, the capital of the nearby Kingdom of Macedon, during which he met representatives of the monarchy.

Hearing of the existence of a great philosopher without parallel in Athens, Aristotle decided to leave and attend the Academy of Plato there at around seventeen years of age. Greatly distinguished as a teacher and lecturer without parallel, Plato himself came to name Aristotle ‘the mind of the Academy’.

During his twenties in Athens, he experienced the Eleusinian Mysteries, which he references in his lost works via other writers as something distinct altogether to his usual acquisition of knowledge:

Φησὶ δὲ ὁ Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν τοῖς Ἀκροατικοῖς, ὅτι ἐν τῷ μυεῖσθαι οὐ μαθεῖν τι δεῖ, ἀλλὰ παθεῖν καὶ διατεθῆναι.

Aristotle says in his [esoteric] writings that, in being initiated (into the mysteries), one must not learn something, but rather experience something and be brought into a particular state.¹

After the passing of Plato, Aristotle was dissatisified with the teachings of Plato’s nephew Speusippus. He separated himself from the Academy.

THE PATRON OF ALEXANDER

Although the King of Macedon, Philip II, had destroyed Stageira, Aristotle’s hometown, he decided to take up residence in Macedon as the tutor to the Argead dynasty and the aristocracy, establishing a school at Mieza at the Temple of the Nymphs, the remnants of which still stand today.

It is recorded that Aristotle publicly taught Alexander and his companions about medicine, philosophy, morals, religion, logic and art for a number of years. Impressed with the character the teacher was cultivating in his son, Philip even rebuilt Stageira itself in honour of Aristotle alone. Following this, the philosopher created his first code of laws to ensure his native city would not be razed again.

Certain historians credit Aristotle with teaching Alexander mystical rites, deep matters of the occult and the art of self-healing. Even in Antiquity, it was known that this was anything but a normal encounter and that Aristotle had aspects of divinity.

Although history has depicted him as a severe and contemplative figure, owing to his dry and complex style, Aristotle exhibited an unusual presence compared to the more austere Socrates and Plato. He was known in person for his love of jewellery and fine clothing, even possessing a distinctive hairstyle – as if he had shown up from another time or place entirely. Before his absence from the confines of this world, it is known he made an elaborate and complex will, indicating the eccentricities of his personality.

In conversation, many report that Aristotle’s statements were laconic and yet often jovial in nature, often getting to the central part of an issue, in contrast to his works proper that tended to analyze and dissect any subject with extreme elaboration. Contemporaries found Aristotle to cut a strange and semi-divine figure, someone defying any sort of stereotype and sometimes difficult to understand. Unlike Plato and much like Socrates, Aristotle chose to minister among the public, which did not make for an easy life.

Ἀναφέρεται δ᾿ εἰς αὐτὸν καὶ ἀποφθέγματα κάλλιστα ταυτί. ἐρωτηθεὶς τί περιγίνεται κέρδος τοῖς ψευδομένοις, “ὅταν,” ἔφη, “λέγωσιν ἀληθῆ, μὴ πιστεύεσθαι.” ὀνειδιζόμενός ποτε ὅτι πονηρῷἀνθρώπῳ ἐλεημοσύνην ἔδωκεν, “οὐ τὸν τρόπον,” εἶπεν, “ἀλλὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἠλέησα.” συνεχὲς εἰώθει λέγειν πρός τε τοὺς φίλους καὶ τοὺς φοιτῶντας αὐτῷ, ἔνθα ἂν καὶ ὅπου διατρίβων ἔτυχεν, ὡςἡ μὲνὅρασις ἀπὸ τοῦ περιέχοντος [ἀέρος]λαμβάνει τὸ φῶς, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων. πολλάκις δὲ καὶ ἀποτεινόμενος τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἔφασκεν εὑρηκέναι πυροὺς καὶ νόμους· ἀλλὰ πυροῖς μὲνχρῆσθαι,νόμοις δὲ μή.

Τῆς παιδείας ἔφη τὰς μὲν ῥίζας εἶναι πικράς, τὸν δὲ καρπὸν γλυκύν. ἐρωτηθεὶς τί γηράσκει ταχύ, “χάρις,” ἔφη. ἐρωτηθεὶς τί ἐστιν ἐλπίς, “ἐγρηγορότος,” εἶπεν, “ἐνύπνιον.” Διογένους ἰσχάδ᾿αὐτῷ διδόντος νοήσας ὅτι, εἰ μὴ λάβοι, χρείαν εἴη μεμελετηκώς, λαβὼν ἔφη Διογένην μετὰ τῆς χρείας καὶ τὴν ἰσχάδα ἀπολωλεκέναι· πάλιν τε διδόντος λαβὼν καὶ μετεωρίσας ὡς τὰ παιδία εἰπώντε“μέγας Διογένης,” ἀπέδωκεν αὐτῷ. τριῶν ἔφη δεῖν παιδείᾳ, φύσεως, μαθήσεως, ἀσκήσεως. ἀκούσας ὑπό τινος λοιδορεῖσθαι, “ἀπόντα με,” ἔφη, “καὶ μαστιγούτω.

