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Aristotle’s
Logic
In the process of developing such empirical research, Aristotle did more to
shape the early sense of orderly inquiry into the realm of existence than
anyone else. His thinking was clear, solidly built around a core
set of ideas that progressed logically from step to step in their development.
In fact Aristotle developed most of the basic rules for clear logic, ones
still respected today.
Aristotle's "Categories"
Like his
teacher, Plato, Aristotle
distinguished between Universals and Particulars. But unlike Plato, Aristotle
believed that only Particulars have actual existence. Only the Particulars
(in the heavens and on earth) are truly real.
Aristotle first began by looking for Plato's Ideon
or Forms actually contained within this visible world. But
Aristotle eventually surmised that these Ideon or Forms were merely
abstractions in our mind which we use to organize into useful forms or kategoriai ("categories") the immense information that comes to us about the surrounding world. Inother words, the Universals or Ideas
and Forms of his teacher Plato exist not of their own (as distinct entities
in heaven!) but rather are contained within a group of particular things
nominally common to each other, thus "categories." "Red," for instance,
is a category. Red exists within particular things and gives those things
part of their defining quality – as for instance in red roosters.
But "red" has no meaningful existence in itself apart from its place within
particulars. There is no such thing within existence (even in the heavens)
we can identify as a "Red" Ideon.
Aristotle's Empiricism
Also unlike his teacher, Aristotle was very focused on
the things of the
earth, its "Particulars." He had what we would call a very strong empirical
mindset – which delighted in discovering new shapes and forms in the world
around him. He busily observed at every opportunity all physical
reality around him. His goal was to develop categorical knowledge of all
the world (grouping all reality into different scientific categories) –
then employ inductive reasoning from such categorical observations to develop
universal observations about life.
Consequently,
he was a great organizer of the world's "particulars," (the ones
disdained by his teacher Plato), setting up categories and rules for
orderly thinking – not only in biology and geology, but also in logic,
ethics, and politics.
Indeed,
Aristotle followed closely
the conquest of his own pupil, Alexander (the Great) – receiving from Alexander
biological and geological specimens, samples of things that Aristotle had
never seen before back in Greece (or his native Thrace). Thus he
added new Categories to his ever growing field of biology.
ARISTOTLE'S VIEW ON THE DYNAMICS OF DEVELOPMENT |
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Things
obviously change. But that does not mean (as many Greek
philosophers claimed) that change implied imperfection or corruption of
something. The form of something (a dog, a tree, a child, etc.)
not only defines its nature (its "is"), it defines how that particular
form will also develop over time (its "becoming") ... maturing in its
growth from mere potentiality to actuality – according to a specific
pattern characteristic of that particular form. Thus such change
is obviously a good thing.
Human development is
the most complex of all ... for it includes mental as well as physical
development. A child starts out with a relatively blank mind ...
and adds sensory information to that mind as personal experience
develops. The mind is gifted with logical powers able to organize
that incoming information into useful knowledge. Thus Aristotle
sees knowledge as something that is basically acquired through sensory
experience. However, Aristotle did have some touch of Plato in
him when he affirmed how the human mind (nous) is best brought to
action through contact with the divine Nous.
Furthermore,
he stressed the importance of how life begets new life, seeds become
plants, which then produce the seeds for new plants; babies become
adults, who in turn produce a new generation of babies ... etc.
All of life is about life's potentials ... from immaturity to maturity
... and then even to death (to make way for the new).
Even life itself – the kosmos itself – came from some original source, some first cause ... which Aristotle recognized as God.
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ARISTOTLE'S COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY |
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The realm of the divine
Indeed,
when it came to discussing things beyond this earthly realm – the
heavenly realm of the sun, moon and stars – Aristotle evidenced a
typically Greek religious awe. Though the earth might be marked
with physical imperfections, these heavenly bodies were the essence of
the divine, for they were perfect – perfect in their circular shape and
circular movement. Thus for Aristotle the perfect-imperfect
dualism in life occurred not between things seen and unseen (as it had
for Plato, including the visible starry realm ... which Plato also
viewed as somewhat imperfect), but between the imperfect things seen on
earth and the perfect things seen in the starry heavens.
Indeed,
Aristotle had a very strong sense of the existence of some kind of
higher Form located in the heavens, some kind of ultimate reality that
transcended all life here on earth. This is to say that Aristotle
did have a well-formed belief of the existence of God.
To Aristotle,
God was the Supreme
Form or Idea that his teacher Plato was so focused on.
This God
or Supreme Form was not some person wandering about on the top of Mount
Olympus (the view of the Greek commoner) – but rather was pure
intellect
(Greek: Nous) – perfectly and fully realized potential. This
God
was uncreated, eternal and unchangeable: that is, perfect in his being
(the opposite of those things that were created, mortal and changeable
– and thus imperfect). This is one key point in which
Aristotle
continued to hold a view much like his teacher Plato.
