The Biography of Greek Philosopher Aristotle

Hi, and welcome to the knowledge video channel. In today's video, we are going to learn everything about the history of Aristotle. If you like this content, don't forget to leave a like and hit the subscribe button. Aristotle, 384–322 BC, was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the classical period in ancient Greece. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology and government. His father, Niomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. Some of Aristotle's zoological observations found in his biology, such as on the hectocotyl, reproductive, arm of the octopus, were disbelieved until the 19th century. He also influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies, 800–1400, during the middle ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the early church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as the first teacher, and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply the philosopher, while the poet Dante called him the master of those who know. Aristotle has been called the father of logic, the father of biology, the father of political science, the father of zoology, the father of embryology, the father of natural law, the father of scientific method, the father of rhetoric, the father of psychology, the father of realism, the father of criticism, the father of individualism, the father of teleology, and the father of meteorology. Life. In general, the details of Aristotle's life are not well established. During Aristotle's time in the Macedonian court, he gave lessons not only to Alexander but also to two other future kings, Ptolemy and Cassander. In 322 BC, Demophilus and Eurymedon the Hierophant reportedly denounced Aristotle for impiety, prompting him to flee to his mother's family estate in Chilsis, Omnubia, at which occasion he was said to have stated, I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy, a reference to Athens's trial and execution of Socrates. Logic. With the prior analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest study of formal logic, and his conception of it was the dominant form of Western logic until 19th century advances in mathematical logic. Organon, what is today called Aristotelian logic with its types of syllogism, methods of logical argument, Aristotle himself would have labelled analytics. The books are categories on interpretation prior analytics posterior analytics topics on sophistical refutations the order of the books, or the teachings from which they are composed, is not certain, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. It goes from the basics, the analysis of simple terms in the categories, the analysis of propositions and their elementary relations in on interpretation, to the study of more complex forms, namely, syllogisms, in the analytics, and dialectics, in the topics on sophistical refutations. Metaphysics. The word metaphysics appears to have been coined by the first century ad editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works to the treatise we know by the name metaphysics. He wrote in his metaphysics, 1026 A 16, if there were no other independent things besides the composite natural ones, the study of nature would be the primary kind of knowledge but if there is some motionless independent thing, the knowledge of this precedes it and is first philosophy, and it is universal in just this way, because it is first, substance, Aristotle examines the concepts of substance, ausere, and essence, to tie any nigh, the what it was to be, in his metaphysics, book seven, and he concludes that a particular substance is a combination of both matter and form, a philosophical theory called hylomorphism, imminent realism, like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal, Aristotle's ontology places the universal, Cthulhu, in particulars, Cathechistan, things in the world, whereas for Plato the universal is a separately existing form which actual things imitate, potentiality and actuality, with regard to the change, kinesis, and its causes now, as he defines in his physics and on a, he distinguishes the coming to be from growth and diminution, which is change in quantity locomotion, which is change in space and alteration, which is change in quality, for example, the eyes possess the potentiality of sight, innate, being acted upon, while the capability of playing the flute can be possessed by learning, exercise, acting, because the end, to lose, is the principle of every change, and for the sake of the end exists potentiality, therefore actuality is the end, for that for the sake of which, to who Henica, a thing is, is its principle, and the becoming is for the sake of the end and the actuality is the end, and it is for the sake of this that the potentiality is acquired, with this definition of the particular substance, that is, matter and form, Aristotle tries to solve the problem of the for example, what is it that makes a man one, epistemology, Aristotle's imminent realism means his epistemology is based on the study of things that exist or happen in the world, and rises to knowledge of the universal, whereas for Plato epistemology begins with knowledge of universal forms, or ideas, and descends to knowledge of particular imitations of these, natural philosophy, Aristotle's natural philosophy spans a wide range of natural phenomena including those now covered by physics, biology and other natural sciences, in Aristotle's terminology, natural philosophy is a branch of philosophy examining the phenomena of the natural world, and includes fields that would be regarded today as physics, biology and other natural sciences, five elements, in his On Generation and Corruption, Aristotle related each of the four elements proposed earlier by Empedocles, earth, water, air, and fire, to two of the four sensible qualities, hot, cold, wet, and dry, motion, Aristotle describes two kinds of motion, violent or unnatural motion, such as that of a thrown stone, in the physics, 254 b 10, and natural motion, such as of a falling object, in On the Heavens, 308 20. Newton's forced motion corresponds to Aristotle's violent motion with its external agent, but Aristotle's assumption that the agent's effect stops immediately it stops acting, for example, the ball leaves the thrower's hand, has awkward consequences, he has to suppose that surrounding fluid helps to push the ball along to make it continue to rise even though the hand is no longer acting on it, resulting in the medieval theory of impetus, four causes, Aristotle suggested that