Knowledge is Power (9) - Who was Aristotle?
source After Lysippos [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist from Classical Greece. He was a student of Plato, therefore he contributed to Platonism and he is considered, along with his famous teacher, the "Father of Western Philosophy".
There is so much to talk about philosophy and ancient philosophers. This blog is not the place to hold a class. My intention is to make a summary of the summary of the summary of the evolution of human philosophical thinking throughout history. Therefore, I will touch just a little bit on Aristotle's metaphisics and his views on body and soul.
Aristotle's metaphysics refers to principles of scientific knowledge and the atribute of existence in its most fundamental state, like being as being.
Aristotle believed that every physical object is a compound of matter and form. He said that all men have wisdom to deal with the causes and principals of things. He also believed that desire and thought are non-physical.
On a personal level, the most interesting aspect of Aristotles' philosophy is his concept of body and soul. According to his definition, the soul is a form of a natural body with organs. The soul is a set of capacities, like the capacity for nutrition, the capacity of sense perception, and the capacity for thought.
Aristotle defined the soul as the perfect expression of a natural body. He believed that there is a close connection between body and soul, same connection as in sight to eye.
Before him, philosophers discussed the soul as a separate entity from the body. Aristotle discussed the soul as the truth of the body, not as a psychological condition of the body. So, he had a materialistic view of the world, with his belief that when the body dies, the soul dies. He did not belief in life after death like Plato or his predescesors. That is remarkable, isn't it? I am really fascinated by philosophy.
This post is a part of my series "Knowledge is Power". In case you missed the previous articles, you can read them here:
This is even a better reading than my textbook last time. Thank you for sharing. I too believe there is a connection between our soul and our body, if our soul is OK so do our body.
😊
It surely is a better reading because it has a personal twist. Philosophy can be very interesting but also very boring if you don’t try to relate somehow to the subjects. 😊
Another superb post so informative and like the first comment i agree you present it to make it far more interesting than the textbooks
The personal touch makes a big difference. That’s how we remember things, by relating them to examples, at least this is how my brain works.
Yes you are totally right on that
The only one of the three that's really worth a poo is Socrates, though to be fair what we know of him is all through Plato.
I agree. Socrates didn’t write anything. Thanks to Plato, we know about him. But all them contributed to the way we think now.