Ancient Greece was the place where some of the most prominent philosophers of history lived.One of them were without a doubt, Aristoteles , thinker of which we offer you his biography .
Life of Aristoteles
Aristoteles was born in the Greek city of Estagira , near the current mount Athos , belonging to the kingdom of Macedonia (present-day Greek Macedonia) in 348 BC
His father, Nicomaco was the doctor of King Amintas III of Macedonia , a fact that generated a close bond between Aristoteles and the royal court.Not only his father was a doctor, but also his ancestors, coming from a family with numerous medical dynasties to his credit, which explains the g The interest of Aristoteles on biology.
Towards 367 or 366 he goes to the city of Athens , in order to carry out his studies, and where it becomes one of the brightest disciples of Platon within the Academy .
After Platon's death, when Aristotle had approximately 38 years, served as a teacher of Alexander the Great and in 335, Aristoteles founded his own school in Athens, called the Lyceum (to be found located within an enclosure dedicated to the god Apollo Likeios .His classes covered broad topics, and most of them used to be taught in the gardens surrounding the establishment.That is why his students were called peripatetics (itinerant).
He died in Calcis, Ebrea (Greece) at the age of 62 in the year 322 BC, and it is considered that before his death he was already a character sum Very famous, thanks to his philosophical and scientific thoughts.
During his life, he developed in numerous fields that transcended philosophy, being also biology, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, ethics, politics, aesthetics, among others, being considered one of the brightest minds in the history of classical humanity.Its influences weighed so much on the rest of humanity, that it is considered that Ariatoteles , together with Platon created the initial body of the beliefs of the Western Thought of the ordinary man (what we call today as common sense).
The most important works of Aristoteles
Aristotle is with others like Socrates, Platon or Kant, one of the most outstanding thinkers that history has given.of his life he wrote more than 200 works , of which only They have been able to recover 31.Few branches escaped their fields of study.However, in one of the most prominent, without a doubt, it was in the logic , matter of which he is considered the father and founder.
In fact, even today it is considered that the Aristotelian logic could not and cannot be improved.You could say that its logic is overwhelming logic, The redundancy is worthwhile.In the field of logic I emphasize, among other things, for its so-called syllogisms.A syllogism are two premises that, being as they are, provoke a different conclusion.
- All men are mortal
- Juan is a man
- Juan is mortal
Aristotle distinguished in his logic between individual subjects and universal subjects .The previous example would be with individual subject, with universal subject it would be:
- All men are mortal
- The Spanish are men
- The Spanish are mortal
In the logic of Aristotle ( both when making affirmative syllogisms and denials) individual subjects can only be subject to the sentence, while universals can be subject and predicate.
Another branch in which Aristotle was more Outstanding was in the ethics .He is credited with three basic works in relation to ethics and his definition of " virtue ": Etica Nicomaquea, Etica Eudemia and Magna Moralia.
According to Aristotle in his books of Ethics, the human being always tends to do the good , at least its own good.That is, all its decisions are aimed at seeking some good or benefit.In this case, the maximum good would be happiness and happiness, for Aristoteles, you could only get through wisdom , virtue and razon.
Politics according to Aristotle
To Aristotle the goal of a person in life was to achieve virtue, so that he could throw himself into a totally contemplative life, which he considered the basis of happiness.
With regard to politics , Aristoteles considers human being a" political animal "that should exercise and exerts its voice within the community.For Aristoteles the policy descends from ethics.In this sense, in politics only the word of the person who best knows how to impose its rhetoric is valid, since that is the way of imposing laws on the rest of the community and ensuring that they are respected and included in the collective imagination.
Aristoteles distinguished between 6 types of political organization, although he did not consider them as an abstract way of thinking, but a form of organization that is based on the way of acting on the basis of practical cases.These forms of government were:
- Monarchy : The power was held only by one person, who was the most virtuous.
- Aristocracy : The government was exercised by a few leaders, those who proved to be more virtuous.
- Republic : It was considered as the mixture between the Oligarchy (government of a few rich people) and Democracy (government of many and poor).
You could say that these three were the political forms that Aristotle extended as "good".However, he also added a "dark" reverse to each of those forms of government:
- Tyranny : It would be the degradation of the monarchy, in which a person exercises an authoritarian power without taking into account the ethical, logical or virtue.
- Oligarquia : For Aristoteles it would be something like the expression of the degradation of the aristocracy, that is, the government of a few, but not virtuous.
- Demagogy : It is still a word that today has very negative connotations.For Aristotle it would be corruption in democracy.
The study of policy followed from these moments the bases of the postulates initiated by Aristotle and, in fact, the ideas of the Hellenic thinker have gone through the centuries keeping as basic foundations to understand the org political annotations.
Other information about Aristoteles
Aristotle could be said to have fallen slightly into oblivion.It was the Arabs who rescued their ideas from ostracism and thus were included in the scholastic.
