Aristotle Take home final

Aristotle Take-Home Final

Name and Surname: Ajdin Đidić Student Number: 212180245 Section A – Gobbets

2.) This passage comes from Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, and in Barns’ volume it is marked under 24b19. What I immediately noticed is that word “syllogism” is rather contentious since some scholars prefer to use term deduction instead. This might come from the fact that syllogism in Aristotelian sense encompasses broad methodology for argument description and solving which present understanding do not. Aristotle on the very beginning of the book separates syllogism into parts and explains out of what elements it is consisted: propositions (premises), middle term, and conclusion which should elucidate demonstrative (scientific) episteme. Premises are consisted of subject and predicate interconnected by middle term. Due to the dependence of conclusion of middle term, this style of logic is also called term logic. Now, in its plainest form, syllogism is the argument consisted out of 2 propositions and a conclusion that logically follows out of them. Example of proposition: all men are mortal; Socrates is a man; Socrates is mortal. By recognizing which type of premise is present (universal affirmative, universal negative, particular affirmative, particular negative) and by following set of logical rules laid by Aristotle we can deduce is the argument truly syllogism, i.e. does it produce a valid conclusion.

5.) The passage comes from book I of Aristotle’s Physics and in Barns’ edition it can be found under 184a10-184a16. This passage claims that in order to know natural (physical) things one needs to know their principles. What is interesting about this is not in the passage itself but in the

following paragraph 184a17-184a21 in which it is stated that one can go about obtaining knowledge of natural things starting with the ones which are closer to us and then closer to themselves (to their nature). Strange part is that in Posterior Analytics it is exactly opposite, where he emphasizes starting point of things which is clear in itself. But different nature of things examined needs to be taken into consideration also. Namely, what Aristotle proposes in these articles is deductive approach or proceeding from generals to specifics. Indeed, according to this, principles are best grasped if things are understood first for our sake and then followed back to the first principles, and hence ending up with causes. “Similarly a child begins by calling all men 'father', and all women 'mother', but later on distinguishes each of them.”

6.) The gobbet has been extracted from Aristotle’s “Categories” and in Barns’ edition it is marked under 1a1-1a5. Part of the greater work, Organon, Categories are peculiar because they deal with terms and classifications, De interpretatione deals with premises and finally the last part is made of Analytics (prior and posterior) which is concerned with syllogisms. Now, before he proceeds to his four-fold division and later ten-fold classification of things found in nature, Aristotle first gives some general remarks on things and their naming in order to avoid any confusion. In the first chapter of Categories he thus mentions homonyms, synonyms, and paronyms. What he means by homonyms is when 2 words have exactly the same name but their definitions are different, i.e. they are called the same but they are not the same. He gives an example of real man and a painted man – they are both men but their definition and explanations are quite different. First thing that comes to mind as my own example is bark; both as a dog’s sounding and outer hard layer of a tree. Since I previously mentioned that Categories deal with terms, having started with this classification of things in particular I find very broad and thus a very deductive approach to the structure of the book.

7.) The passage can be find in book II of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics or to be more precise it is listed under 1106a14-1106a23 in Barns’ second volume of Aristotle’s works. In order to locate it and understand it under the wider context we need to consult Nicomachean Ethics as a whole. The work deals, broadly spoken, with ultimate ends in life, happiness, and how to go about achieving it which is paramount purpose of ethics as a discipline. Hence, having understood work as a whole, I can focus on this particular excerpt which follows in the same vein. In order to achieve this aforementioned good life which is permeated by happiness it is necessary for one to live in accordance with virtue, or arête which can be translated also as an excellence. Two kinds of virtues pertaining to man which Aristotle mentions are intellectual (achieved by experience) and moral (achieved by habit and training). If a man lives his life in accordance with these virtues or virtues in general (which is golden mean and avoiding extremes which are vices) he shall accomplish his main objective in life – happiness. And since Aristotle himself says that everyone who has this understanding of virtue has potential to achieve happiness only if he lives in accordance with virtue and so does this directly pertain to gobbet part: “Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well.” If by work we understand any instrumental mean which brings us to happiness than relation is established.

