When1: -350
When2: -330
Who: Aristotle
What: philosopher
Where: Stagira, Greece
works\ Eudemian Ethics [-350 to -330]; History of Animals [-350 to -330]; Logic [-350 to -330: includes Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, and Sophistical Refutations]; Metaphysics [-350 to -330]; Meteorology [-350 to -330]; Nicomachean Ethics [-350 to -330]; On Dreams [-350 to -330]; On Generation and Corruption or On Coming-to-Be and Passing Away [-350 to -330]; On Memory [-350 to -330]; On Sensation [-350 to -330]; On Sleep [-350 to -330]; On the Heavens [-350 to -330]; On the Parts of Animals [-350 to -330]; On the Soul or Concerning Psyche [-350 to -330]; On Psychology [-350 to -330]; Physics [-350 to -330]; Poetics [-350 to -330: Laughter and the ludicrous depend on deformity, defect, and ugliness but not on anything destructive or painful]; Politics [-350 to -330]; Rhetoric [-350 to -330]; Topics [-350 to -330: good arguments]
Detail: He lived -384 to -322, studied under Plato, and was Realist. He tutored Alexander the Great. He founded Peripatetic School at Lyceum [-335]. He was the Stagirite or Peripatetic Philosopher.
In logic, he studied grammar, developed logic of terms, and defined the syllogisms. He studied deduction methods and invented non-contradiction, excluded-middle, and bivalence laws. He considered modus ponens, modus tollens, tautology, permutation, and summation. He studied Sophist fallacies, existence, definition, statement, axiom, postulate, premise, conclusion, hypothesis, theorem, converse, inverse, contrapositive, corollary, lemma, necessary condition, and sufficient condition.
In mathematics, he used method of exhaustion, rather than infinitesimals, to find limits. He used parallelogram of forces.
In biology, he studied nature, performed animal dissections for research, and studied evolution from simple to complex life.
Aesthetics
Art imitates nature and portrays particular objects as universals, emphasizing object Forms. Thus, art is knowledge that gives pleasure.
Art is productive thought.
Art has classes depending on materials used or objects imitated.
Art's purpose is to excite passions, to remove them and so purify soul. Tragic drama imitates life and excites fear and sympathy, which it then relieves {catharsis, Aristotle}. Catharsis is good for virtue, because it results in lower emotions, allowing more reason.
Formal literary elements, involving one location, one time, and one theme {Unities, Aristotle}, make good play.
Artists impose Form on matter, causing material change with purpose, to cause art development.
Epistemology
Philosophy must consider opinions of the people or of wise people {doxa}.
True knowledge is about object Forms, not objects.
Sensation is passive thought. Reason is creative thought. Thoughts are both objects and essences. Contents and thought processes are separate and have categories.
Quantity can be universal or particular. Quality can be positive or negative.
Opposition or contradiction and conversion or entailment can happen.
Concepts used in judgments come from general concepts by adding distinguishing characteristic or difference {definition, Aristotle}.
Knowledge fields have most general concepts, found by moving from examples to general concept {abstraction from specific to general}, opposite to definition. For example, logic has contradiction principle.
The ten basic-concept categories are quantity, quality, relation, space, time, action, passion or passivity or affection, position, state or condition, and substance.
The four cause types are matter or physical or bodily cause {material cause, Aristotle}, form or essence or idea {formal cause, Aristotle}, immediately preceding cause or motion {essential cause}, and end or purpose {final cause, Aristotle}. Something extra {accident, cause or effect} can happen along with causes and effects.
Brain senses shapes, sizes, and motions {primary quality} directly. Brain perceives other sense qualities {secondary quality}, which are not fundamental to object {accident, sensation}, indirectly. Sense apparatus moves and changes as it receives object, causing body physical change {phantasm, sensation}. Physical motions caused by sensations are imagination-faculty objects, so imagination depends on sensation. Imaginations are thought-objects, so thought depends on imagination.
Mental faculty compares and associates shapes, sizes, and motions from all senses {common faculty, Aristotle}.
Human desires and beliefs, which are thoughts, cause all human actions.
If proposition is possible, the proposition is true at least once {principle of plenitude} {plenitude principle}.
The highest thought level is to behold the pure Forms and reach blessed feeling without will or action.