Some exceedingly happy sayings are attributed to him, which I proceed to quote. To the question, “What do people gain by telling lies?” his answer was, “Just this, that when they speak the truth they are not believed.” Being once reproached for giving alms to a bad man, he rejoined, “It was the man and not his character that I pitied.” He used to say to his friends and pupils without ceasing, whenever or wherever he happened to be lecturing, “As sight takes in light from the surrounding air, so does the soul from mathematics.” Frequently and at some length he would say that the Athenians were the discoverers of wheat and of laws; but, though they used wheat, they had no use for laws.

“The roots of education,” he said, “are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” Being asked, “What is it that soon grows old? “he answered, “Gratitude.” He was asked to define hope, and he replied, “It is a waking dream.” When Diogenes offered him dried figs, he saw that he had prepared something caustic to say if he did not take them; so he took them and said Diogenes had lost his figs and his jest into the bargain. And on another occasion he took them when they were offered, lifted them up aloft, as you do babies, and returned them with the exclamation, “Great is Diogenes.” Three things he declared to be indispensable for education: natural endowment, study, and constant practice. On hearing that some one abused him, he rejoined, “He may even scourge me so be it in my absence.” ²

Aristotle experienced problems with certain rulers such as Antipater and the eventual usurper Cassander (one of his students) after the army of Alexander had left Greece. He also experienced scrutiny from the Athenians who completely misunderstood his philosophy and found his association with Alexander suspect. He left for Euboea and passed control of his school down to Theophrastus, his successor, handing over many of his instructions. After this, his writings passed to the Library of the Kingdom of Pergamon and then to Athens.

It is known Aristotle ascended and was promoted as being a deity-like figure after his disappearance from the world. His followers gathered relics and even instituted a festival known as the Aristoteleia that was celebrated even in the time of Justinian. Sulla on account of this divinity also seized Aristotle’s writings and had them brought to Rome.

DISCLAIMER

Unusually for a denizen of Antiquity, due to the church using certain Aristotelian themes to support their rule, many of Aristotle’s works have survived to a rather considerable length. However, these works have still been altered, misrepresented, transcribed badly or are translated horribly from the Ancient Greek. It is known for example that certain source copies of the Politics diverge significantly in content. Parts of the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics are simply interpolated with each other randomly. All of his works intended to be read in a literary format are missing.

In the Western Roman Empire, only certain titles were available. The Eastern empire maintained much of the corpus but often ignored the side of Aristotle unrelated to theology and logic. Certain dialogues were only available in the Islamic world. Of the one hundred and forty known works of Aristotle, seventy or more either no longer exist or are fragmented in nature, suggesting some sort of destruction or removal given the maintenance of the so called ‘Corpus Aristotelicum’. Structured books such as On Wealth, On The Pythagoreans and On Monarchy intended for a reading audience are absent, while the Symposium, Eroticus, Eudemus and other dialogues are missing.

One of the documents found by Aristotle that is not part of the Middle Ages collection is the Constitution of the Athenians, discovered as a papyrus in Egypt in the late Victorian period. There are many missing writings by Aristotle: of these Constitutions for specific states, there are one hundred and fifty one others that are missing.

Even in the writings, Aristotle often asserts that he does not know everything and that what he is putting forth is an experiment in thinking, rather than the final and definitive conclusion on any subject theologians, astronomers, scientists and others have represented his studies as since the Middle Ages.

ANALYSIS AND CATEGORIZATION

Analysis for Aristotle was divorced from using pure reason to make deductions of things: it was a process requiring observation and collecting evidence to formulate conclusions, the foundation of scientific thought. He used deduction and induction to achieve this rather than relying on one method or the other.

Believing that areas of knowledge should be segmented into specific categories for ease of use, Aristotle introduced the idea of categorization into sciences and other areas.

LOGIC

Aristotelian logic is known to be the foundation of logic in scientific thought, the foundation of formal logic as a study:

ARISTOTLE created the science of logic: this is simple historical fact. It was not for him one of the branches of learning —theoretical, practical, or productive —but an instrument that all must use to reach true conclusions. His commentator, Alexander of Aphrodisias, was right in calling logic an organon or tool, and since the sixth century a.d. the word has been used as a general name for the logical treatises. ³

His work the Prior Analytics is the first extant study of logic and represents logic as the study of argument, a set of true or false statements leading to a truthful or false conclusion.