3.) This excerpt comes from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, book I, and it is marked in Barns’ volume I under 71a1-71a11. In this work Aristotle deals indeed with logic and syllogisms but also with how the demonstrative or scientific knowledge comes to be and what separates it from other forms of reasoning. In it, he proposes that scientific knowledge originates from knowing first things which are clearer in themselves rather than being more knowable to us. This highly departs from what he writes in his works on nature where the reverse is true. First sentence

indicates that Aristotle might have been influenced by Platonic ideas at that point in time. But this might have not been necessarily read like this. One can interpret this sentence as a divergence of Aristotle from his teacher. Whereas Plato claimed that knowledge has to be immutable, unchanging, and innate, Aristotle believed this as well except for the fact that he did not believe it has to be innate but that first principles are gathered from sensory inputs. Be that as it may, Posterior Analytics and this paragraph deals with demonstration or how to achieve true scientific knowledge which arises out of principles and premises hence deductive reasoning. One should be careful here because not all deductions produce knowledge in demonstrative sense and especially induction doesn’t which has more shaky foundations as an argument to begin with.

Section B – Short Essay Questions

1.) Aristotle’s deductive reasoning is contained within his broader body of work entitled Organon where books Prior Analytics deal with the structure and formation of syllogisms from terms and premises. This can be considered as first ever comprehensive work on logic. This work differs from Aristotle’s take of inductive reasoning in Posterior Analytics which is crucial for cognitive processes and creation of episteme in its own right. Demonstration one the other hand is called when a deduction is successful and produces knowledge. Deductive reasoning is based on a logical line of events where premises logically produce conclusion. But deductive reasoning is not demonstration necessarily as obvious from following example: A-wetness, B-fire, C-cold and from deduction it follows that wetness is fire and fire is cold so wetness is cold. This does not make any sense but how we achieved this particular conclusion I will explain later. It works from general to particular while induction works in the opposite fashion – from particular to general. Famous example of this is: (P) All men are mortal; (P) Socrates is a man; (C) Socrates is

mortal. Induction is relatively weaker form of reasoning because of the fact that it does not have so worked out chain of logical events and conclusion does not necessarily follow out of it. Example of an induction can be: All men I have seen are mortal, therefore every man must be mortal. But there exists possibility that there is immortal person due to the fact that we don’t know did I mean to say that I have seen every person in the Universe or just the ones I met. In order to understand Prior Analytics and thus deductive reasoning we first need to understand the form of it all. Namely, there are statements Aristotle calls propositions or premises which can either be true or false, affirmative or negative, and which in turn through logical turn of events lead to conclusion which is also either true or false. Within the premise itself subject and predicate are connected with verb or, how it looks in Prior Analytics – predicated of, said of, belongs to. There can be 4 types of propositions or categorical sentences: universal affirmative (A), particular affirmative (I), universal negative (E), particular negative (O). Knowing this conversion will be particularly important to learn: universal negatives convert to universal negatives; particular affirmatives convert to particular affirmatives and universal positives can convert to particular positives. By combining the rules of the conversion with categorical sentences one will get what is known as 3 figures or syllogisms divided in 3 categories dependent on their middle term. Middle term can be subject of one proposition and predicate of other and thus belong to first figure; it can be predicate of both propositions making it belong to second figure; and it can be subject of both propositions hence belonging to third category. Figures of the first syllogism are complete and do not require additional proof while figures of rest of syllogisms require one by the process of conversion. I might give one example of the conversion here demonstrating how the syllogism is valid. I shall analyze Disamis or Pis; RaS; therefore PiR. Pis, Ras; Pir and from this it follows Ras, SiP; PiR since particular affirmatives

convert to particular affirmatives and finally RaS, SiP; RiP. This demonstrates us that Disamis is a sound syllogism although in need of demonstration. Medieval authors have dubbed these syllogisms with medieval names for the simplicity sake corresponding to three categorical sentences found in 2 premises and conclusion; AaB, BaC; therefore AaC or also known as Barbara.

