The Metaphysics of Aristotle

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The Metaphysics of AristotlePlato is dear to
me, but dearer still is truth.An
introductionwww.prshockley.orgDr. Paul R.
Shockley
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Aristotles Background

• Born at Stagira in Northern Greece in 384 BC
• 367-347 BC student at Platos Academy
• He left Athens after not being named head of
  Academy following Platos death.
• Went to Macedonia became the tutor to Alexander
  the Great when Alexander was 12 (343 BC)
• After Alexander became Emperor of all Greece,
  returned to Athens, established his own school
  the Lyceum in 335 BC.

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Background The Philosopher.

• After Alexander died (323 BC), anti-Macedonian
  reactions in Athens forced Aristotle to leave, as
  he did not wish to experience Socrates fate.
• Died one year later in Chalcis.
• Only about 1/4th of Aristotles writings have
  survived. Most were lost when the Romans
  accidentally burned the great library in
  Alexandria, Egypt in 47 BC. Many of Aristotles
  greatest works were destroyed.
• But we are left with the lecture notes Aristotle
  used for teaching at the Lyceum.

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What is the relationship between Plato
Aristotle?

• Three views
• 1. All of Western philosophy is a series of
  footnotes to Plato. Aristotle analyzed,
  expanded, misinterpreted Platos teachings.

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What is the relationship between Plato
Aristotle?

• Three views
• 2. Aristotle is superior. Aristotle took Platos
  ideas and improved them substantively, especially
  in the areas of metaphysics, logic, ethics, and
  even aesthetics.

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What is the relationship between Plato
Aristotle?

• 3. Distinct worldviews with different starting
  points.
• Plato focuses his attention on abstract
  realities/truths that are to be followed in all
  areas of life into a unified knowledge whereas
  Aristotle is concerned with the particular,
  concrete object and its development, changes, and
  purposes.
• Aristotle is more concerned with the actual
  knowledge of objects than with their logical
  unification and abstract transcendence and
  rationalistic intelligibility.

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Significant Difference
Platos Allegory of the Cave

• Remember, Plato believed that the intelligible
  realm is more real than the sensible realm.
• Plato believed that the eternal, immutable forms
  constitute reality, transcendent of the sensible
  realm of flux.

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Aristotle Claims the Opposite

• Plato abstracted the form from the actual object.
• Imagination and Beliefs dominated sensible realm
  whereas reasoning and knowledge was found in
  intelligible realm.
• Thus, true knowledge was found in the
  intelligible realm.

Plato School of Athens by Raphael
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Aristotle Claims the Opposite

• Aristotle contends that is the concrete,
  particular, actual, and individual objects or
  things that are real.
• You are a particular. A dog is a particular. An
  Ant is a particular.
• Thus, for Aristotle, metaphysics is the study of
  particular, individual concrete substances.

Aristotle School of Athens by Raphael
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Aristotles Critique
Aristotle

• Abstract forms are only useless copies of actual
  things.
• Theory of forms does not explain the existence
  and changes that take place in concrete objects.
• Theory of Forms sets up a dualism between world
  of intelligibility and world of flux. This theory
  does not explain how the both of them are
  related.
• While Aristotle does not reject the forms, but he
  does rejecting the idea that we are to separate
  the from from the actual existence of the
  particular object.

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Major Ideas to Know
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Major Ideas to Know
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Major Ideas to Know
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Major Ideas to Know Potentiality Actuality-
which accounts for developmental changes in
substances.
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Major Ideas to Know Potentiality Actuality-
which accounts for developmental changes in
substances.
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Explanatory Principles of Things Their Changes.
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The following four principles determine the
nature of an individual object in cosmos (whether
natural or man-made)
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The relationship between the Four Causes
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Aristotles View of the Universe

• Everything is connected causally with everything
  else as material or formal cause.
• Since the universe is characterized by eternal
  change or motion, it requires an uncaused cause
  or Prime Mover that is eternal.
• An eternal uncaused cause must exist in order to
  account for all the change and motion in the
  universe.

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Cosmological Argument The Universe had a
beginning caused by something beyond the universe.
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Aristotles God

• Eternal
• Immutable
• Spiritual
• Distinct from universe.
• Not a personal God
• Not an object of worship

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Everything Has Purpose

• Aristotles view of reality/existence is that
  everything is teleological, that is, everything
  in universe has its own form, its own end, its
  own purpose (telos) to fulfill.
• According to Aristotle, everyone one of us have
  purpose, an end to fulfill.

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Everything Has Purpose

• Thus, for Aristotle, the good is whatever the
  nature of a thing aims at as its formal cause.
• What is your good? It is what man by his nature
  seeks happiness. But what is happiness?
• Is our telos a life of pleasure?
• Is our telos a life of honor?
• Is our telos a life of wealth?
• Is our telos a life of power?

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What is our Highest good?

• Aristotle argues that pleasure, wealth, honor, or
  power are only a means to happiness.
• Happiness, for Aristotle, as our highest good,
  consists in the fulfillment of our function as
  humans.
• The fulfillment of our function is the activity
  of soul in accordance with virtue.
• We will pursue this last theme when we examine
  virtue ethics.

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Personal Favorite quotes from Aristotle
I count him braver who overcomes his desires
than him who conquers his enemies for the
hardest victory is over self. At his best,
man is the noblest of all animals separated from
law and justice he is the worst. Good habits
formed at youth make all the difference. In
all things of nature there is something of the
marvelous. It is the mark of an educated
mind to be able to entertain a thought without
accepting it.