PHILOSOPHERS: ARISTOTLE 394 – 322BC
BACKROUND
Unlike Plato and Socrates, Aristotle was not Athenian. Around 366BC he went to study at
The Academy where he remained for almost 20 years, until Plato’s death. He left Athens,
studied marine biology and was a tutor to Alexander (the future Alexander the Great), then
returned to Athens where he taught at the Lyceum, creating his own distinctive school of
philosophy. The Lyceum was destroyed in 86BC by Sulla and was not revived as a centre of
learning. Its remains were well preserved and discovered in 1996.
Aristotle’s work was not so well preserved and was lost to Western philosophy until the 12th
and 13th centuries. After his death, his disciples edited his lecture notes into the books we
have today. His manuscripts found their way to the Middle East, where they would become
central to Arabic scholarship.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF ARISTOTLE
Aristotle had a very different approach to Plato and is described as the first Empiricist. He did
not look to another realm for an understanding of existence. Instead, he explored the world
and found understanding through a detailed examination of all we find around us.
His method is known as per genus et per differentia, meaning type and by difference. Another
difference from Plato was that we learn things in different ways. For Plato, there is a kind of
awareness which he calls knowledge – knowledge of the forms. The knowledge is strictly
intellectual, the result of pure thought. Aristotle’s view is different. We are not ‘remembering’
things from the Realm of Forms. Instead, we are taught things such as from the Realm of
Forms. Instead, we are taught things such as maths and learn, through practice, the skills of a
musician or a great athlete. For Plato, education was drawing out of the mind knowledge that
lay dormant within it. For Aristotle, knowledge is based on careful observations and
reflection on what we have seen. Solar eclipse argument!! The empirical method seems
particularly useful for discovering the facts of the world.
THE FOUR CAUSES
Change is – as Hume pointed out – a scientific curiosity. We have no idea what exactly
happens at the moment of change. Hume would attempt to deal with the problem by
suggesting that perhaps what we call ‘cause and effect’ was not more than our way of
explaining things, rather than being what happens in the world. Aristotle attempts something
different – to demonstrate the nature of things and their causes.
We should notice that Aristotle’s notion of cause is wider than what the word means.
THE MATERIAL CAUSE – what is the thing made from? What material makes it
what it is?
o E.g., wood or plastic in a chair.
THE FORMAL CAUSE – the shape of a thing.
o E.g., the shape of a pringles can in a cylinder
THE EFFICIENT CAUSE – someone/something that made the thing.
o E.g., A carpenter makes a bench.
THE FINAL CAUSE – the purpose of something.
o E.g., the purpose of a chair is to be sat on.
BACKROUND
Unlike Plato and Socrates, Aristotle was not Athenian. Around 366BC he went to study at
The Academy where he remained for almost 20 years, until Plato’s death. He left Athens,
studied marine biology and was a tutor to Alexander (the future Alexander the Great), then
returned to Athens where he taught at the Lyceum, creating his own distinctive school of
philosophy. The Lyceum was destroyed in 86BC by Sulla and was not revived as a centre of
learning. Its remains were well preserved and discovered in 1996.
Aristotle’s work was not so well preserved and was lost to Western philosophy until the 12th
and 13th centuries. After his death, his disciples edited his lecture notes into the books we
have today. His manuscripts found their way to the Middle East, where they would become
central to Arabic scholarship.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF ARISTOTLE
Aristotle had a very different approach to Plato and is described as the first Empiricist. He did
not look to another realm for an understanding of existence. Instead, he explored the world
and found understanding through a detailed examination of all we find around us.
His method is known as per genus et per differentia, meaning type and by difference. Another
difference from Plato was that we learn things in different ways. For Plato, there is a kind of
awareness which he calls knowledge – knowledge of the forms. The knowledge is strictly
intellectual, the result of pure thought. Aristotle’s view is different. We are not ‘remembering’
things from the Realm of Forms. Instead, we are taught things such as from the Realm of
Forms. Instead, we are taught things such as maths and learn, through practice, the skills of a
musician or a great athlete. For Plato, education was drawing out of the mind knowledge that
lay dormant within it. For Aristotle, knowledge is based on careful observations and
reflection on what we have seen. Solar eclipse argument!! The empirical method seems
particularly useful for discovering the facts of the world.
THE FOUR CAUSES
Change is – as Hume pointed out – a scientific curiosity. We have no idea what exactly
happens at the moment of change. Hume would attempt to deal with the problem by
suggesting that perhaps what we call ‘cause and effect’ was not more than our way of
explaining things, rather than being what happens in the world. Aristotle attempts something
different – to demonstrate the nature of things and their causes.
We should notice that Aristotle’s notion of cause is wider than what the word means.
THE MATERIAL CAUSE – what is the thing made from? What material makes it
what it is?
o E.g., wood or plastic in a chair.
THE FORMAL CAUSE – the shape of a thing.
o E.g., the shape of a pringles can in a cylinder
THE EFFICIENT CAUSE – someone/something that made the thing.
o E.g., A carpenter makes a bench.
THE FINAL CAUSE – the purpose of something.
o E.g., the purpose of a chair is to be sat on.
