2016 marks 2400 years since the birth of Aristotle, the brilliant Greek philosopher and scientist, whose contribution to the development of human civilization cannot be overstated. Logic, physics, Bologoe, political science, sociology, law, pedagogy, psychology, ethics, aesthetics – this is an incomplete list of the Sciences, the history of which begins with the works of Aristotle. It and philosophy, which was a combination of many exercises, have turned to science – system of knowledge about nature, society and learning is based and developed on common principles. In fact, it was he who formulated and applied in his works those principles which science is different from craft, art or religion.
The way of life of Aristotle
Aristotle (Αριστοτέλης) was born in 384 B. E. G. in the city Star (see map). His father, Name, was a physician at the court of the Macedonian king Aminta III, where the son since the childhood to communicate with your peers, the future king Philip II. The father gave the son some knowledge of medicine and, obviously, instilled interest in the study of nature. At the age of 15, Aristotle lost his parents, and was raised by his maternal uncle Proksen of Aternia. At the age of 17 Aristotle went to Athens where he enrolled in the Academy the philosophical school of Plato. In the Academy Aristotle was 20 years, first as a listener and then as a teacher of rhetoric. He retained a deep respect for the teacher and wrote that the poor man can not even to praise Plato.
347 G. B. E., after the death of Plato, the Academy was headed by his nephew Spesp. Aristotle along with other Xenocrates left Athens and moved to Assos in Asia Minor. It is a city shortly before was founded Germm ruler Atenea, a former student of the school of Plato. Aristotle married the niece (and foster daughter) Hermia – Piyade. Three years later Hermi was killed. Aristotle with his wife moved to the island of Lesbos in the town Mthly, where he was invited by a friend of Theophrastus, who was a native of those places.
In 343 or 342 B. G. E., Aristotle was invited by Philip II to become the tutor of his son Alexander, who turned thirteen years old. Aristotle moved to Pella, the Royal residence, and later in MSU. He taught Alexander the history of Greece and Persia, geography, politics, poetry, especially the works of Homer. Subsequently, Alexander the great said that from his father he received life, but from Aristotle, something for which he should be respected. In 339, B. E. to the educational activities of the Aristotle ended, he moved to his hometown Stara, where he lived for three years.
338 G. B. E., took place the battle of cheronia, the result of which was the affirmation of the authority of Philip II over the whole of Greece. In 336, to B. C. Philip II was assassinated, Alexander became king, Aristotle returned to Athens. With the assistance of his friend Antipater, whom Alexander had appointed Governor of the Balkans, he opened his philosophical school known as Likey or peripatetica. Judging by the breadth of scientific interests of Aristotle, this school can be considered a University, and research. Aristotle attracted listeners to collecting the actual material that was used in his writings. So, when writing the "Policy" used data from the state of the device 158 Greek policies, which, of course, a lot of people gathered. A number of well-known works of Aristotle is an edited record of his lectures.
After the death of Alexander in 323 to n. e was held in Athens antimacedonian the uprising. "Macedonia" Aristotle was accused of disrespect to the gods (as in the time of Socrates). He did not wait for the court, gave guidance Lcam to Theophrastus used infinite times and moved to the city of Chalcis (Euboea), to, in his words, not to give the Athenians a second time to commit a crime against philosophy (the allusion to the death sentence of Socrates). There Aristotle died after a year from chronic disease of the stomach.
The Works Of Aristotle
The works of Aristotle cover almost all of the then scientific (philosophical) knowledge. His known treatises are divided into eight groups.
1. Logical treatises: "Analytics first", "second Analyst", "Topeka", "Category", "On interpretation", "the Refutation of sophisms".
2. Treatises on "first philosophy," collected in the book which is known under the name "Metaphysics".
3. Physical treatises: "Physics", "sky", "On the origin and destruction", "Meteorology".
4. Biological treatises: "the History of animals, parts of animals", "On the appearance of animals", "On the motion of animals".
5. Psychological treatises: On the soul and the so-called "Small works on natural history" ("On memory and recollection," "On sleep", "insomnia", "life and death", "breath", etc.).
6. The ethical treatises: "Nicomachean ethics", "ethics Evtimova", "Big ethics".
7. Political-economic treatises: "Politics", "Economy", "Athenians".
8. Treatises on the art of poetry and rhetoric: "Rhetoric" and "Poetics".
Aristotle himself distinguished three kinds of knowledge and related Sciences and arts: theoretical (speculative), practical and poetic, or creative. The purpose of theoretical knowledge is truth, knowledge for knowledge's sake, the practical achievement of practical goals and poetic – a work product. The theoretical knowledge is "first philosophy," physics (science) and mathematics; practical knowledge in ethics, politics, Economics; the poetic – rhetoric, poetics, as well as all crafts.
