Hello everyone, next, I will use a series of content to introduce the thoughts of ancient Greek philosopher and Aristotle . I have carefully prepared this series for a while, because it is indeed Aristotle is too important. Aristotle is the most important philosopher in the history of Western philosophy, not even one of them. Aristotle was not only the true pioneer of Western philosophy, but also an encyclopedia scientist. He made considerable contributions to many disciplines, and was even the pioneer of many disciplines. He is known as the "father of biology" and the "father of logic ".
Scientist Hawking once said: The birth of science and the birth of civilization may have a considerable contribution, and it is attributed to Aristotle. Among all scientists, Aristotle may have the largest proportion of contributions. Aristotle is so important, but many people's memory of Aristotle may still be in the physics textbooks in middle school. Galileo stood on Leaning Tower of Pisa and conducted two shot put experiments at the same time. This proves that Aristotle's view that "two objects of equal volumes fall faster" is wrong.
In today's view, many of Aristotle's theories have been proven to be wrong, for example, he believes that the earth is the center of the universe; the earth and the celestial bodies are composed of different matters, the matter on the earth is composed of four elements: water, air, fire, and earth, and the celestial bodies are composed of the fifth element "Ether". He also pointed out that white is the purest light, and the light of other colors we see is the light that changes for some reason, which is impure. This view was later falsified by Newton . Aristotle even put forward the wrong view that women's teeth are naturally less than men's teeth.
Hearing this, you may think, why do we still need to learn from such a person who is full of fallacies? The answer is not whether the conclusion he came to is correct, but that his way of thinking is a valuable legacy. Philosophy is known as the most brilliant jewel in the crown of human wisdom, and Aristotle created the discipline of "Philosophy". Therefore, to understand philosophy, especially Western philosophy, Aristotle will definitely not be able to jump over it. Before systematically introducing Aristotle's thoughts, let's take a brief look at Aristotle's life as usual.
Aristotle was born in Thrace, a Greek colony in 384 BC. His father was the imperial physician of the court of the king of Macedonia at that time. His family was in good condition, at least he was a middle class at that time. Aristotle became a disciple of Plato at the age of 17. He studied for 20 years. In Plato Academy , Aristotle was known as the "spirit of the academy" for his outstanding performance and did not leave until Plato died. Because of Plato's influence, Aristotle developed a strong interest in philosophy, and was also influenced by his father, and also liked to study and study natural sciences such as biology.
Two years after Plato's death, Aristotle was still in Athens because the new leader of the Plato Academy at that time agreed with the mathematical tendency in Plato's philosophy , which made Aristotle very disgusted and began to travel around the world. But some people say that it was because after Plato's death, he did not pass the position of the head of the academy to Aristotle, which led to his departure. By 343 AD, 42-year-old Aristotle was hired by King Philip II of Macedonia and served as the teacher of Alexander. Influenced by Aristotle, Alexander respected and praised knowledge and science very much.
When Philip II died in 335 BC, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his own school: Lucion Academy. During this period, he organized and wrote works based on students' study notes. Most of his works on philosophy and natural sciences were completed during this period.Interestingly, when lectured, Aristotle liked to stroll in corridors and gardens, so Aristotle's philosophy is also called "free and easy philosophy" or "stroll philosophy".
At the same time, because Aristotle was once the teacher of Alexander the Great, , Aristotle not only received preferential treatment from the local people, but also showed outstanding political status, but also many of them came from Alexander the Great and various bureaucrats to provide financial, land and materials. But after Alexander's death, due to the relationship between Aristotle and Alexander, he was accused of not respecting God and fleeing to Galses for refuge. In the second year of his escape, Aristotle died of stomach disease at the age of 63.
is OK. Next, let’s talk about its scientific achievements. As we mentioned earlier, he is an encyclopedia scientist. You may have noticed carefully that when we talked about Plato and Socrates , we used "thinkers and philosophers" and not "scientists". And Aristotle is called a scientist. Their difference lies in the explanation of the "source of knowledge", which Plato once asserted that "feeling cannot be the source of knowledge."
Knowledge exists before experience and feelings. For example, 1+1=2, it does not depend on any of our feelings and experiences. In Plato's eyes, we exist in a perfect and ideal world. The rules of movement of the universe are perfect; the matter of the universe is composed of perfect geometric particles; all stars run along a unified orbit. In short, we already know all the knowledge and laws of all things in the universe, and all our observations and experiences are just to prove this theory.
And his student Aristotle was just the opposite. He opposed the "ideology" of his teacher Plato and proposed that knowledge comes from experience and common sense. Plato was an idealist, while Aristotle was an empiricist. Regarding their differences, Aristotle has a famous saying: I love my teacher, and I love the truth even more. Aristotle focused on practice, observation, feeling and experience, and believed that only in this way could real knowledge be obtained. For example, Aristotle studied animals very carefully. In his book " Animal Chronicle ", he classified more than 500 animals and plants, and conducted anatomical research on at least more than 50 animals. He also recorded a lot of observations about various animals and divided them into invertebrates and vertebrates. In astronomy, Aristotle also observed that not all celestial bodies operate in a unified orbit, for example, the operation of Mars is completely opposite to other celestial bodies, etc.
In short, Aristotle believes that knowledge comes from experience and common sense, and this method of acquiring knowledge based on observation and practice is the scientific research method we commonly use today. Aristotle subverted Plato's understanding of the perfect world and proposed a scientific method of acquiring knowledge. This is Aristotle's greatest contribution to human science, so we call him a great scientist.
In addition, in logic, Aristotle founded the important branch of formal logic . He proposed the syllogical formal logic, which was later developed into a classic deduction method. For example, the famous syllogistic reasoning: the main premise is: people will die. The small premise is: Socrates is a human. So the conclusion is: Socrates will die. This logical reasoning method , which derives individual conclusions based on universal laws, played a crucial role in the subsequent scientific development. For example, later, Ancient Greek mathematician Euclidean , the famous father of geometry, applied this reasoning idea to geometry research. Euclid was the first person to use Aristotle's deduction method to construct knowledge systems and scientific research and development methods. His geometry is a rigorous deduction system, deducing various theorems from several axioms, and then using these theorems to solve practical problems.
But compared with physics, biology and logic, Aristotle's true contribution to greatness was to pioneer philosophy. What exactly does Aristotle's philosophy talk about? Our next issue will start with his most classic book " Metaphysics ". This is what today’s content. If you like my content, please like and collect it and follow me. See you in the next issue.