Ethics
Ethics is making proper choice when one is free to choose and knows consequences. External circumstances can hinder or help reason and self-realization. Bad reasoning, bad purposes, weak will, compulsions, passions, or wrong choices can cause people's actions to be irrational {akrasia}. To make proper choices, one needs to know which act or thought is lawful or right, act consequences, means, ends, desire effects, motive effects, and self. Without this knowledge, people do not know what they are doing and cannot control their actions.
Successful and virtuous activity based on reason leads to happy, good life and well-being. Happiness is life's goal or purpose, because it expresses people's true nature. Virtue is the way to attain happiness.
Freedom depends on knowledge and on absence of external forces or mental pressures.
People are responsible for their actions when they have alternatives from which to choose, they know situation, and they face no external constraints on choice. Then consciousness is action's sufficient cause and other factors, such as motivation, do not lessen responsibility. Punishment can only be for actions for which people are responsible {justice, Aristotle}.
Goods {good-in-itself} {intrinsic good} can be for their own sake, such as intelligence, senses, and health. Goods {extrinsic good} can be for consequences.
Action {praxis} is doing something, as opposed to making something. Action {animal soul, Aristotle} should improve habits and character. Exerting self-control against desires trains will to act using reason. Moderation {Golden Mean, Aristotle} {doctrine of the mean} balances appetite/emotion and reason. Using rational mind to follow the Golden Mean is good.
People want happiness based on virtue {eudaimonia, philosophy}, the objectively good life. Pleasure is necessary for, but not the same as, happiness.
Friendship is good, because it is common striving for the good and beautiful.
Law
Law flows from order of nature {natural law, Aristotle}. Law has Forms. People should judge human laws by how well they conform to natural law.
Usury is bad.
Landowning and private property are good.
Strong family is good.
Linguistics
Spoken or written words are mental-state signs. Verbs indicate time {tense}. Verbs and adjectives are similar. Nouns can be about named things {proper noun, Aristotle} or types {common noun, Aristotle}.
Logic
Formal logic is process to prove knowledge true and to understand reasoning.
Things or groups have names and distinguishing characteristics. Defined things can be sentence subjects. Subjects can have different quantities: "all", "some", "no", "one", or "only one".
Sentence subjects can have properties {predicate, Aristotle}. Predicates {essential predicate} can be true of all category objects. Predicates {predicable predicate} can be true of only some category objects and so be non-essential. Predicates {property predicate} can be non-essential but true of all category objects {proprium}.
Statements have subjects and predicates. Statements can be true or false {contradiction law}. Subjects and predicates cannot have truth-values.
Statements {proposition, Aristotle} can have form that makes them necessary or impossible {apodeitic}.
Reasoning from particulars to generalities {induction, Aristotle} is proof method. Reasoning from generalities to particulars {deduction, Aristotle} is proof method.
Deduction depends on having one or more general statements {premise, Aristotle} about basic concepts. People must accept such premises as true but cannot prove them. Induction and dialectic to analyze opinions and perception can find such premises. After analysis, such premises should be immediately apparent and certain to everyone. Other premises come from general premises. Premises can use different sentence types: categorical, conditional or hypothetical, alternative, and disjunctive.
All deductions are either syllogisms or inferences from single premises. The conclusion must be less general than the premises.
People can prove statement {conclusion, Aristotle} relating subject to predicate {judgment} if two premises relate third concept to subject and to predicate {syllogism, Aristotle}. If people know that premises are true or false, they can combine them by removing third concept to prove conclusion {excluded middle law}. The third concept can be in first-premise subject and second-premise predicate {first figure}, in both subjects {second figure}, or in both predicates {third figure}.
Syllogisms can use sentences with different subject quantities and premise types and can use three moods. Syllogism moods include categorical syllogism, conditional syllogism or hypothetical syllogism, alternative syllogism, and disjunctive syllogism. Syllogisms {categorical syllogism, Aristotle} can use all subject quantities. Main moods {Barbara mood} can use universal affirmative in all three statements. Main moods {Celarent mood} can have universal negative premise, universal positive premise, and universal negative conclusion. All other moods can transform into Barbara or Celarent mood {reduction of moods} {mood reduction}.
Reductio ad absurdum proves some moods. Negative individual instances {ekthesis} are counterexamples that prove the positive conclusion, and this method proves some moods.
Syllogisms {perfect syllogism} with complete sentences need nothing more to be valid arguments. Syllogisms {imperfect syllogism} with assumed premises or premise parts require more information to be valid.