Logical treatises of Aristotle, not included in philosophy (of science). In his opinion, they were given tools by which science is created. These treatises of his students called "Organon" (the instrument).
I should say that came to us not all the works of Aristotle. Ancient authors give lists of tens and even hundreds of his works.The Works Of Aristotle
The works of Aristotle cover almost all of the then scientific (philosophical) knowledge. His known treatises are divided into eight groups.
1. Logical treatises: "Analytics first", "second Analyst", "Topeka", "Category", "On interpretation", "the Refutation of sophisms".
2. Treatises on "first philosophy," collected in the book which is known under the name "Metaphysics".
3. Physical treatises: "Physics", "sky", "On the origin and destruction", "Meteorology".
4. Biological treatises: "the History of animals, parts of animals", "On the appearance of animals", "On the motion of animals".
5. Psychological treatises: On the soul and the so-called "Small works on natural history" ("On memory and recollection," "On sleep", "insomnia", "life and death", "breath", etc.).
6. The ethical treatises: "Nicomachean ethics", "ethics Evtimova", "Big ethics".
7. Political-economic treatises: "Politics", "Economy", "Athenians".
8. Treatises on the art of poetry and rhetoric: "Rhetoric" and "Poetics".
Aristotle himself distinguished three kinds of knowledge and related Sciences and arts: theoretical (speculative), practical and poetic, or creative. The purpose of theoretical knowledge is truth, knowledge for knowledge's sake, the practical achievement of practical goals and poetic – a work product. The theoretical knowledge is "first philosophy," physics (science) and mathematics; practical knowledge in ethics, politics, Economics; the poetic – rhetoric, poetics, as well as all crafts.
Logical treatises of Aristotle, not included in philosophy (of science). In his opinion, they were given tools by which science is created. These treatises of his students called "Organon" (the instrument).
I should say that came to us not all the works of Aristotle. Ancient authors give lists of tens and even hundreds of his works.
Features of the philosophy of Aristotle
In his writings, Aristotle summed up the results of more than three hundred years period of development of ancient Greek philosophy and gave its solution to all major problems of this philosophy, over which brooded more than one generation of philosophers, and concerning the knowledge of nature, society, thinking.
As you know, the first philosophers, called physicists, or fuselage (Thales, Anaksimen, Anaximander), talked about how the world works, what it consists of things, why they are different and how they change. Later philosophers pondered the problems of world knowledge, in particular on this: if the world is changing, it is possible to know that every moment differently? Socrates taught that the most important thing for a person to know not how the world works, and what it good. He began to explore the process of cognition and to prove the necessity of defining common concepts, argued that to distinguish the good from the bad act can only know what is good. Plato agreed with the opinion of Parmenides that one can know only what is invariably claimed that the unchanging and eternal – is the idea, the ideal of disembodied images (Eidos), which are perennially the highest in the world and form the real thing, combined with matter. He believed that man knows the idea because her soul before birth was in the world of ideas, and now, when he sees things, remembers (learns) the tings that are seen there.
Aristotle is not denying the existence of ideas outside of things. He believed that ideas (which he called forms) are real objects and that their knowledge must not contemplate trying to remember something, and to learn some things and look at them overall. This difference in the views of Aristotle and Plato clearly depicted on the fresco of Raphael's "Athens school" (a copy is in the lobby of the 7th corps): there is depicted Plato pointing to the sky, and Aristotle gesture widely opened arms trying to attract his attention to the world.
In his first philosophy Aristotle discussed the nature of knowledge and its logical treatises created tools for finding and proving the truth. Thereby he laid the philosophical foundations of the science relied upon in its further development over many centuries.
What is valuable can be found in the philosophy of Aristotle today
We should not think that nearly two and a half millennia that separate us from Aristotle and made it the philosophy for the understanding of the problems of modern science. Euclid only 60 years closer to us in time than Aristotle, but it is his geometry (and not the newly created neevklidova) is applied in practice.
A lot of value to research workers in the book Aristotle's "Metaphysics," contains the doctrine of the first principles and causes of all things. It is, in fact, is meta-theory of physics (natural science), which includes a General theory of nature and theory of knowledge. There are discussed the most General concepts, which operates science: matter and form (of which, according to Aristotle, consist of all things), the causes of things (material, formal, effective and final), types of movements (i.e. changes at all), and other items.
