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Aristotle

Aristotle. 384-322 BCE. Brief Bio. Attend Plato’s Academy until Plato’s death in 347. Left for Asia minor and continued philosophical work as well as scientific work. Was hired to teach the son King Philip of Macedonia …Alexander (Alexander the Great)

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Aristotle

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  1. Aristotle 384-322 BCE

  2. Brief Bio • Attend Plato’s Academy until Plato’s death in 347. • Left for Asia minor and continued philosophical work as well as scientific work. • Was hired to teach the son King Philip of Macedonia …Alexander (Alexander the Great) • Returned to Athens and opened on academy • Married his second wife had a couple of children.

  3. Aristotelian Sciences • Three divisions • Theoretical Sciences • Practical Sciences • Productive Sciences

  4. Theoretical Sciences • Seeks Knowledge for its own sake • Aristotle called this first philosophy we would identify it as metaphysics. • It would include mathamaticis, physics, and natural philosophy • Would also include special sciences like biology, astronomy, etc. • Aristotle also believed that the soul was the basic principle of life….animals and plants too • (Natural philosophy)

  5. Practical Sciences • Concerns Conduct and goodness in action; both individual and societal. • In contrast to Theoretical Sciences, the focus here is on the creation of products external to the sciences themselves. • Politics and Ethics would fit here.

  6. Productive Sciences • Aims at the creation of beautiful and useful items. • Specific creation of artifacts and human productions broadly • Ship-building, agriculture, etc • Fine arts: music, dance, theatre as well

  7. Aristotelian Categories • Beings depend on substance to exist. • Aristotle offers 10 categories in which all things must exist in one or another. • Many flaws within this argument, and Aristotle himself offers no real defense to these categories. • It is clear that Aristotle aimed to categorize the basic type of beings that existed.

  8. Four Causes • Aristotle described four causes to explain change (Causes might be better explained as explanatory conditions or factors) • Being able to do this helps us truly understand an “object” • Material Cause • Formal Cause • Efficient or Moving Cause • Final Cause

  9. Material Cause • The material in which it consists • i.e. • A table would be the wood • A statue would be the bronze or granite, etc.

  10. Formal Cause • The form of the object • You might say: how the matter is arranged • This argument has a connection to Aristotle’s teacher Plato and his Theory of Forms.

  11. Efficient or Moving Cause • “the primary source of the change or rest” • An efficient cause of “an object”can be present even if “an object” is never actually produced and so should not be confused with a sufficient cause • Back to our table: The wood working art of making a table is the cause, even if a table is not made. (The art or the skill) • Can also be the act…the sculptor chiseling away at the marble.

  12. Final Cause • What the purpose of the “object” is. • i.e. • The acorn to grow into a tree • The calf to grow to the Bull • A statue is there to honor the individual it is designed after. • The boulder at the top of a steep hill to roll down to the bottom • Final cause can have associations that are required to complete the final cause. • So do some objects have no final cause??? Chance events • Can objects have multiple final causes, or does the object change thus a new final cause????

  13. Nicomachean Ethics • Aristotle’s best know work on ethics • Made up of actually 10 books • Asks the same Socratic question posed in Plato’s works: How should man best live? • Ethics was practical rather than theoretical. (He gave Socrates credit for making this happen.) • The highest aim of all human thinking is happiness, an ongoing way of being in action. That this leads to the development of a virtuous soul. (Being of “great soul”)

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