4.) Aristotle’s view of soul is quite peculiar since it has certain similarities with his teacher’s view of soul but on the other hand he adds some novelties that are quite specific to him. In line with Plato he divides soul on three parts, i.e. makes tripartite division but separates it according to whole of physical things while Plato focuses solely on human soul. In this line we have according to Aristotle vegetative soul, emotive soul (common to all animals), and rational soul (peculiar for humans). Furthermore, this division of souls corresponds to the activities which soul undertakes or as he specifies in his work De anima: souls which are only able to grow are plant souls, those which are only able to move are animal ones, and those which are able to do rational contemplations are human. All these souls are not mutually exclusive since they all converge in human. When Aristotle talks about soul he obviously talks about living beings since soul or anima is a living faculty, something which enables life. Those things which have life are plants and animals (under animals I shall subsume humans as well to avoid any confusion) and they are compound substances composed of both form (actuality) and matter (potentiality) and since soul makes living thing a living thing it is necessarily a form of that thing (De anima, book II 412a18). But soul is also first actuality in Aristotle’s division of potentialities and actualities, which means that the one who possesses soul (whether animal or plant) has potential to do various things related to life which it might not perhaps be doing at the moment but owns them

throughout the course of life. Those aforementioned various things are simple life processes although a human soul has greater potential which is involves rational capacities and living a happy, virtuous life. What separates thus a living being from an inanimate object is the possession of soul and hence this implies that a source of motion comes from the inside of being itself, namely that being (soul) is the efficient cause of itself and does not have an efficient cause

that is external to itself.

If translated in the language of causes, I believe that soul would be an efficient cause since it is the thing that animates living beings. Further, Aristotle believes that soul cannot exist independently of the body since soul is the actuality of the body and not the other way around (414a4-414a28). Since soul cannot have existence separate from that of the body it is possible to view it as a thought, or consciousness; an image popularized by recent scientific and science fiction endeavors. Thus, Aristotle’s soul is very much different from Plato’s version of the same for which he argues unconditional immortality as seen from his Phaedo. Furthermore, by sidelining soul one can easily notice empiricist lines in Aristotle contra Plato’s more idealistic worldviews and hence this very empiricism is what brought Aristotle to focus on senses as main faculties for perception and knowledge formation (inductive processes) which eluded Plato in this respect. If then, soul is an animating faculty and gives purpose to the body it inhibits, in the case of humans then it must be that, since humans possess rational soul, soul is striving to achieve unity with cosmic intellect or in other words with Prime Mover himself. This could be alternative reading of the purpose of the soul since contemplation is the closest one can get to the universal nous and thus, besides being an efficient cause, every soul and especially human soul is striving to approach the final cause. This claim is further supported by the rather dubious interpretation that Aristotle understood soul to die with body but what stays immortal is reason or

active intellect (430a20-430a26). Soul can be equated with purpose and when a purpose leaves a body he ceases to be what it was originally, namely when a soul leaves a human he/she is not human anymore since purpose left with it.

6.) What it means to be happy for Aristotle? His happiness consists in a number of factors which need to be inspected closely. First of all, I would like to mention how Aristotle’s understanding of happiness departs from a Plato’s and Socrates’ one due to the fact that, arguably, he brings this term to the more realistic grounds. Namely, not only do internal conditions need to be fulfilled but also external ones. One is hardly going to be happy if he does not have material conditions for it, namely money, but more about this later. Let me first define happiness in terms of internal capacities.

In order to understand Aristotle’s conception of happiness one needs to first get acquainted with certain other Aristotelian notions. Virtue is one of them. What does it mean to be virtuous? Aristotle introduces 2 virtues pertaining to humans as rational actors: intellectual and moral ones. Intellectual one depends on experience and moral one depends on habit and good upbringing. Now they directly pertain to the notion of golden mean which is basically the path towards which life in accordance with virtues leads to. Golden mean means choosing middle between 2 extremes which are considered as vices. Hence, in order to best gain understanding of particular thing or living being one needs to inspect purposes that it fulfills. Each purpose is a goal and what differentiates human being from objects in this regard is the fact that humans might have many goals mutually reinforcing or cross-cutting which are hierarchically ordered. Object can have only one goal, i.e. the purpose for which it is made. The achievement of one ultimate goal, the goal which is above all other temporary ones is what Aristotle calls happiness. An example will suffice here. One can go to school in order to educate himself for a higher purpose of

