Saturday, April 9, 2016

Aristotle






                   No doubt! That scientific theory ruled over the world for about sixteenth century until Galileo (1564-1642) challenged Aristotelian theory. Aristotle was a great hero of the time whose philosophy is still underway.
         
                   Aristotle's most basic philosophical commitment was to common sense opposed both Plato's ideal forms and the atomists' material atoms. He searched a theory that would, at once, allow a place for moral values, and for scientific truths. He explained that the ultimate realities are concrete things and of the concrete things his preferred examples are biological individuals. Similarly, by using the notion of logic, Aristotle developed for the first time the conception of science as a body of knowledge having a logical structure. He taught us to reason about the world we see and know. He invented science of logic which is the rules of thinking, as grammar is the rules of speaking and writhing. He believed that every question and problem has logical explanation.

                Aristotle's contribution did not stop here. He invented the idea of the division of sciences into field distinguished both by their subject matters and by their methods. He made many useful observations about natural things like fish, man and star, too. He was the first man to find solution and answer based on investigation, experiment and observation. Despite his  deep interest in natural science, which he would have called natural philosophy; Aristotle shared with Plato an overweening concern and fascination with polities and morality. None of them even questioned the ideas that the most important being in the world is man.

                Such a great fellow was Aristotle. He was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Macedonia, and often called Stagirite. Through his father, a physician to king Amyntsa II, Aristotle had connections to the royal house of Macedonia. He enrolled in Plato's Academy in 367 where he spent about twenty years as a student, colleague, lecturer and writer. about the time of Plato's death, Aristotle joined a group of philosophers at the court of Hermias in Assos. But again in 343/2, he joined the court of Philip of Macedonia to teach the crown prince Alexander. In 336, Alexander became king on the death of his father, and about a year later Aristotle returned to Tens to set up a school of philosophy-The Lyceum-which was as opposed to the Academy of Plato and devoted to scientific works. In 323, Alexander died and an anti-Alexandrian movement aroused in Athens. Aristotle, as the former teacher of the dead hero, was suspected. Saying that it was not fitting for two philosophers to be killed by Athenians (Socrates was already killed), Aristotle retired to Chalcis where he died in 322. 

               But every family has a black sheep. Aristotle was also not an exception. He not only criticized the philosophy of Plato but also went a bit aside to them. In the case of Socrates and Plato, 'man' included all human beings even women, foreigners and even perhaps slaves. But in the case of Aristotle, the term was hardly all-inclusive. He took all slaves, women and non-Greeks as inferior to the Greek men. For him, the inferiority of slaves and women was innate. It could not be cured. That's why, even his highly criticized saying- "Female has fewer teeth than male"- could able to make people confused for about ten century.

                 But his investigation and analysis of human nature is still relevant. It's the human nature to be proud and to have the 'self'. Rarely few have the time to think about others. He said that it's hard to have the friend but easy to get the company. He further proclaimed, "If all men were friends, there would be no need of justice. "Such a great thought and mind could not be away from us though his physical carcass got its fossil's end.

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