He introduced symbols known as variables to represent the subjects of arguments to avoid confusion, a novel development that allowed for more complex and systematic arguments to be made without confusing people. One development of Aristotle that is used today is the syllogism, containing a subject, predicate and operator, then a middle term, producing a relationship showing the validity of an argument. For example:

Premise 1:
Snakes have no legs. [Every A is in relation to B]

Premise 2:
A python is a snake. [C is A]

Premise 3:
Pythons have no legs. [C is B]

There are many complex nuances to syllogistic argument that can be consulted across all forms of learning. For the vast majority of philosophy’s existence, logical arguments have depended on Aristotle’s formulations, only even being remotely superseded by any new knowledge in the 19th century.

OPTICS

Aristotle was a major pioneer of understanding the nature of vision. Many of his observations on vision still hold up to this day. He rejected the idea that vision occurs through rays emanating from the eyes, instead advocating for a theory of "intromission" where the eye passively receives light and color. Modern optics confirms this, as vision indeed involves light reflecting off external objects and entering the eyes.

Closely integrating this with his philosophical conditions, Aristotle emphasized the importance of a transparent medium, such as air or water, between the object and the eye for vision to occur. He proposed that light transforms the transparent medium from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality, allowing us to see.

ETHICS

Aristotle asserted that just as the proper function of fingers are to manipulate matter physically, the proper function of a human being must be to arrive at excellence and union with higher powers. One has to arrive at being an ethical being through meditation and contemplation alongside practicing virtuous things, not simply by obeying spoken or written rules. Although Aristotle affirmed the usefulness of the law and morality codes, his emphasis on practice and habit means that ethics must be “lived out” rather than simply memorized or legislated.

Virtue is coupled with discernment. Aristotle was careful to not apply the same standards to every situation. The ‘ideal’ of what is the best behavior in defending one’s state and fighting during war is not the same ‘ideal’ one uses to win a competition to script the best play or the same type of standards in raising a child. Compared to the false morality of the Torah, Bible and Qu’ran that are systems of spiritual slavery, Aristotle understood human nature and the structure of proper evolution.

THE GOLDEN MEAN

In the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle re-iterated and thoroughly interpreted the Golden Mean in an ethical context, a philosophical idea that Socrates elaborated upon in the Dialogues. Aristotle observed many of the problems of ethics are tied to deficiency or excess of character or act. For example, while some people are obeisant and overly flattering to others, others demonstrate vulgarity, avoidance and aggression. It follows therefore that the best qualities in individuals, depending on the situation as stated above, must be located between the two extremes.

Aristotle considered the ideal individual to have mastered the four virtues traditionally translated as φρόνησις (Prudence), δικαιοσύνη (Justice), ἀνδρεία (Fortitude) and σωφροσύνη (Moderation) terms that are not easily translatable into English particularly after Christianity has colored the meanings of all of these terms, but all relate to the Temperance [LINK TO TEMPERANCE ETHICS] virtue of Apollo. To master these things requires living one’s life continually, meditating and being close to the Gods.

THE IDEAL STATE

In comparison to Socrates and Plato, Aristotle did not share the same pessimism towards mass participation in government per se. He believed that groups of people, so long as they were not ‘utterly degraded’, were often able to come up with superior judgements to the majority of individuals by themselves. He contemplated that if it was done correctly, it is an acceptable form of government known as a polity. However, if done badly, it is characterized as something he labels as an undesirable democracy (something the writer Polybius later reformulated somewhat differently as ‘okhlocracy’).

Likewise, he contemplated that monarchy is an acceptable form of government if led by a wise monarch, but if not, they revert a tyranny, something that Aristotle deemed contemptible and undesirable as the power of a wicked individual cannot be checked and that any monarch tied to a divine oath violating this was in serious error.

Aristotle also commented in Politics that he felt the three systems were in fact misunderstood, ill-defined and not well-comprehended. The distinction he iterated was not based on the participation of the many or the few, but whether the rulers ruled on the basis of the common good. Following on from this, he created many specific classifications of democracies and oligarchies in themselves, obtained by observing the structures of the Greek states surrounding him.

He warned, for example, about certain types of democracies led by demagogues flattering degraded masses:

This state of things is brought about by the demagogues; for in the states under democratic government guided by law a demagogue does not arise, but the best classes of citizens are in the most prominent position; but where the laws are not sovereign, then demagogues arise; for the common people become a single composite monarch, since the many are sovereign not as individuals but collectively. Yet what kind of democracy Homer means by the words ‘no blessing is the lordship of the many’—whether he means this kind or when those who rule as individuals are more numerous, is not clear.