"Metaphysics" of Aristotle, with his logical treatises, was the philosophical bedrock of the writings of the founders of classical natural science, in particular, work I. Newton "Mathematical principles of natural philosophy". Ignorance of Aristotle's philosophy is due, apparently, all the criticism of the theories of Newton. For example, many sees a significant drawback of Newton's theory in that it does not explain the cause of gravity. These critics do not realize that the word "mathematical" in the title of Newton's work contains a formal (mathematical) theory of motion of celestial bodies (i.e., mathematical description) and does not purport to explain these movements. The explanation given by material theory. Classical thermodynamics – the formal theory of thermal phenomena, the kinetic theory of gases – material theory. Electrodynamics of ampere – formal theory of electromagnetic phenomena, Maxwell's theory – material. The formal theory is only the first step in the study of phenomena. Physics of the twentieth century this seems to be not aware of. They many years created a formal theory of elementary particles, faced many problems and tried to solve them by improving the formalism, instead of having to create and develop material theories.
Researchers must know the General principles of scientific research laid out by Aristotle at the beginning of the work "Physics". It says: "since knowledge, [including] scientific knowledge, arises in all studies that apply to principles, causes and elements, by their understanding (because we then believe that we know this or that thing when we realize it the first cause, first principles and lay it up before the elements), it is clear that in the science of nature should try to find out first of all that refers to the original. The natural way this goes from a more clear and explicit for us to a more explicit and intuitive by nature... So you need to move in this way from less than explicit in nature, and for us, more explicit, more explicit and clear in nature. For us the first clear and explicit the whole [thing], and then from them by their dismemberment are becoming aware of the elements and principles. Therefore, it is necessary to go from the things [perceived] in General, and their parts".
Thus was the study of nature for centuries. Scientists have described a clear and solid things (objects, phenomena), then they were compared, classified, analyzed, searched their elements, causes, principles. In the same manner – the list of phenomena, their classification, analysis, laws of phenomena – submitted the results of a study of nature in the courses of physics – from the “world System” in the "elements" of Newton to the textbooks published in the early twentieth century. Modern physics authors begin by outlining the laws and phenomena cited as an illustration of their truth. In this presentation, the students brought up the dogmatic attitude to the existing theories, it becomes a barrier to the development of science.
Of Aristotle you can find the answer to the question: how to develop science? In the work of Aristotle "Topic" described is the method of science, what is known today as gpotato-deductive.
Aristotle wrote: "Proof is present when the conclusion is constructed from the true and first [of the provisions] or such knowledge which originates from the other of the first and true [provisions]. The same dialectical reasoning – this is something that is built from the most likely [of the provisions]..." and Then it says that dialectical reasoning is useful for understanding the origins of any science. After all, without departing from the scope of any science, you cannot prove its first principles. "So they must be dismantled on the basis of the most likely provisions in each individual case, and this is [the goal] inherent in the dialectic or closest to it. Because, as a method of research, it paves the way to the first principles of all teachings." For more details see book: Jokhadze, D. V. “the Dialectic of Aristotle”.
In my opinion, essential to physics and have aristotelic categories: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, character, action, popadanija action. Their role in scientific knowledge can be illustrated in this example. Starting with the study of thermal phenomena, physics of the XVIII century on the basis of the known facts came to the conclusion that heat is a substance (essence). This, by the way, linked the terms “heat”, “heat flux”, “high and low temperature”, “latent heat”. When in the XIX century. it has been proven that heat appears and disappears, physicists have concluded that the warmth – the quality, because the substance can appear and disappear. As established that heat is converted into mechanical motion of visible bodies and their mechanical motion, concluded that heat is mechanical motion of invisible particles of matter. Based on the new understanding of the warmth, began to study the consequence of which was the establishment of the kinetic theory of gases, and subsequently statisticno physics. In my opinion, many problems in the field of research of elementary particles can not be solved for decades that physicists do not set the question: what are these particles entities (substances), or qualities, if qualities, qualities which substance?
I want to say that, in my view, the existing courses of philosophy and physics give an insufficient idea of the philosophy of Aristotle and its significance for science. Courses in philosophy philosophy is taught as one of the early and completed phases of the development of philosophy. In the courses of physics I write almost exclusively about about the views of Aristotle on those or other phenomena and do not indicate that his work is the philosophical first principle of this science. I believe that the philosophy of Aristotle, which is the cornerstone of science, deserves the respect and proper study. Those who wish to read it yourself, I can recommend two wonderful books: S. N. Trubetskoy. “The course of the history of ancient philosophy” (several editions) and “Lectures of Professor A. S.Presentation on the history of ancient philosophy” (1912).