Page 232 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

aristotle 117

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes:
chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and
desire. • Aristotle (384–322 bce)

Plato. He remained there for twenty years, until Plato’s mist, identifying literally hundreds of species of animals.
death. Afterward, perhaps disappointed at the choice of He also brought geological, chemical, and meteorological
the philosopher Speusippus as Plato’s successor, Aristo- observations to his study of the weather. This combina-
tle accepted an invitation from Hermias, ruler of Assos (in tion in itself is representative of his underlying methodol-
modern Turkey). While at the court of Hermias, he pur- ogy, which was to marry rigorous empirical observations
sued both academic and private interests, beginning an in the field with a carefully crafted analytical and theoretic
extensive period of field research in the natural environ- framework. This marriage was not always possible. His
ment and marrying Hermias’s daughter, Pythias. contributions to physics, although naturalistic in their
After the fall of Hermias in 345, Aristotle accepted an conception, are highly theoretical.
invitation from King Philip II of Macedon to come to his Aristotle was not interested only in the natural world.
court in Pella to tutor the young prince, Alexander of He also took the human world as a subject for study. He
Macedon. The influence of Aristotle over the young was, perhaps, the first political scientist, seeking to cata-
Alexander has been much overstated, and their relation- logue and examine a range of constitutional arrange-
ship seems to have been formal rather than warm. Nev- ments. This examination led to the construction of his
ertheless, Alexander did take Callisthenes, Aristotle’s highly influential work, The Politics, which provides both
nephew and collaborator, with him on his expedition to a taxonomy (system of classification) and an explanation
Asia to act as court historian. of political behavior based on theories of self-interest. It
Shortly after Alexander’s departure for Asia, Aristotle remains a core text of political theory. He also sought to
returned to Athens, where he set up his own philosoph- collect constitutional histories of Greek city-states, and
ical school known as the “Lyceum” in an area outside the 158 constitutions were so described. For the most part,
city walls. The philosophical style of thinking that he these works do not survive except as fragmentary quota-
founded there was known in antiquity as “peripatetic,” tions embedded in later works.The exception is the Con-
from a colonnade (peripatos) at the Lyceum. Aristotle stitution of Athens (Athenaion Politeia), which was not
remained in Athens until after the death of Alexander, written by Aristotle himself but probably by one of his
when an outburst of anti-Macedonian sentiment made it students.
unsafe for him. During this time in Athens, his wife died. Another enormous philosophical contribution was in
Aristotle preferred not to remarry, living instead with a his employment of formal logic. Rather than examine
slave, Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nicomachus. Aris- arguments by their capacity to persuade, Aristotle pre-
totle died soon after his retirement from Athens, and his ferred to test their internal consistency. In order to do
successor, both as the head of the Lyceum and as the heir this, he devised a kind of algebra of logic, which formal
to his papers, was Theophrastus, his longtime student, logicians still employ in their deliberations.
collaborator, and colleague. Aristotle was a genuine polymath (a person of ency-
Aristotle was a prolific writer on an enormous range of clopedic learning).As such,he asserted the interconnected-
subjects. Like Plato, he wrote dialogues, although these ness of knowledge (what the U.S.biologist EdwardWilson
survive only in fragments and quotations.The greater part has called “consilience”) as well as its underlying coher-
of his published work is summaries and notes of his ence. Although Aristotle was not exclusively and obses-
teaching. Aristotle’s principal concern was, as with the sively empirical, he preferred not to engage in explicit
pre-Socratics (a group of fifth-century Greek philoso- speculation about the nature of broad concepts. Here,
phers), the description, analysis, and understanding of the later generations saw his sharpest contrast with Plato.
natural world. He was an acute and precise observer, and Plato’s theory of forms,in particular,and the idealism that
he applied his scientific acumen in an astonishing variety emerges from it, have been seen as a clear and sharp con-
of fields. He was an especially skilled biological taxono- trast with Aristotle’s acute and rigorous empiricism.