becoming teacher himself which in turn is subjugated to a higher purpose of educating others which can be the preferred way for making money, etc… But do not get me wrong, for Aristotle petty goals such as this are nothing to be stuck over. Notice that reason why these goals are ordered hierarchically is due to existence of a particular framework that allows for their classification, a faculty which plants, animals and objects lack. Faculty being reason. Living life in accordance with reason might have Socratic and Platonic ring to it but it is also what Aristotle considers as highest good which in itself is pure happiness. Life in accordance with reason will be achieved through means elaborated above, namely golden mean and virtuous existence. Now the reason why I said that Aristotle’s view of happiness is more realistic than Plato’s is due to the fact that Aristotle does not only require reason per se in order to achieve it happiness. Perhaps he does but this is more related to Aristotle’s conception of human beings, or true and real human beings for that matter and not natural slaves which do not possess the same degree of humanity. I do not want to get into his conception of humanity too deeply but it is important to say that true human is the one who has enough of capabilities in order to devote whole of his life to contemplation and endeavors of the mind which will bring him as close as possible with God or Unmoved Mover. He is not so clear on what this entails so there are two possibilities which precipitate that he either devotes his whole life to philosophy due to his wealth or works for his own sake and not the sake of others. Only those types of people are credible enough to be called humans and thus worthy of living life in accord with virtues and hence obtaining the goal of pure happiness which corresponds to their purpose as rational fully-fledged human beings. Thus happiness is not solely determined by inward factors but also by external one.

Be that as it may, happiness in this view is regarded as a habit and not a single act which means that life in accordance with the parameters above is a happy life and happiness needs constant

polishing and execution of acts in accordance with it, since for an act to be considered such that will lead to happiness an ultimate goal of happiness must always be presented and contemplated, never disregarded.

Section C – Why is Aristotle Great Philosopher?

This question is indeed broad one and requires a systematic approach which will indeed elucidate the importance of Aristotle from classic period of philosophy all the way until present days. Various categories need to be taken into consideration under which Aristotle’s contemplation can be subsumed as well as further, broader elements which reinforce these but fail to be classified themselves.

Along with Plato, he is deemed as one of the greatest philosophers that ever lived. Influenced by him due to their student/master relationship, Aristotle’s works have certain odor that reminds of his teacher although over time they developed into completely different and independent direction. Albert Witehead proclaimed that all history is just a footnotes of Plato but I get a feeling that Aristotle’s works had much greater practical sensibilities for Europe giving them authoritative nature at least until 17th_/18th _{century. This might be perhaps due to the fact that} Aristotle was not so much a systematic thinker, unlike Plato, but instead he wrote works and treatises on countless topics. Furthermore, his metaphysical line of reasoning found easy accommodation into Christian lore which further popularized him in medieval (at least through few commentaries), renaissance and perhaps early modern Europe. His influence in Islamic world cannot be disregarded either where he, along his master served as a model for Islamic faylasufs and falasifa school – of greatest importance being his metaphysical works complimented by the political ones. Best expression of this is found in the works of al-Farabi, namely al-Madina al-Fadila which is a political work permeated by Neoplatonism and theory of

emanation. How much was Aristotle revered in early Islamic world testified the fact that he has been known as the First Teacher and all the prominent philosophers like al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina modeled themselves according to him. In Europe, his works were disseminated little harder, first due to the fact that they became largely inaccessible after the fall of Roman Empire until the first translators appeared in renaissance, and secondly thanks to the Church’s ban on their reading in 13th _{century which held for couple of decades but then got completely obsolete and in} turn had Aristotelian ideas incorporated into Christian teaching. Thomas Aquinas is the epitome of this, the point where Aristotelianism got completely integrated with Church fathers especially pertaining to physical views which were very developed for that time. With physics or natural philosophy (culminating with Newton) shifting further from Aristotelian paradigm his philosophy on purposes nevertheless stayed important for philosophy proper in modern sense of the word which highly resonated through writing of Hegel and thus Marx himself. Furthermore, Aristotle can be rightfully considered as a first scientist in modern sense of the term due to the fact that although his works were not systemic they were comprehensive nevertheless considering the vast majority of topics he covered. His methodology is also important which is in line with the one dominating scientific inquiry today-empiricism. Aristotle was the first thinker to devote proper attention to senses as such and highly contrasted from Plato who believed that mind is something absolute, eternal and ideal while Aristotle claimed that mind (nous) gets ideas through process of induction which is in turn enabled by sensory faculties. This, thus, enabled the Western science to achieve shape it has today. Above I have also mentioned his influence of religion, namely Christianity, but I feel the need to elaborate more on this and mention what distinguishes it from Islam which was devoid of Aristotle’s ideas in its formative years. Now, Aristotle’s vision of Prime Mover was strictly epistemological, and it was placed in his

