Aristotle and his life

Aristotle's father Nikomachos was the personal physician of the Macedonian king Philip II. Aristotle himself studied at Plato's Academy in Athens, where he later taught. After Plato's death, he went to teach in Asia Minor and then on the island of Lesbos. In 343 BC he was called by the Macedonian king Philip to educate his son Alexander. He eventually became the famous Alexander the Great.

After Philip's death, Aristotle returned to Athens, where he founded a school called Lykeion (the Peripatetic School). Interestingly, it was here that the pupils were said to have walked while they were taught. When Alexander the Great died in 322 BC, Aristotle was accused of blaspheming the gods and was exiled to Chalkida. He died a year later.

Aristotle's thought and teaching

By basing all his knowledge on experience that anyone can verify, Aristotle laid the foundation for various sciences including anatomy, astronomy, biology, physics, economics, geography, geology, political science, etc. While some of his ideas are now obsolete (e.g. in the natural sciences), his methods are often still valid today. Aristotle's basic idea was to "understand what is".

Aristotle invented the "classification of things" when he declared that there is a superior genus (genos) whose species differ from each other by specific/species differentiation. Individual objects can thus be arranged in a tree structure. With this Aristotle laid the foundations in botany or zoology.
He further stated that "every change must have a cause". Causes are material (material, substance), shape (idea, shape), efficient (the one who makes the change), or purposive. For example, to build a house there must be a building material, a builder, and a purpose (I want to live). If any part were missing, the realization of building a house could not take place.

Furthermore, he devoted many writings to the rules of correct thinking, reasoning and argumentation. Here he states that we combine individual propositions into judgments and draw conclusions from the premises. Assertions can be general (everyone/ all) or particular (is/ exists), but also negative (none/ only some). The formalization of Aristotelian logic gave rise to predicate logic, including quantifiers.

Unfortunately, many of Aristotle's works have not survived, but their reach extended to the Arab lands, where they were translated by Greek-speaking Christians. They then transmitted them to Western medieval culture. Aristotle thus became the teacher of all scholasticism. And his model was taught in Europe until the 18th century.

Aristotle's writings are cited by page and column (a or b), or even line, of this collected edition, the so-called 'Bekker numbering' (the writings were arranged by the German philologist August Immanuel Bekker). The traditional arrangement, which dates from Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century BC, divides the corpus of Aristotle's writings into: logical, natural, ethical and political, rhetoric and poetics, and the Athenian Constitution.

Aristotle and biology

For Aristotle, nature is above all the living. And everything living has properties such as the need for food, birth, growth, death, the capacity for movement, sentience, and reproduction. According to him, all living things also have a soul, and this is of three kinds: vegetative (in plants), sentient (in animals), and rational (in man).

Aristotle also took much notice of the anatomy of animals, their similarities, and emphasized the purposefulness of their organs.

Aristotle and natural science

Aristotle summarized and generalized everything that was known about geographical phenomena in his work Meteorology. It is thus a collection of elementary knowledge of general physical geography. This is the first time that he separated this field from the unified ancient Greek science.

The lower part of the atmosphere is treated here as a sphere of air, but also of water. Aristotle also described the cycle of water, whereby it evaporates and, after cooling in the atmosphere, falls back to earth in the form of rain. The philosopher also noted that rain may not fall mainly in autumn and winter, but may also fall in summer in areas such as Ethiopia.

Aristotle further argues that the torrents originate in the mountains where the most rainfall occurs. And thus contradicts the ancient view that rivers flow from oceans.

He stated that land can turn into sea and vice versa. The change is said to be cyclical and there was a time when there was no Nile or Tanais (Don). He also claimed that in time both rivers will probably disappear.

According to Aristotle, dry vapours are the cause of winds. When these vapours prevail, there are dry windy years. If moist evaporation prevails, there are wet and rainy summers. Dry vapors are also said to cause earthquakes, lightning, thunder and hurricanes.

Aristotle also wrote extensively on animals, describing some 500 species. He laid the foundations of comparative anatomy and embryology.

In addition, this famous philosopher is in a sense the founder of hydrology, oceanology and meteorology.

Aristotle and cosmology

Aristotle argues that earth and water, as heavy elements, descend to the centre of the cosmos, while light elements such as air and fire rise above them. The sphere is the body that ensures that everything heavy gets as close to the center as possible. So a spherical earth forms at the centre of the cosmos. The earth is clumsy and unable to circulate. Around it are 55 spheres that determine the motion of the heavenly bodies, with the stars being the most influential sphere. He further adds to the views that the earth is round.

Aristotle and ethics and justice

The most important science in this area is supposed to be the science of the community (polity), which determines "what everyone in the community must learn". Aristotle argues that the best action is that which is not a means but an end. The ideal goal is bliss, which is permanent, as opposed to happiness. "Blessed is he who realizes the perfect good in action and has the necessary conditions for this throughout his life."

Aristotle regards virtue, which can be acquired by learning, experience, and habit, as the path to beatitude. Among the prominent virtues he includes fortitude, temperance, generosity, kindness, and justice. Justice itself must be governed by law in the community, "therefore we do not let man rule, but the law."

He also argued that man cannot live alone. "But he who cannot live in community, or does not need it in his self-sufficiency, is no part of the community, but either a wild animal or a god." According to him, people associate into families and into communities/states.

"A commune is a self-sufficient community of equals for the purpose of living the best life possible." (1328a) "A commune is a community of good living in houses and families for the purpose of a perfect and self-sufficient life." (1280b) "It is a kind of government in which the equal and free are ruled over; it is called political. He cannot govern well who has not learned to obey." (1277b)

As for property, Aristotle rejects Plato's view that everyone should have everything in common, but he also warns against greed. He regards slaves as a necessary part of any economy.

He further distinguishes three legal forms of community/state, namely: monarchy (ruled by the individual), aristocracy (ruled by the best) and politeia (ruled by all).

Also, the decadent forms, namely: tyranny (ruled by the individual for his own benefit), oligarchy (ruled by the rich for their own benefit) and democracy (ruled by the mob). "Democracy is where the majority of the poor and free rule, oligarchy is where the minority of the rich rule." (1290b)

He considered the best legal form of government to be monarchy, i.e., rule by a just monarch. He further considered an aristocracy to be appropriate. Less suitable, but still acceptable, was the politeia. He considered tyranny a totally unacceptable form of government. Then oligarchy, which is, after all, a little better than tyranny. And democracy, which is the least evil of the three.

He was the first to separate politics from ethics. "In private life, one should seek many different virtues, but in politics, justice or 'the good of others' decides."