Creation and Its Guiding Sense
of Purpose
God put
creation into motion through
desiring or thinking things into being and then drawing all things toward
himself as an object of existential desire. In other words, God
placed within all created things the instinctive or natural desire to be
drawn – in their doings, in their sense of purpose, in their sense of self-worth
– to God. They instinctively are drawn to the divine design for their
particular lives that God himself holds for them within his own divine
thoughts.
Thus the
‘sensible’ world (the world
we see directly around us) – though imperfect in form – is moving toward
God (pure form) by its attraction for or love of God. This world thus is
ever-perfecting according to its particular nature – as God himself intended
for it.
The human intellect (nous) is mysteriously
connected with the divine intellect (Nous). This is what gives man his
powers of inspiration, insight, imagination – his abilities to understand
or to grasp the realities (actualities/potentialities) around him.
In sum,
man's noblest impulse is
to be drawn to God – to be joined to him: human nous to the divine
Nous.
Cosmology
The
Cosmos (universe) is eternal
in its being – and thus uncreated (though the earth we live on is created
and thus not eternal). Time itself is uncreated – it has always
existed.
Likewise, the heavens above (the
sky, stars, sun and moon) are distinctly of a different nature from the
things of earth [a view held by Plato, and most other philosophers of the
time]. Things on the earth are subject to decay – as elements decay (fire,
air, water, earth). But things above the earth are perfect (even in their
shape) and of a higher order – divine (like gods).
The planets
rank close to the heavens
in nature, being perfect in nature and motion. Each planet is governed
by a divine mover of its own along its perfect heavenly course.
The
heavenlies are moved in their
perfect courses by the Will of the Unmoved Mover. The Unmoved Mover or
Divine First Cause is, however, not the same as God. The Unmoved
Mover
is a creation of God (thus a lesser order than pure God) who or which also
seeks God!
The earth is
the center of the universe.
Here on earth heavier matter has fallen and intermixed to form the common
elements of our world. But this mixture includes not only the ‘things’
of our world but also their "doings." The heavens regulate the intermix
and thus the events of the earth.
Within the
universe there are three
kinds of substance: 1) that which is sensible and perishable (plants and
animals), 2) that which is sensible but not perishable (heavenly bodies),
and 3) that which is neither sensible nor perishable (the rational
soul in man and in God) – and is thus "eternal."
Death and the
After-Life
Does the soul
survive death?
Aristotle thought probably not. But Aristotle also sometimes distinguished
soul and mind – believing that while the soul probably does not survive death, the mind (nous)
might be immortal. But this might not mean personally immortal,
only that the mind (nous) would survive in the way it shared thoughts
with God (Nous) – human nous finally achieving union with divine Nous
at death, and thus in a sense achieving immortality.
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In his ten-book Nicomachean Ethics,
Aristotle ventured empirically (naturally!) into the realm of personal
ethics by stressing the fact that ethics was not some theoretical ideal
to be applied univerally to all mankind ... but was very closely
related to the way particular life-circustances (which vary widely from
individual to individual) required humans to make ethical decisions.
To Aristotle
all things had each
a unique ‘Form’ which gave it its distinct existence as a particular
entity.
Further, its Form also defined for something its unique and all-important
purpose in existence. Thus a Human Form (or soul) gave human
potential its existence as a particular person: that what forms such a
person as an individual. It also produced the particular instincts
of a person to move forward toward some sense of his or her personal
‘potential,’
or not-yet-realized existence. To Aristotle, all life was a process
of moving toward one's potential – a life-giving struggle to realize one's
full potential.
Thus the
value of something and its
ethical obligation to behave in a particular way was ‘relative’ (as we
would see it today). Something's or someone's ‘moral obligation’
related to its particular purpose in existence. To Aristotle, there
were no universal moral prescriptions! The ‘goodness’ or morality
of someone or something could be measured only in terms of its progress
toward its – and only its – particular potential (its
virtue).
To apply the
standards used in measuring
the performance of a horse to that of a man made no sense. But by
the same token, it also made no sense to Aristotle to apply the standards
of ‘moral’ performance of a soldier to the performance of a peasant
farmer.
They each possessed quite different ‘potential’ in life and thus required
being measured by quite different moral standards.
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Along very similar lines as the Nicomachean Ethics, was Aristotle's Politics
... the latter eight-book work focused on collective or social morality
– just as the former was focused on individual or personal
morality. In short, in his Politics,
Aristotle studies the question: what makes for the good society
or good polis (polis: the typical city-state of Aristotle's days)
... and, similarly, what makes for the bad society?