Aristotle not only He was a disciple of Platon, another of the greatest philosophers of all history, he was also a teacher of Alexander the Great in the Kingdom of Macedonia.
Aristotle must also be credited with the creation of an Academy called the Lyceum .It was in the latter stage of his life when he founded the Lyceum in Athens, where he continued teaching his disciples until just a year before his death.
It is really difficult to get an idea of the importance that Aristotle's theories and thoughts have had over the centuries. Some of their id eas have remained in force until today, simply because they are impossible to refute.Platon was a step forward in the thinking of his teacher Socrates, just as Aristoteles picked up Platon's witness to shape ideas that they would last in time.
For example, during the Middle Ages their ideas remained very valid and, in a way, their devotees slowed the advancement of science.For example, during this period what arose I call medieval Aristotelian L.But his influence does not remain there and his theories about different subjects remained valid for a long time later.
For example, his studies on physics and astronomy were they remained current until the 19th century, while Aristotelian logic is still fundamental during the 20th century.
Differences between Platon and Aristotle
On the one hand, Platon relies on the idea that there are two worlds, some sensitive and the other intelligible.Only through of reason you can reach the inteligile world and be happy.For its part, Aristoteles believes that there is only one world, the sensible.
According to Platon, the concept of soul is eternal and has always been there.The human being already acquires all his knowledge before childbirth , but this is a mome so traumatic that they forget him, so he spends the rest of his life trying to remember and recover this knowledge lost during childbirth.For Aristotle the human being is nothing more than a blank sheet, therefore his soul is not eternal and all knowledge is acquired from scratch.
In relation to politics , for Platon the best political and social organization was that in which citizens occupied the place that it corresponded to them according to the soul that it had.It distinguished between three social classes, from minor to greater importance and rational wisdom: firstly the workers, secondly the guardians and in the highest part of the ladder to the philosophers and rulers, those who they were closer to rational knowledge.
On the other hand, Aristotle never pronounced on what was the best way to govern, but only defined them (and also defined his dark reversals, that is, that in what can degenerate what s governments when they get corrupted: monarchy-tyranny, aristocracy-oligarchy and democracy-demagogy.
Aristotle's thinking
Aristotle was a notable Greek thinker of his time, having been a disciple of Platon already who owes much of the current knowledge about this character, and Alexander the Great who served as his protector.Aristoteles developed methods to address the philosophical, scientific and logical problems that have been of great impact and influence since then and to the present.
Denominated the father of logic, Aristoteles I lay the foundations of this through the teaching of today called syllogisms, which are sentences that are conformed by two premises which should be stated certain and related blunt, from which an inevitable and immutable conclusion is obtained.For example, (p1) all dogs have a tail, (p2) dante is a dog, (c) dante has a tail.
Aristoteles also n is recognized by the statement of the principle of No Contradiction , whose basic postulate is that a thing it is cannot not be, that is, that two contradictory statements between themselves cannot both be true.
For example, a postulate that fails to apply the principle of No Contradiction would be, (p1) all dogs have a tail, (p2) some dogs have no tail, since it is impossible for all but also some not.
As an integral part of its contribution to logic and the birth of syllogisms, Aristoteles also expressed the existence of Logical Fallacies , which are sentences expressed as syllogisms but with erroneous premises for being not true, illogical, or uncorrelated statements, so that the conclusion obtained results in something false, although it may seem logical.For example, (p1) all dogs have a tail, (p2) the cat has a tail, (c) the cat is a dog.
Additional as With contributions to logic, Aristotle is the father of Aristotelian thought, which, in contradiction with Platon's idealistic postulates, of whom he was a disciple, manages purely realistic ideas and postures. Aristotle prioritized experience and experimentation as channels to gain knowledge of the way we call empirical today, so much of his work and teachings derive from the observation of nature, the stars and behavior human.
From these observations his great works in political, metaphysical and moral matters emerge. For Aristotle, ethics should be based on the pursuit of happiness , and although he recognizes that this Happiness takes various forms according to the individual, Aristoteles teaches that the true happiness to which the wise man should aspire is that which seeks the truth.
Influence of Aristotle
The Aristotelian thinking subsists to this day and its influence permeates the areas of knowledge that development such as philosophy, logic, yetica politics.Its postulates were of great importance in the development of communities since the Middle Ages and various theologians approached his postulates to Christianity, guiding them mainly in the search for the truth and the union of the physical being and its essence, according to the adaptation of the Aristotelian thought that Saint Thomas Aquinas promoted.
Next, pa To end our journey through the life of one of the greatest philosophers of all time, we leave you with a video about Aristotle in which there were also other great thinkers, and with some links of interest to complement the INFO of the article.
Video: Documentary about Socrates Platon and Aristoteles
In this documentary you can discover many more things about Aristoteles and the other two great thinkers of the Hellenic world, Socrates and Platon., these are three of the greatest philosophers in history, those studied in any institute or university.
Interesting linksIf you want to know more about the best philosophers of history, in History Today Online we have more articles that can help you:
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