ARISTOTLE

(384-322 BC) Greek philosopher who developed an empirical philosophy contrary to Plato 's ideas; he wrote on logic: 1. Organoninstrument ; on physics: 2. Physics ; on metaphysics ; 3. Metaphysica ; on psychology : 4. De Anima ; on ethics: 5. Nichomachaean Ethics ; on politics: 6. Politics ; on rhetoric: 7. Rhetoric ; and on aesthetics: 8. Poetics . His theory of knowledge: rationalism; unlike Plato , he viewed the object of knowledge not the world of ideas; combines the scientific rationalism of Democritus with the axiological rationalism of Plato materialism with idealism ; ideas or forms are in things only; logic becomes the means of relating the general (i.e., ideas) or being to particulars (i.e., phenomena ) given in perception s; the mechanism of deduction is the syllogism, where two propositions presumed to be true are given and a third is inferred; deductions can demonstrate general principles in particulars but do not establish the general principles themselves or new knowledge; he abstracted general principles from particulars by induction or investigation; he links the concepts of investigation to reality as the causes of the particulars; he sought the general or metaphysical causes of things; contemporary non-Aristotelian induction arrives at probable (rather than intuitively certain) general principles; certainty rather than probability characterizes Aristotelian science and theory of knowledge. His theory of knowledge: teleology, Aristotelianism, vitalism; reality is that which unfolds in phenomena ; it involves matter and form; matter is that in which things consist; form is that which organizes or directs matter; form and matter are inseparable; where there is form, there is matter except that First Cause the Unmoved Mover is transcendent pure form; together matter and form comprise substance; e.g., man's essence is form; his physical and psychological makeup is matter. Substance (e.g., man) possesses attributes or universals (e.g., redness); universals (redness, etc.) are in particular things only as opposed to Plato ; there are 10 categories of reality, of which substance is primary because it is "that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject" only substance is subject; all other categories redness) or quantity (e.g., 5 meters long)] must be predicated of a substance. Categories refer not only to thought and language but to reality as well; matter and form are relative (e.g., lumber is the form of wood but the matter of a house); matter possesses the potentiality of becoming form; form is actuality (e.g., an acorn is the actuality of itself but the potentiality of an oak tree). Actualization or becoming results from cause; causes or factors of change are 1. material -> the limitations of matter; 2. formal -> the pattern of form acquired; 3. efficient -> the force producing change; and 4. final -> the end (entelechy) or purpose of actualization. The Final Cause of all reality is an unchanging, unmoved mover or pure form. Reality is an eternal but teleological process by which potentiality acquires actuality in the interest of actualizing pure form (reason). His theory of mind (soul) and ethics: functionalism, eudaemonism . More...