Here
again, unlike his teacher Plato, Aristotle studies this question not
from an idealistic perspective (such as Plato's ideal society) but from a very
empirical perspective, examining particular governments of his
days ... in
his quest for true understanding of this vital dynamic in human
life. Here too he was just as empirical in his approach to the
idea of discovering what makes for a "good" society, as he had been in
his quest for understanding of how the physical (and biological) world
around him worked. He looked at specific societies as testimony
as to what worked well – and what did not – in the realm of social
behavior. And he studied societies found not only in his own
Greek world but ones that lay well beyond that world – both in reach
(around the broader Middle East) and in time (studying societies that
had risen and fallen in earlier days). Here too, he was looking
quite empirically for political-social patterns or categories that
accompanied both social success and social failure. He was not,
like Plato, interested in coming up with a dreamy social ideal that
somehow seemed most logical. Instead, he sought an understanding
– achieved by observing actual examples – of what actually worked well,
and what worked poorly for societies.
He
concludes (something the Fathers of the American
Constitution were well familiar with ... having studied Aristotle's
works in their classical education of the day) that the question of the
"good' society" and its government rests not in some idealized or
universal shape or "constitution" of government that every society
should aspire to, but rather the way societies as they are constituted
differently actually carry out their particular social destinies.
The good society has one goal (whatever its particular shape): to
achieve the common good or good for the widest range of people
possible. The bad society is the one which favors only one
portion of the society, whether a particular ruling individual and his
close associates, a privileged wealthy class, a disgruntled commoner
(or slave or foreigner) class wishing to weaken or even bring down the
system (and its particular "constitution").
In this matter, Aristotle was more neutral than Plato on the subject of
democracy, viewing government by the commoners of society as simply one
of several political forms that could be viewed as either good or
bad. He stated in his work, Politics,
that the measure of good or bad in a society and its government
depended not on the form of government itself, in particular on how
many individuals ruled, but by how morally they ruled.
Thus, unlike idealistic political reformers who are always looking to
redesign society's constitutional order – along some supposedly more
beautiful line of logic of their own – in order to "progress" society,
Aristotle does not believe that "good government" resides in any
particular Form or Constitution. Instead, to Aristotle, "good
government" depends on how any government, regardless of its shape or
constitution, endeavors to carry out the greatest good for the largest
number of people, both at home and abroad.
Aristotle gives specific examples in his effort to categorize good and
bad government ... by first dividing all government or social types
into three groups: government of one (by a single individual),
government by the few (a select group of people), and government by the
many (the large body of commoners). He does not
automatically assign "good" or "bad" on the basis of those categories
... but rather the way each of them directs its energies, whether to
serve the common good ... or to use governing power to serve selfishly
merely those who hold that power.
He thus subdivides those three categories (government of one, a few or
the many) into good and bad versions of each. Concerning the
government of one, he creates the subcategories of king (good) and
tyrant (bad), citing historical examples for both types.
Concerning the government of the select few, he creates the
subcategories of aristocracy (good) and oligarchy (bad) ... and for the
government of the many, he creates the subcategories of constitutional
government (good) and democracy (bad!).
Thus, whatever the political structure of any society happens to be,
the "good" society has one goal: to achieve the common good, or
good for the widest range of people possible. The bad society is
the one which favors only one portion of the society, whether a
particular ruling individual and his close associates, a privileged
wealthy class ... and even a disgruntled commoner (or slave or
foreigner) class wishing to weaken or even bring down the system (and
its particular "constitution").
Aristotle does admit that the governmental form most susceptible to
becoming perverted and thus falling to the bad was the government of
one ... and that the government of the many, even when its falls to the
bad, is much less perverted than the other two categories. In
that sense he shows obvious favor to government by the many ... though
quite aware that "democracy" can itself become perverted. Athens'
democracy on many occasions gave clear example of very bad government
... in its unjust treatment of honorable individuals such as
Themistocles and Socrates – or its very foolish exploitation of its
Delian League allies, which provoked the ruinous Peloponnesian
Wars. If he had lived to see the masses of German people
awarding – through democratic plebiscites – enormous powers to Hitler,
he would have seen yet another example of democracy in its most
perverse or evil form.
Thus
unlike the American social reformers since the beginning of the early twentieth century – President Wilson and the America that went to war in 1917 (to kill as many Germans as possible) in order to "make the
world same for democracy" ... or the American "regime changers" of more
recent days – for instance, presidents Kennedy and Johnson (Vietnam), Bush Jr. (Iraq) and Obama (Libya and Syria) who
overthrew or attempted to overthrow authoritarian regimes in order to bring the
blessings of democracy to other countries (unsurprisingly, bringing instead to these societies only unwanted chaos) – Aristotle does not
believe that good government resides in a particular Form or
Constitution but rather in the way any government, regardless of its
shape or constitution, endeavors to carry out the greatest good for the
largest number of people. And that is a moral matter ... not a legal or military matter.
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 Like
his teacher (Plato), Aristotle was a prolific writer. Some of his writings
that we have today are:
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 Miles
H. Hodges
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An Overview of His Ideas
Aristotle's Departure from His Teacher
Aristotle's Views on the Dynamics of
Aristotle's Cosmology and Theology
Aristotle's Ethics
Aristotle's Politics