the reason for anything coming about can be attributed to four different types of simultaneously active factors, it embraces the account of causes in terms of fundamental principles or general laws, as the whole, that is, macro structure, is the cause of its parts, a relationship known as the whole part causation, it identifies what makes of what is made and what causes change of what is changed and so suggests all sorts of agents, non living or living, acting as the sources of change or movement or rest, representing the current understanding of causality as the relation of cause and effect, this covers the modern definitions of cause as either the agent or agency or particular events or states of affairs, the final cause, to lose, is its purpose, the reason why a thing exists or is done, including both purposeful and instrumental actions and activities, optics, Aristotle describes experiments in optics using a camera obscura in problems, book 15, chance and spontaneity, according to Aristotle, spontaneity and chance are causes of some things, distinguishable from other types of cause such as simple necessity, astronomy, in astronomy, Aristotle refuted Democritus's claim that the Milky Way was made up of those stars which are shaded by the earth from the sun's rays, pointing out correctly that if the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the distance of the stars from the earth many times greater than that of the sun, then the sun shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them, geology, natural sciences, Aristotle was one of the first people to record any geological observations, the geologist Charles Lyell noted that Aristotle described such change, including lakes that had dried up and deserts that had become watered by rivers, giving us examples the growth of the Nile delta since the time of Homer, and the upheaving of one of the Aeolian islands, previous to a volcanic eruption, for example, he made some of the earliest observations about desalination, he observed early, and correctly, that when sea water is heated, fresh water evaporates and that the oceans are then replenished by the cycle of rainfall and river runoff, I have proved by experiment that salt water evaporated forms fresh and the vapor does not when it condenses condense into sea water again. Empirical research, Aristotle was the first person to study biology systematically, and biology forms a large part of his writings, scientific style, Aristotle did not do experiments in the modern sense, from the data he collected and documented, Aristotle inferred quite a number of rules relating the life history features of the live bearing tetrapods, terrestrial placental mammals, that he studied, classification of living things, Aristotle distinguished about 500 species of animals, arranging these in the history of animals in a graded scale of perfection, Aristotle's psychology, given in his treatise on the soul, peri-psyches, posits three kinds of soul, psyches, the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul, the unique part of the human, rational soul is its ability to receive forms of other things and to compare them using the new, intellect, and logos, reason, memory, according to Aristotle in on the soul, memory is the ability to hold a perceived experience in the mind and to distinguish between the internal appearance and an occurrence in the past, Aristotle uses the term memory for the actual retaining of an experience in the impression that can develop from sensation, and for the intellectual anxiety that comes with the impression because it is formed at a particular time and processing specific contents, because Aristotle believes people receive all kinds of sense perceptions and perceive them as impressions, people are continually weaving together new impressions of experiences, Aristotle believed the chain of thought, which ends in recollection of certain impressions, was connected systematically in relationships such as similarity, contrast, and contiguity, described in his laws of association, according to Aristotle, association is the power innate in a mental state, which operates upon the unexpressed remains of former experiences, allowing them to rise and be recalled, dreams, Aristotle describes sleep in on sleep and wakefulness, since a person sleeping is in a suggestible state and unable to make judgments, they become easily deceived by what appears in their dreams, like the infatuated person, for example, if, while a person is sleeping, a door shuts and in their dream they hear a door is shut, this sensory experience is not part of the dream, ethics, Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, that is, one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake, when the best people come to live life this way their practical wisdom, forensis, and their intellect, nou, can develop with each other towards the highest possible human virtue, the wisdom of an accomplished theoretical or speculative thinker, or in other words, a philosopher, politics, in addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled politics, although he was aware of the existence and potential of larger empires, the natural community according to Aristotle was the city, polis, which functions as a political community or partnership, koinonia, the aim of the city is not just to avoid injustice or for economic stability, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts, the political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together, in proterepticus, the character Aristotle states, for we all agree that the most excellent man should rule, that is, the supreme by nature, and that the law rules and alone is authoritative but the law is a intelligence, that is and since everybody chooses most of all what conforms to their own proper dispositions, a just man choosing to live justly, a man with bravery to live bravely, likewise a self-controlled man to live with self-control, it is clear that the intelligent man will choose most of all to be intelligent for this is the function of that capacity, as Plato's disciple Aristotle was rather skeptical concerning democracy and, following Plato's vague ideas, he developed a coherent theory of integrating various forms of power into a so-called mixed state, it is constitutional to take from oligarchy that offices are to be elected, and from democracy that this is not to be on a property qualification, economics, Aristotle made substantial contributions to economic thought, especially to thought in the middle ages, Aristotle believed that although communal arrangements