ARISTOTLE

ARISTOTLE(384 BC – 322 BC)

Some scholars regard him as the greatest philosopher of all time.

BIOGRAPHY OF

ARISTOTLE

QUICK FACTS

• NAME : Aristotle

• OCCUPATION: Philosopher

• BIRTH DATE : c. 384 BCE

• DEATH DATE : c. 322 BCE

• EDUCATION: Plato's Academy , Lyceum

• PLACE OF BIRTH: Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece

• PLACE OF DEATH: Chalcis, Euboea, Greece

• FULL NAME: Aristotle

A father of logical, scientific thinking.

A Vehicle for both Christian scholasticism and

medieval Islamic philosophy.

The reformation, and the enlightenment,

Aristotelian concepts remained embedded in western

thinking.

One of the greatest figures of Western history.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher whose ideas have deeply influenced science, philosophy and religion for more than two thousand years. He is known as the father of logical, scientific thinking. Although many of his scientific beliefs were later proved wrong, other of his discoveries in physics, biology and zoology were centuries ahead of their time.Aristotle was born near modern-day Thessaloniki, Greece. His father was physician to the King of Macedon, so Aristotle was raised as an aristocrat and studied under the greatest thinker of the time, the famous Plato. Aristotle’s theories were the basis of modern science, and his works on philosophy and ethics helped form the teachings of religions and philosophers that are still held in high regard to this day.

Philosophy

One of the main focuses of Aristotle’s philosophy was his systematic concept of logic. Aristotle’s objective was to come up with a universal process of reasoning that would allow man to learn every conceivable thing about reality. The initial process involved describing objects based on their characteristics, states of being and actions. In his philosophical treatises, Aristotle also discussed how man might next obtain information about objects through deduction and inference. To Aristotle, a deduction was a reasonable argument in which “when certain things are laid down, something else follows out of necessity in virtue of their being so.” His theory of deduction is the basis of what philosophers now call a syllogism, a logical argument where the conclusion is inferred from two or more other premises of a certain form.

In his book Prior Analytics, Aristotle explains the syllogism as “a discourse in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so.” Aristotle defined the main components of reasoning in terms of inclusive and exclusive relationships. These sorts of relationships were visually grafted in the future through the use of Venn diagrams.

Aristotle’s philosophy not only provided man with a system of reasoning, but also touched upon ethics. In Nichomachean Ethics, he prescribed a moral code of conduct for what he called “good living.” He asserted that good living to some degree defied the more restrictive laws of logic, since the real world poses circumstances that can present a conflict of personal values. That said, it was up to the individual to reason cautiously while developing his or her own judgment.

Realism is an educational philosophy, which stresses knowledge that

develops from one's own senses. Under this philosophy the idea exists that there is a real world not constructed by human minds, that can be known by one's own mind. It is through experiencing the world around everyone in which one learns the guiding principles and social conduct of life. Reality is what one experiences in the physical world. Therefore, everything one can learn and know comes from experiencing the world around us.

Aristotle : The Purpose of Life “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” When I first read this quotation from Aristotle, I thought it was simplistic. I reasoned that Aristotle had lived a long time ago and perhaps life was less complicated then. After many years of study, however, I have come to the conclusion that Aristotle was correct; the quest for happiness is indeed universal. After all, whose life quest is to be unhappy?The challenge lies in finding the difference between what we believe will make us happy versus what actually does make us happy.Discovering where happiness comes from is the process of finding fulfillment. Many people assume that happiness comes from making money, which will allow them to buy things. In my experience and observation, happiness comes from serving other people – and I don’t mean “serving” in the sense of “volunteering,” I mean using our own gifts for the benefit of others in a way that is meaningful to us. (This may, in fact, be the way we earn our living.)

So how do we figure out which of our gifts will allow us to find happiness by serving others? Aristotle talked about that, too, when he said, ”Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” This search can take years. Be patient.

The journey begins with accepting yourself. So many of us are trying to be someone else. So first you have to accept yourself as you are. The next step is to believe in yourself. From there, your instincts will guide you toward knowledge of what will make you happy, and the ways in which you need to treat others in order to be fulfilled. We all need to work on “becoming” ourselves. We need to become ourselves more and more every day – and on that journey, we need to be our own best friends.

Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self. For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing. To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny. The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead. He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.

Education is the best provision for old age.

Hope is a waking dream.

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

Aristotle, the man and the author

The Greek ideal of measure of an equipoise of harmoniously developed power found expression in his personality as well as in his theory of ethics violent passions seem to have been utterly foreign to his nature….

