All About Aristotle

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who shaped the trajectory of Western intellectual history for two millennia. He was born in Stagirus in 384 BCE and died in Chalcis in 322 BCE. He was the son of Amyntas III court physician, Alexander the Great’s grandfather. He enrolled in the Academy of Plato in Athens in 367 and stayed there for 20 years. Plato returned to Macedonia after his death in 348/347, when he became Alexander’s instructor. In 335, he established the Lyceum, his school in Athens. His intellectual horizons were broad, encompassing most sciences and many arts.

Aristotle was one of the greatest philosophers of all time and the world’s first true scientist. He made groundbreaking contributions to all branches of philosophy and science, inventing the topic of formal logic and identifying and exploring the links between scientific disciplines. Aristotle was also a teacher and established the Lyceum in Athens, which he named after himself.

Aristotle Biography 

Aristotle was born in the town of Stagira, or Stageirus, or Stagirus, on the Chalcidic peninsula in northern Greece. Nicomachus, a physician, was his father, and Phaestis was his mother. Nicomachus was undoubtedly a resident of Chalcidice at the time of Aristotle where he was born. Aristotle’s mother, Phaestis, was in Euboea, a place called Chalcis, where her family owned the property.

Nicomachus would have wished for Aristotle to pursue a medical career, as medical expertise was typically passed down from father to son. It was not a civilisation where people went to see a doctor; instead, doctors travelled across the country caring for the sick. Even though we know little about Aristotle’s early years, he likely joined his father on his journeys. We are only aware that Nicomachus found the conditions in Chalcidice to be less than ideal, and he began working in Macedonia with such efficiency that he was quickly appointed as Amyntas III, King of Macedonia’s physician.

Aristotle’s father died while he was about ten years old, and this meant that Aristotle could no longer follow in his father’s footsteps as a physician. Since his mother died early, Aristotle was raised by Proxenus of Atarneus, who was his guardian or uncle (or might be a family friend, as some of the authors suggested). Proxenus taught Aristotle Greek, rhetoric, and poetry in addition to the biological lessons Nicomachus had imparted to his son as part of his medical education. This, too, might have been a part of Aristotle’s early schooling, given that he later authored great Greek prose.

Aristotle Theory 

Aristotle’s Theory of Universals, often known as the hylomorphic theory of immanent realism, is Aristotle’s classical solution to the Problem of Universals. The properties or attributes that ordinary objects or things share are known as universals, and they can be recognised in the world’s types, attributes, and relationships. 

Consider the following scenario: a dish of red apples sits on a table. Each apple in that bowl will have several characteristics in common, such as the red colouration of “redness.” Depending on their age, they will share some of the “ripeness” quality. They may also be of different ages, influencing their colour, but they will all have the same “apples.” These are the characteristics that all apples have in common.

The Universals Problem poses three questions. Is it true that universals exist? Where do they exist, if they do? Also, if they do exist, how can we find out about them? Universals, according to Aristotle, are incorporeal and universal, yet they only exist when they are instantiated; they only exist in things.  

According to Aristotle, universal is the same in all of its manifestations. All red things are alike in that they all have the same universal quality of redness. No Platonic Form of redness exists independently of all other red things; rather, each red thing has a copy of the same quality, redness. Knowledge of the universals does not come from a supernatural source for the Aristotelian; it is gained by active intelligence and experience.

Aristotle Principle 

Aristotle argued that when constructing an argument, three principles are used: ethos, pathos, and logos. His proposal was based on three forms of appeals: ethos (ethical appeal), pathos (emotional appeal), and logos (logic appeal). A good argument, according to Aristotle, would include all three.

‘There are three major types of persuasive modes given by the spoken word. The first is based on the speaker’s character [ethos], the second on inducing a certain state of mind in the listener [pathos], and the third on the proof, or seeming proof, offered by the words of the speech itself [logos]. The speaker’s character is used to persuade us when the speech is delivered so that we believe he is believable.’- ARISTOTLE.

Conclusion

Aristotle established his school, the Lyceum, in Athens in 335 BC. He arrived in the city with assistants to run the school and a substantial collection of teaching materials he had amassed while in Macedonia, including books, maps, and other items that may or may not have been meant to aid Aristotle in his campaign to become president of the Academy. The Academy has traditionally had narrow interests, but Aristotle’s Lyceum pursued a larger range of topics. Aristotle gave the careful study of nature and all the other disciplines he examined primacy.