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Philosophy

Aristotle: an introduction

 

Meeting chaired by Dr Donald Cameron

Dr Ian Butterworth

University of Bristol

5 April 2005

Following is a very brief summary of the talk:

 

Agenda

  1. Aristotle: life, works and context
  2. Physics & Metaphysics
  3. Logic & Rhetoric
  4. Politics & Ethics
  5. Poetics
  6. Psychology
  7. Review

1. Aristotle: life, works & context

Aristotle (384-322 BC) Born Stagira (Chalcidice, Thrace); son of Nicomachus, physician to Amyntas, King of Macedon.

Three periods of activity:

1. Academy, Athens, 367-348BC, under Plato.

2. Assos, Mytilene, Macedon, 348-335BC (Alexander’s tutor, 343-335).

3. Lyceum, Athens, 335-323BC (year of Alexander’s death). Leaves Athens 323; dies 322 at Chalcis in Euboeia.

Works:

  • (’εξωτερικοί) for general publication – Plato-type dialogues – lost; Physics (1,2 (esp. on theory of causes) and 7); and the oldest part of de Anima (On the Soul); On Philosophy (parts extant).
  • Preliminary part of Metaphysics; Eudemian Ethics; part of the Politics; On the Heavens; On Generation and Corruption.
  • Seven major logical works, including the Categories (of being), Prior and Posterior Analytics, and Rhetoric. The Metaphysics (‘coming after the Physics’), remainder of the Physics and of de Anima, and six other books on natural philosophy and biology. Works on ethics and politics, including Nicomachean Ethics, rest of the Politics, and the Constitutions of 158 States. The Poetics (incomplete): promises to deal with all types of poetry but breaks off after discussing tragedy and epic.

2 Physics and Metaphysics (starred items (*) signal comparison with today)

Physics:

matter and form: in sublunary region, form exists only in conjunction with matter;

principles: hot/cold, wet/dry; four (sublunary) elements; fifth (celestial) element

causes (α’ιτίαι)* [note Russell]

motion (κίνησις) – natural and forced; a simple ‘law’ of motion*

unmoved mover: final cause of movement of celestial bodies, themselves efficient causes of movement in sublunary region. An unmoved mover = pure actuality; its activity is contemplation = reason

cosmology: 49 or 55 unmoved movers, or one?

Metaphysics (‘coming after the Physics’)

Substance = matter OR form OR (matter + form)

Kinds of being: - being an accident

- being true (i.e. being the case)

- actuality or potentiality; pure actuality (God?), pure potentiality (‘prime matter’*)

- being in one of the Categories:

substance/quantity/quality/relation/action/passion/place/posture/time/condition

 

 

4 Politics & Ethics

Politics

  • ‘Man is by nature a political/civic animal’ (Politics 1253a).

A true State rewards citizens according to their contribution to people’s well-being, and that contribution is irrelevant to accident of birth (Politics, Bk. III). OHP diagram: a Sorites argument) Comparison with today: Impossibility of assessing such contribution: representative/participative democracy. Brief discussion of notion of a constitution.

Ethics
  • Moral virtues as qualities of the individual; occurrence in dispositions and actions. Virtue is marked by a mean between extremes. (OHP diagram: moral virtues)
  • Intellectual virtues: virtues of the mind OHP diagram (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II)

5 Poetics (ποιέω = to make, produce, execute)

  • For Plato μίμησις = imitation; for Aristotle, it = representation. For Plato, the word has a largely negative connotation; for Aristotle, mainly a positive one.
  • The Poetics is concerned mainly with tragedy (τραγωδία) = a dramatic representation of an action complete in itself, has beginning + middle + end, with b. and e. self-standing; through pity and fear, tragedy purges audience of these and other emotions (κάθαρσις) (Poetics, 1449b24 and foll.).
  • Corneille & Racine (17th century) believed their tragedies to be constructed on Aristotle’s lines.

6 Psychology

a. Main source: Aristotle’s de Anima (On the Soul). Gk.ψυχή (psyche) best rendered as ‘soul’ or ‘mind’; we have no single precise English equivalent.

b. But for Aristotle the term is wider: ψυχή = ‘the first actuality of a natural body that potentially has life’ (de A. 412a27 f). More easily: the soul is the organization) of a natural living body = the form of the body.

c. Thus the soul cannot exist without the body, & hence cannot be (as Plato thought) immortal (though Aristotle qualifies this point, as we shall see).

d. It follows from (b) above that plants & animals have psyches. For Aristotle, psyches belong within a hierarchy, according to their range of faculties/powers (δυνάμεις):

 

δυνάμις plants n/h animals humans
nutrition, reproduction Yes? Yes Yes
sensation No Yes Yes
desire No Yes Yes
locomotion No Yes Yes
imagination No Yes??? Yes
reason No No Yes


e. Reason: (i) passive: reception of ‘form’ of objects (=perception?); (ii) active: inviolable, shared with gods; Aristotle doesn’t clarify its nature.

Ian Butterworth

Suitable Reading

Lloyd, GER Aristotle: the Growth & Structure of his Thought (CUP)

The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (CUP)