1. logic may be termed the least fruitful of all studies ,to condemn it is absolutely sterile would be excessive and unjust. The Aristotelian logic glow from a double root .it sprang on the other hand from the dialectical tourneys the sound of which filled the assembly of the people ,the halls of justice and the schools of the philosophers. On the other hand its origin was in part due to the solitary meditations of those researchers who founded and developed the different branches of mathematics. It is clear that one of the main motives which influenced the creation of logic was a desire to extend to new and varied regions of thought a scientific rigour which the mind of man had already attained in one department of its activity.

2. The kernel and center of Aristotelian logic is the theory of the syllogism to understand easy the ancient and traditional example set out in the form customary with Aristotle.

All man is mortalN.N is a manN.N is mortal

The three propositions in the above order are designated the major and minor prepositions, the conclusion, the 1st two are also called promises .The three terms or concepts which occur are distinguished as major, middle and minor.1st thought suggested by the above considerations is that the syllogism is an empty hocus-pocus a solemn farce.

The syllogism is by its nature not only a valuable means of testing knowledge, but also a means of acquiring new information. The derivation of the world from a Greek verb meaning “to combine “allows us to cover by it every combination of pieces of knowledge already possessed by which new knowledge is produced.

Important works of Aristotle

1. The Organon 2. The Metaphysics

3. The Nicomachean Ethics

4. The Poetics 5. The Rhetoric

IMPACT OF

PHILOSOPHY

Aristotle's philosophy made a dramatic

impact on both Western and Islamic philosophy. The

beginning of "modern" philosophy in the Western world is

typically located at the transition from medieval,

Aristotelian philosophy to mechanistic, Cartesian philosophy

in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yet, even the

new philosophy continued to put debates in largely

Aristotelian terms, or to wrestle with Aristotelian views.

Today, there are avowed Aristotelians in many areas of

contemporary philosophy, including ethics and metaphysics.

*First, his work is a testament to the belief that our thinking and practice as educators must be infused with a clear philosophy of life. There has to be a deep concern for the ethical and political. We have continually to ask what makes for human flourishing. From this we should act to work for that which is good or ‘right’, rather than that which is merely ‘correct’.

*Second, along with many others in his time, he placed a strong emphasis on all round and ‘balanced’ development. Play, physical training, music, debate, and the study of science and philosophy were to all have their place in the forming of body, mind and soul. Like Plato before him, he saw such learning happening through life –although with different emphases at different ages.

*Third, he looked to both education through reason and education through habit. By the latter he meant learning by doing – ‘anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it… We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate ones, brave by doing brave ones.’ (Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, p.91). Such learning is complemented by reason – and this involves teaching ‘the causes of things’. We can see here a connection with more recent theorists that have emphasized experience, reflection and Connecting to theories.

* Fourth, and linked to the above, Aristotle bequeathed to us the long standing categorizing of disciplines into the theoretical, practical and technical. We have suffered at different points from a continuing emphasis in education, after Aristotle, on contemplation as the highest form of human activity. However, many writers have picked up on his concern for the practical – and for practical reasoning. We can this at work, for example, in the work of Carr and Kemmis (1986), and Grundy (1987) when they argue for a concern with process and praxis in education. It has also been a significant element in the reformulation of informal education by writers such as Jeff and Smith.

*Aristotle’s bequest is not an unproblematic one. There is much to dislike about some of his ideas and the way in which subordinated groups are excluded from the benefits of education in his thinking. However, the study of his thought remains deeply rewarding for many educators.

Through the life of Aristotle, one would wonder how a

mere thought of philosophy could impact the way

education is practiced today as we know it. Aristotle's

way of life reflected the way he thought and what he

wrote for people to view and educate upon today. He has

many philosophies that are brought right into the

classroom today without anyone knowing they are. His

philosophies are truly remarkable. When a person creates

something or teaches something, the philosophies

brought in the classroom become so innate that people

who use it don't even know it exists.

A Brief Overview of Aristotle.

I agree with those who believe

that Aristotle's philosophy is influenced by his twenty years studying with

Plato in the Academy. In particular, both of Aristotle's two main

philosophical projects, first, the clarification of the nature, scope and

results of logical reasoning, or, more simply, dialectic, and second,

setting out a coherent science of the universe, including especially life on

earth, can both be seen as resulting from being a student of Plato's in the

Academy. More particularly, the latter project was the result of Aristotle

trying to justify rejecting the Parmenidean strictures against the

possibility of change, motion and plurality.

THANK YOU

NEETHU THOMAS &SALUMOL