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ARISTOTLE A QUICK REVIEW BY Derrick Augustin,CSs.R.
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Aristotle by Derrick,C.Ss.R.

Dec 20, 2014

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Arisitotle and His Philosophical aspects, Mainly Aristotle as a philosopher. It will be very useful for those who study Philosophy.
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Page 1: Aristotle by Derrick,C.Ss.R.

ARISTOTLEA QUICK REVIEW

BYDerrick Augustin,CSs.R.

Page 2: Aristotle by Derrick,C.Ss.R.

SYNOPSIS

o ARISTOTLE AND HIS HISTORYo ARISTOTLE AND EPISTEMOLOGYo LOGICo METAPHYSICSo ETHICS

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ARISTOTLE

NAME: Aristotle

OCCUPATION: philosopher

BIRTH DATE: c. 384 BCE

DEATH DATE: c. 322 BCE

EDUCATION: Plato's Academy, Lyceum

PLACE OF BIRTH: Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece

PLACE OF DEATH: Chalcis, Euboea, Greece

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BRIEF HISTORY:

He was a Greek philosopher. Also a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theatre, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.

Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing ethics, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.

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EPISTEMOLOGYEpistemology is derived from the two

Greek words “episteme “knowledge and “logos” science, and means the science of knowledge. As employed in philosophy the word means the science of the certitude of human knowledge.

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Aristotle and Epistemology Aristotle defines soul as the Form of a natural

body that has the potential to possess life. This body then must be furnished with organs: lungs, stomach etc. Life then is the process of growth and nutrition.

Sensation requires an external stimulus, to move the potentiality to an actuality. In this case, the perceptive organ, i.e. the eye, is potentially what the object is actually. When having a sensation, the eye, which is only logically distinct from the “seeing” of the eye, is one in quality with the object of sight. So when looking at a green wall, the eye becomes qualitatively green.

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logic Aristotle himself would have labeled "analytics". The term "logic" he reserved to mean dialectics. Most of Aristotle's work is probably not in its original form, because it was most likely edited by students and later lecturers. The logical works of Aristotle were compiled into six books in about the early 1st century CE: and they are:

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logic1. categories

2. on interpretation

3. prior analytics

4. posterior analytics

5. Topics

6. On sophistical refutations

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Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle's ontology, however, finds the universal in particular things, which he calls the essence of things, while in Plato's ontology, the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar.

For Aristotle, therefore, epistemology is based on the study of particular phenomena and rises to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato epistemology begins with knowledge of universal Forms (or ideas) and descends to knowledge of particular imitations of these.

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For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below).

In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive from a priori principles.

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logicIn his logic, Aristotle explicitly established

three laws of logical thought.

Law # 1: law of identity: “each thing is inseparable from itself and its being one just meant this” A thing is just itself and not something else: e.g. a soccer ball is a soccer ball and not a kitchen stove.

* Sometimes this is expressed as A = A. Note: the fact that we can use a book for

a doorstop does not mean it is not a book. Its use does not contradict the law of identity. What a thing is and how it is used are two different issues.

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logic

Law # 2: the law of contradiction: “the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect” . E.g. my cup cannot be blue and not-blue at the same time

• A cannot be A and not-A at the same time in the same way/respect.

Note: things may have and not have the same attributes in different ways: e.g. man is the most intelligent creature compared to animals but he is not intelligent compared to

God. So man is both intelligent (compared to animals) and not intelligent (compared to God). There is no contradiction because ‘intelligent’ is being used in different ways.

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logicLaw # 3: the law of the excluded middle or excluded third : “there cannot be an intermediate between two contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one predicate [statement]” .

• A statement about a topic must either be true or false. It cannot be both, i.e. there is no middle between them. It cannot be neither true nor false.

• Note: It is either true that Socrates is mortal or it is not true that he is not mortal. He is not both. Nor can he be neither mortal nor immortal.

• Another example: It is either true that there is a rubber duck in my bath tub or it is not true. Nor can we say neither of these choices is true.

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SystematizationConcept of concept:• Into which the premise is resolved, i.e. both the

predicate and that of which it is predicated”• He reduced the concept to its 10 categories or different

types.

THEY ARE: Substance (man or horse) Quantity (two feet long, or three) Quality (white or literate)

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Systematization Relationship (double, half) Place (answers where) Time(answers when) Posture(shows the situation) State(having shoes on) Doing something(cutting, active) Undergoing something(being cut, passive)

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ARISTOTLE AND METAPHYSICSMetaphysics is the branch of philosophy

concerned with the study of "first principles" and "being" In other words, Metaphysics is the study of the most general aspects of reality, such as substance, identity, the nature of the mind, and free will. It is a study of nature and the nature of the world in which man lives.

Aristotle’s Metaphysics has as its central theme on an inquiry into how substance may be defined as a category of being. According to Aristotle, the being of any individual thing is primarily defined by what it is, i.e. by its substance. Substance is both essence (form) and substratum (matter), and may combine form and matter.

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ARISTOTLE AND METAPHYSICS

SubstanceAccidentsAct potency

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ARISTOTLE AND METAPHYSICS

KINDS OF CAUSES OF THINGS:

THE FORMAL CAUSE (THE FORM OF THE THING)

THE MATERIAL CAUSE (WHAT IT IS MADE OF)

THE EFFICIENT CAUSE (WHAT MADE IT)

AND THE FINAL CAUSE (ITS PURPOSE OR END).

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Aristotle divided his Metaphysics into three partsONTOLOGY:

The study of being and existence; includes the definition and classification of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature of change.THEOLOGY:

The study of a God or gods; involves many topics, including among others the nature of religion and the world, existence of the divine, questions about Creation, and the numerous religious or spiritual issues that concern humankind in general.UNIVERSAL SCIENCE:

The study of first principles, such as the law of noncontradiction (logic), which Aristotle believed were the foundation of all other inquiries.

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Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake.Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function of a thing. An eye is only a good eye in so much as it can see, because the proper function of an eye is sight.

ETHICS

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Aristotle reasoned that humans must have a function specific to humans, and that this function must be an activity of the psyche (normally translated as soul) in accordance with reason Aristotle identified such an optimum activity of the soul as the aim of all human deliberate action, eudemonia, generally translated as "happiness" or sometimes "well being". To have the potential of ever being happy in this way necessarily requires a good character, often translated as moral (or ethical) virtue (or excellence).

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Aristotle taught that to achieve a virtuous and potentially happy character requires a first stage of having the fortune to be habituated not deliberately, but by teachers, and experience, leading to a later stage in which one consciously chooses to do the best things. When the best people come to live life this way their practical wisdom and their intellect 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.

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