Metaphysics
Only individual physical objects are real. Objects have essential invariable Forms {Form, Aristotle}, about purposes. Forms are common properties or predicates of different same-class objects. Object Form determines state and relations to other objects, makes unified whole, and places object in class. Forms are not universals and cannot exist by themselves. If Forms are universals, it is necessary to explain how Forms relate to individuals {third man argument} and how object relates to itself. Geometric forms, shapes, and sizes are physical-object aspects and do not have independent existence.
Ability to define objects does not prove existence. To show existence, something must construct object.
Matter has potential or possibility that becomes physical particular object when combined with Form {hylomorphism}. Forms follow laws. Forms are only potential until realized in matter. Object Form stays the same, but matter can change. Matter and objects are potentially infinite, but this differs from actually infinite. Motion results from union of form and matter.
Lower-thing forms make higher-thing matter, making a hierarchy of objects, classes, classes of classes, and so on. Forms have values. Forms can be Ends, causing other Forms. The class hierarchy leads to highest Form, which never combines with matter. Highest Form is prime mover and has no cause and indirectly causes all motion and change. It is unmoving, because only matter can move. It is perfect, eternal, unchangeable, indivisible, mental, spiritual, and independent. It is real, with no possibilities. It is the most general concept, thought about thought, and pure self-consciousness. It has no goal or purpose except itself and is sufficient in itself.
Organisms grow and develop {development, Aristotle} as Form realizes itself in matter through time, also causing purpose changes.
Objects have inessential features {accident, object} that arise by chance and do not relate to Form. Accidents have mechanical causes and have no laws. Accidents in matter can oppose expression of Form in object.
Stars and planets have circular motion and are ether.
The four elements are earth, fire, water, and air. The material world has the four elements. Elements have quality pairs: warm or cold and dry or moist.
Mind
Mind forms concepts automatically {passive intellect} and can reason using concepts {active intellect}. Active intellect can be non-physical, independent, and eternal.
Mind {psyche, Aristotle} animates body to cause motion and so causes sensation, imagination, and thought. Soul or mind is the Form for individual body.
Souls {vegetative soul} can be for body mechanical and chemical changes, like reproduction, growth, and repair. Plants have only this soul.
Souls {animal soul} {appetitive soul} can allow motion, feelings, and sensation. Spontaneous motion arises from desire, which is to gain pleasure and avoid pain. Desire and sensation both depend on object sensed, so seeking or avoiding automatically happens. Animal souls can unite all sense perceptions into collective perceptions about objects as wholes. This forms images and memories, allows body-state knowledge, and allows number, position, and motion perception.
From the matter of the first two souls, souls {reason} {rational soul} {nous} can arise and make desires into will and perception images into knowledge. Only such souls are eternal, divine, and impersonal and can know reality. Reason is pure contemplation. Reason is the same in all people, so reason unites people into a class.
Politics
Justice or equality is the basis of states. Justice can depend on need, effort, deservingness, history, achievement, or contribution.
Justice {corrective justice} {diorthotic justice} {remedial justice} {rectificatory justice} can compensate for contract breach or tort. Justice {distributive justice} {dianemetic justice} can take and disburse goods and services among parties.
Justice assigns punishments, which whole society administers for crimes, with no individual revenge.
The state should organize to allow natural laws to work.
A society goal is the good life for all citizens, including stability and community. Constitution's highest goal is community well-being.
A state purpose is to train citizens ethically, emphasizing morals. Citizens, as opposed to subjects of kings or tyrants, have civic duties, requiring sacrificing private life, and rights, allowing them roles in public and private life.
Kingdoms have one authority. Aristocracies have several authorities. Polities have many authorities. Tyrannies have one ruler. Oligarchies have several rulers. Democracies have many rulers.
Rule by one person can be good {monarchy, Aristotle} or bad {despotism, Aristotle}. Rule by few can be good if based on culture and character {aristocracy, Aristotle}. Rule by few can be bad if based on property or birth {oligarchy, Aristotle}. Rule by all can be good if based on laws and order {republic, Aristotle}. Rule by all can be bad {mob-rule} if based on demagoguery {democracy, Aristotle}. Because things held in common have no value, communism is bad.
Democracy is better than oligarchy, because more people contribute to decisions. Struggle of oligarchy with democracy causes revolution.
States arise from first family and then village.
States should be self-sufficient. Small states are better.
Lending money and trading are bad.
Excess, more than want or need, causes tyranny and crime.
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Date Modified: 2022.0224