metaphysical system not due to the need for Creator as such but rather to explain his methodology and epistemology itself. Christianity eventually took upon this idea and removed itself from the notion of Creator God and interventionist one and instead became satisfied with Aristotle’s creation which, as Ahmet Davutoglu claims in book Alternative Paradigms, lead to compartmentalization of life and eventually secularization. Indeed, theory of emanation and other Neoplatonic elements have found their way into Islamic philosophy as well due to their reliance on rational faculties and explanations stemming from it but Aristotle was never able to garner huge acceptance in Islamic world other than falasifa school due to Islamic conception of God as a Creator who is ontologically different and unapproachable by its creations, i.e. universe in general. It is also important to mention how Aristotle’s ontological views are different than Plato’s; whereas Plato’s ontology was solely concerned with ideal manifestations of Forms, Aristotle was more concerned with empirical realities and finding those magnificent universals

within particulars themselves.

In line with Aristotle’s reliance on empirical reasoning he found it necessary to study things for how they actually were and this required the knowledge of their beginnings or how he termed it-principles. This is particularly important for his etymological and philological explorations (physical epistemology diverging to an extent from this rule) for which he developed, for the first time in history, systematized logic. When this logic is followed, or when the rules of reason are applied one can reach conclusions in line with Aristotle’s. Aristotle’s worked out logic can be located within the body of works called Organon which consists out of 6 separate treatises: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior and Posterior Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations. It is term-type of logic where the system revolves around terms which are either proved or disproved,

thus forming premises, which in turn construct syllogism, or a conclusion where something follows from the logic of it necessarily being so.

When it comes to ethics, as I have previously noted in one of my previous answers, Aristotle developed particular kind of ethics, virtue ethics, which relies on purpose or an ultimate goal which can be achieved only in living virtuous life, or life in accordance with certain virtues which are intellectual and moral, namely in case of humans. This version of ethics corresponds to Aristotle’s vision of human soul which is worthy of being called that way particularly due to the fact it possesses rational faculties which enable life in accordance with virtues. Plants and animals do not have similar luxury. Similarly, his exploration of nature is systematic in fashion where he seeks out to elucidate causes of natural occurrences which, unlike for the logical study, are supposed to be approached from what is more knowable to use (compounds) to what is more knowable to nature (particulars, principles). Out of this arise couple of important notions such as fifth element, 4 causes, notion and others which shaped the subsequent physics of Church, natural philosophy and modern physics.

Having all of these arguments in mind one can notice the immense importance of Aristotle for the life in general. It would not be an exaggeration to say that with him scientific paradigms have shifted and made modern world what it is today. As Locke anecdotally said that before Aristotle people were not thinking since he is the one who instituted formal logic and process of contemplation. However it is, Aristotle was and will stay one of the biggest thinkers of all times and we shall remain indebted to him greatly.

active intellect (430a20-430a26). Soul can be equated with purpose and when a purpose leaves a body he ceases to be what it was originally, namely when a soul leaves a human he/she is not human anymore since purpose left with it.

6.) What it means to be happy for Aristotle? His happiness consists in a number of factors which need to be inspected closely. First of all, I would like to mention how Aristotle’s understanding of happiness departs from a Plato’s and Socrates’ one due to the fact that, arguably, he brings this term to the more realistic grounds. Namely, not only do internal conditions need to be fulfilled but also external ones. One is hardly going to be happy if he does not have material conditions for it, namely money, but more about this later. Let me first define happiness in terms of internal capacities.