may seem beneficial to society, and that although private property is often blamed for social strife, such evils in fact come from human nature, he had a low opinion of retail, believing that contrary to using money to procure things one needs and managing the household, retail trade seeks to make a profit, similarly, Aristotle considered making a profit through interest unnatural, as it makes a gain out of the money itself, and not from its use, rhetoric and poetics, Aristotle's rhetoric proposes that a speaker can use three basic kinds of appeals to persuade his audience, ethos, an appeal to the speaker's character, pathos, an appeal to the audience's emotion, and logos, an appeal to logical reasoning, he also categorizes rhetoric into three genres, epideictic, ceremonial speeches dealing with praise or blame, forensic, judicial speeches over guilt or innocence, and deliberative, speeches calling on an audience to make a decision on an issue, Aristotle writes in his poetics that epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and dance are all fundamentally acts of mimesis, imitation, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner, views on women, Aristotle's analysis of procreation describes an active, ensouling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive female element, influence, more than 2,300 years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived, among countless other achievements, Aristotle was the founder of formal logic, pioneered the study of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method, Tain like Ocone, writing in the classical tradition, observes that his achievement in founding two sciences is unmatched, and his reach in influencing every branch of intellectual enterprise including western ethical and political theory, theology, rhetoric and literary analysis is equally long, on his successor, Theophrastus, Aristotle's pupil and successor, Theophrastus, wrote the history of plants, a pioneering work in botany, on later Greek philosophers, the immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the peripatetic school, although his respect for Aristotle was diminished as his travels made it clear that much of Aristotle's geography was clearly wrong, when the old philosopher released his works to the public, Alexander complained thou hast not done well to publish thy achromatic doctrines for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men's common property, on Hellenistic science, after Theophrastus, the Lyceum failed to produce any original work, the first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation, though a few ancient atomists such as Lucretius challenged the teleological viewpoint of Aristotelian ideas about life, teleology, and after the rise of Christianity, natural theology, would remain central to biological thought essentially until the 18th and 19th centuries, on Byzantine scholars, Greek Christian scribes played a crucial role in the preservation of Aristotle by copying all the extant Greek language manuscripts of the corpus, on the medieval Islamic world, Aristotle was one of the most revered Western thinkers in early Islamic theology, the title teacher was first given to Aristotle by Muslim scholars, and was later used by Western philosophers, as in the famous poem of Dante, who were influenced by the tradition of Islamic philosophy, on medieval Europe, with the loss of the study of ancient Greek in the early medieval Latin West, Aristotle 1100 except through the Latin translation of the Organon made by Boethius, after the scholastic Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologica, working from Moerbeek's translations and calling Aristotle the philosopher, the demand for Aristotle's writings grew, and the Greek manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe that continued into the Renaissance, the medieval English poet Chaucer describes his student as being happy by having a cautionary medieval tale held that Aristotle advised his pupil Alexander to avoid the king's seductive mistress, Phyllis, but was himself captivated by her, and allowed her to ride him, on early modern scientists, in the early modern period, scientists such as William Harvey in England and Galileo Galilei in Italy reacted against the theories of Aristotle and other classical era thinkers like Galen, establishing new theories based to some degree on observation and experiment, on 18th slash 19th century thinkers, the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken nearly all of his political philosophy from Aristotle, also, in later editions of the book on the origin of species, Darwin traced evolutionary ideas as far back as Aristotle the text he cites is a summary by Aristotle of the ideas of the earlier Greek philosopher Empedocles, modern rejection and rehabilitation, during the 20th century, Aristotle's work was widely criticized, in 1985, the biologist Peter Medawar could still state in pure 17th century tones that Aristotle had assembled a strange and generally speaking rather tiresome farrago of hearsay, imperfect observation, wishful thinking and credulity amounting to downright gullibility, Hobbes rejected one of the most famous theses of Aristotle's politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen, Kukone observed, too, that that most enduring of romantic images, Aristotle tutoring the future conqueror Alexander remained current, as in the 2004 film Alexander, while the firm rules of Aristotle's theory of drama have ensured a role for the poetics in Hollywood, corpus aristotelicum, the works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are collected in the corpus aristotelicum, reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Becker's Aristotle's opera Edita Academia Regia Borussica, Berlin, 1831-1870, which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works, loss and preservation, Aristotle wrote his works on papyrus scrolls, the common writing medium of that era, the consensus is that Andronicus of Rhodes collected the esoteric works of Aristotle's school which existed in the form of smaller, separate works, distinguished them from those of Theophrastus and other peripatetics, edited them, and finally compiled them into the more cohesive, larger works as they are known today, depictions, paintings Aristotle has been depicted by major artists including Lucas Cranach the Elder, Justus van Gent, Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Giuseppe de Ribera, Rembrandt, and Francesco Hares over the centuries. 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