However, a people of this sort, as being monarch, seeks to exercise monarchic rule through not being ruled by the law, and becomes despotic, so that flatterers are held in honor. And a democracy of this nature is comparable to the tyrannical form of monarchy, because their spirit is the same, and both exercise despotic control over the better classes, and the decrees voted by the assembly are like the commands issued in a tyranny, and the demagogues and the flatterers are the same people or a corresponding class, and either set has the very strongest influence with the respective ruling power, the flatterers with the tyrants and the demagogues with democracies… ⁴

He also iterated that the design of a good state rests on the structure of its constitution, a viewpoint that would influence the Roman Republic and the founders of the United States. Following on from the golden mean, Aristotle conceived that the best ideal state with the likeliest following soundness of constitution was helmed by the middle-classes and self-sufficient, contrasting with the states of ‘slaves and masters’ that tended to be generated from the state of war between the upper classes and the poor.

The greater point made here is that although both the wealthy and the masses have a ‘good’ in mind, their ignorance distorts them towards a completely destructive type of state that comes at the expense of the other, which then leads to evil, perverting things toward a corrupt oligarchy or democracy. Just as an individual can fall into corruption by becoming further from the golden mean, so can a state and its people.

At the time, Aristotle was influenced in his study of government by the hegemony of Thebes and rise of Macedon. Aristotle noted that Thebes was an oligarchy with certain limited popular institutions, yet having functioned as a tutor under the Macedonians, he noted the dynamism of the particular type of monarchy there. He also had studied in Athens and found many great things about the city, respecting its democratic system deeply, but noted it was in decline and full of problems.

BIOLOGY

Aristotle is known as the father of biological disciplines that enabled the categorization of animals. He deduced that there was a significant difference between vertebrates and invertebrates. Observing the natural world keenly and taking to dissection, he distinguished around five hundred species of birds, mammals, fish and insects in History of Animals and Parts of Animals. Far ahead of repeated beliefs to the contrary, he was able to deduce that whales and dolphins cannot be fish, while sharks and rays are.

Charles Darwin openly credited Aristotle as being the Father of Biology. Many of Aristotle’s observations could only later be proven through looking through industrial microscopes or histological techniques, such as his observation that the heart of an embryo develops first. These kinds of observations later inspired the father of medicine, Galen, to conduct his own work on studies of organs through dissection. The later anatomists and dissectors al-Razi, Leonardo da Vinci and Paracelsus were also inspired directly by Aristotle to conduct major research.

POETRY AND DRAMA

In the work Poetics, Aristotle understood drama to be mimesis, an imitation of existence. Hence they present universal truths about life while permitting a kind of abstraction and fantasy, allowing for a certain kind of contemplative effect in the viewer. Reflecting on one’s values or being presented with challenging material can stimulate the viewer into a different kind of life.

However, Aristotle also insisted that one aspect of art should be to educate for the purpose of enriching the viewer, rather than "art for art’s sake". Unfortunately, Muslim commentators such as Avicenna misinterpreted Aristotle’s works to claim the guideline meant pushing Islamist mores, something that is the opposite of any education. This distorted viewpoint of what Aristotle was saying passed into medieval Europe and conditioned strict censorship of plays on religious grounds until Shakespeare’s time.

METAPHYSICS

Aristotle’s Metaphysics explore the fundamental nature of reality. He introduces a discussion of what exists and how things can exist. Consequently, he introduces substance (ousia) as the primary category of being, distinguishing between form (the essence of a thing) and matter (what it is made of).

This leads to his theory of hylomorphism, where everything in the physical world is a composite of both, a distinct elaboration from Plato’s theories. He also discusses potentiality and actuality, explaining that things exist in a state of potential until they are fully realized in their actual form. At the highest level of reality, Aristotle posits the Unmoved Mover, a purely actual, non-material entity responsible for motion and order in the universe.

In Physics, Aristotle studies nature and change, arguing that all motion and transformation arise from four causes:

• material cause (what something is made of)
• formal cause (its defining structure)
• efficient cause (the agent that brings change)
• final cause (its purpose or goal)

Unlike modern physics, which focuses on mathematical laws, Aristotle sees nature as a purposeful system, where everything moves toward an end. He divides motion into natural motion such as the way fire naturally rises and violent motion which is caused by external forces.

Many of these arguments about physics are misunderstood, mistranslated and taken out of their divine context. Certain figures such as Galileo and Newton also had to depend on the characterization of Aristotle by the Scholastics, not necessarily what the text indicates.

Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Physics are deeply linked, as his concept of being in Metaphysics underpins his understanding of motion and change in Physics. His teleological approach where everything has a purpose shaped medieval philosophy, particularly in Scholasticism, and stimulated later debates in science and metaphysics.