In order to understand Aristotle’s conception of happiness one needs to first get acquainted with certain other Aristotelian notions. Virtue is one of them. What does it mean to be virtuous? Aristotle introduces 2 virtues pertaining to humans as rational actors: intellectual and moral ones. Intellectual one depends on experience and moral one depends on habit and good upbringing. Now they directly pertain to the notion of golden mean which is basically the path towards which life in accordance with virtues leads to. Golden mean means choosing middle between 2 extremes which are considered as vices. Hence, in order to best gain understanding of particular thing or living being one needs to inspect purposes that it fulfills. Each purpose is a goal and what differentiates human being from objects in this regard is the fact that humans might have many goals mutually reinforcing or cross-cutting which are hierarchically ordered. Object can have only one goal, i.e. the purpose for which it is made. The achievement of one ultimate goal, the goal which is above all other temporary ones is what Aristotle calls happiness. An example will suffice here. One can go to school in order to educate himself for a higher purpose of

becoming teacher himself which in turn is subjugated to a higher purpose of educating others which can be the preferred way for making money, etc… But do not get me wrong, for Aristotle petty goals such as this are nothing to be stuck over. Notice that reason why these goals are ordered hierarchically is due to existence of a particular framework that allows for their classification, a faculty which plants, animals and objects lack. Faculty being reason. Living life in accordance with reason might have Socratic and Platonic ring to it but it is also what Aristotle considers as highest good which in itself is pure happiness. Life in accordance with reason will be achieved through means elaborated above, namely golden mean and virtuous existence. Now the reason why I said that Aristotle’s view of happiness is more realistic than Plato’s is due to the fact that Aristotle does not only require reason per se in order to achieve it happiness. Perhaps he does but this is more related to Aristotle’s conception of human beings, or true and real human beings for that matter and not natural slaves which do not possess the same degree of humanity. I do not want to get into his conception of humanity too deeply but it is important to say that true human is the one who has enough of capabilities in order to devote whole of his life to contemplation and endeavors of the mind which will bring him as close as possible with God or Unmoved Mover. He is not so clear on what this entails so there are two possibilities which precipitate that he either devotes his whole life to philosophy due to his wealth or works for his own sake and not the sake of others. Only those types of people are credible enough to be called humans and thus worthy of living life in accord with virtues and hence obtaining the goal of pure happiness which corresponds to their purpose as rational fully-fledged human beings. Thus happiness is not solely determined by inward factors but also by external one.

Be that as it may, happiness in this view is regarded as a habit and not a single act which means that life in accordance with the parameters above is a happy life and happiness needs constant

polishing and execution of acts in accordance with it, since for an act to be considered such that will lead to happiness an ultimate goal of happiness must always be presented and contemplated, never disregarded.

Section C – Why is Aristotle Great Philosopher?

This question is indeed broad one and requires a systematic approach which will indeed elucidate the importance of Aristotle from classic period of philosophy all the way until present days. Various categories need to be taken into consideration under which Aristotle’s contemplation can be subsumed as well as further, broader elements which reinforce these but fail to be classified themselves.

Along with Plato, he is deemed as one of the greatest philosophers that ever lived. Influenced by him due to their student/master relationship, Aristotle’s works have certain odor that reminds of his teacher although over time they developed into completely different and independent direction. Albert Witehead proclaimed that all history is just a footnotes of Plato but I get a feeling that Aristotle’s works had much greater practical sensibilities for Europe giving them authoritative nature at least until 17th_/18th _{century. This might be perhaps due to the fact that} Aristotle was not so much a systematic thinker, unlike Plato, but instead he wrote works and treatises on countless topics. Furthermore, his metaphysical line of reasoning found easy accommodation into Christian lore which further popularized him in medieval (at least through few commentaries), renaissance and perhaps early modern Europe. His influence in Islamic world cannot be disregarded either where he, along his master served as a model for Islamic faylasufs and falasifa school – of greatest importance being his metaphysical works complimented by the political ones. Best expression of this is found in the works of al-Farabi, namely al-Madina al-Fadila which is a political work permeated by Neoplatonism and theory of

emanation. How much was Aristotle revered in early Islamic world testified the fact that he has been known as the First Teacher and all the prominent philosophers like al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina modeled themselves according to him. In Europe, his works were disseminated little harder, first due to the fact that they became largely inaccessible after the fall of Roman Empire until the first translators appeared in renaissance, and secondly thanks to the Church’s ban on their reading in 13th _{century which held for couple of decades but then got completely obsolete and in} turn had Aristotelian ideas incorporated into Christian teaching. Thomas Aquinas is the epitome of this, the point where Aristotelianism got completely integrated with Church fathers especially pertaining to physical views which were very developed for that time. With physics or natural philosophy (culminating with Newton) shifting further from Aristotelian paradigm his philosophy on purposes nevertheless stayed important for philosophy proper in modern sense of the word which highly resonated through writing of Hegel and thus Marx himself. Furthermore, Aristotle can be rightfully considered as a first scientist in modern sense of the term due to the fact that although his works were not systemic they were comprehensive nevertheless considering the vast majority of topics he covered. His methodology is also important which is in line with the one dominating scientific inquiry today-empiricism. Aristotle was the first thinker to devote proper attention to senses as such and highly contrasted from Plato who believed that mind is something absolute, eternal and ideal while Aristotle claimed that mind (nous) gets ideas through process of induction which is in turn enabled by sensory faculties. This, thus, enabled the Western science to achieve shape it has today. Above I have also mentioned his influence of religion, namely Christianity, but I feel the need to elaborate more on this and mention what distinguishes it from Islam which was devoid of Aristotle’s ideas in its formative years. Now, Aristotle’s vision of Prime Mover was strictly epistemological, and it was placed in his

metaphysical system not due to the need for Creator as such but rather to explain his methodology and epistemology itself. Christianity eventually took upon this idea and removed itself from the notion of Creator God and interventionist one and instead became satisfied with Aristotle’s creation which, as Ahmet Davutoglu claims in book Alternative Paradigms, lead to compartmentalization of life and eventually secularization. Indeed, theory of emanation and other Neoplatonic elements have found their way into Islamic philosophy as well due to their reliance on rational faculties and explanations stemming from it but Aristotle was never able to garner huge acceptance in Islamic world other than falasifa school due to Islamic conception of God as a Creator who is ontologically different and unapproachable by its creations, i.e. universe in general. It is also important to mention how Aristotle’s ontological views are different than Plato’s; whereas Plato’s ontology was solely concerned with ideal manifestations of Forms, Aristotle was more concerned with empirical realities and finding those magnificent universals

within particulars themselves.

In line with Aristotle’s reliance on empirical reasoning he found it necessary to study things for how they actually were and this required the knowledge of their beginnings or how he termed it-principles. This is particularly important for his etymological and philological explorations (physical epistemology diverging to an extent from this rule) for which he developed, for the first time in history, systematized logic. When this logic is followed, or when the rules of reason are applied one can reach conclusions in line with Aristotle’s. Aristotle’s worked out logic can be located within the body of works called Organon which consists out of 6 separate treatises: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior and Posterior Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations. It is term-type of logic where the system revolves around terms which are either proved or disproved,

thus forming premises, which in turn construct syllogism, or a conclusion where something follows from the logic of it necessarily being so.

When it comes to ethics, as I have previously noted in one of my previous answers, Aristotle developed particular kind of ethics, virtue ethics, which relies on purpose or an ultimate goal which can be achieved only in living virtuous life, or life in accordance with certain virtues which are intellectual and moral, namely in case of humans. This version of ethics corresponds to Aristotle’s vision of human soul which is worthy of being called that way particularly due to the fact it possesses rational faculties which enable life in accordance with virtues. Plants and animals do not have similar luxury. Similarly, his exploration of nature is systematic in fashion where he seeks out to elucidate causes of natural occurrences which, unlike for the logical study, are supposed to be approached from what is more knowable to use (compounds) to what is more knowable to nature (particulars, principles). Out of this arise couple of important notions such as fifth element, 4 causes, notion and others which shaped the subsequent physics of Church, natural philosophy and modern physics.

Having all of these arguments in mind one can notice the immense importance of Aristotle for the life in general. It would not be an exaggeration to say that with him scientific paradigms have shifted and made modern world what it is today. As Locke anecdotally said that before Aristotle people were not thinking since he is the one who instituted formal logic and process of contemplation. However it is, Aristotle was and will stay one of the biggest thinkers of all times and we shall remain indebted to him greatly.