Aristotle

[Ross Barlow]

Aristotle: writings by him or about him, as well as your thoughts about him.

If I may, I would like to start a topic thread dedicated to Aristotle and the literature connected to his work, as I have not found one yet on OL. I am not an expert on him, but I have long been an enthusiastic fan, inspired by another fan of his: Ayn Rand.

The first book that leaps to my mind is: *Aristotle* by John Herman Randall, Jr.

It is really a small world. Last evening I met some interesting American expatriates in Bangkok. After one of them heard that I had majored in philosophy and had taught it at high school level, he started telling me about his uncle who had been a philosophy professor at Columbia University. He was telling me about what an interesting man his uncle had been, about his great witty dinner table conversations and then about his writings. I interrupted him at one point and said, “What was your uncle’s name.”

He replied, “John Herman Randall, Jr.”

I almost choked on my coffee: “THE John Herman Randall, Jr.? Who wrote *Aristotle*?” Yep.

How many of you here have read this book? It has been over 35 years since I last read it, yet I still recommend it highly. It is probably out of print, yet available used.

I remember it being reviewed quite prominently sometime in the 1960s in either *The Objectivist Newsletter* or *The Objectivist,* and I am quite sure that Rand was the reviewer. Correct me if I am wrong about that. Later, my dear late mother mailed me a whole box of philosophy books at my request when I was in Vietnam, and Randall’s *Aristotle* was in it.

I was fresh out of high school and had no formal schooling in Western philosophy – only what I learned from the writings of Rand and her NBI associates, as well as a few odds and ends that I picked up here and there. Randall’s book was the one I really tried to tackle whenever we had lulls in fighting and down-time at base. It was tough reading for me, since my philosophical knowledge was so limited, and the vocabulary quite new to me and I had no dictionary.

I finally did plough through it and finish it, and I just sat back and thought: “Wow, I have a hell of a lot of hard learning ahead of me.” Randall had taken me on a guided tour of a great mind and, although I did not understand much of it, I was humbled and awed. I re-read it a couple of times after returning to civilian life. I still have that paperback volume with its owl drawing on the cover -- in my sister’s attic – and it still has the water damage, dirt and squashed mosquitoes between its pages from its time of hard use in the tropics.

I remember the reviewer (Rand) explaining how – even though she did not agree with everything Randall said – the appearance of this volume was very important in the context of 20th century philosophy. She viewed it as a breath of fresh air – and those may have been her exact words.

The first time I ever heard of the famous opening quote of Aristotle’s *Metaphysics* was in Randall’s volume, where Aristotle is quoted as writing: “All men by nature desire to know.” Randall immediately quipped something to the effect of: “But then Aristotle did not have the honor of teaching in an American university classroom.” (My own paraphrase from ancient memory.) This was an example of Randall’s excellent wit that his nephew said was typical of the man. (I later recycled this joke in my own teaching career, altering it to “…an American high school classroom.” My students never seemed to see the humor, so I guess I was just amusing myself.)

Randall then went on to state that Aristotle himself was one of the great Knowers in the Western tradition because of the range and depth of his thought.

Following up on the subject of these opening words of Aristotle’s, I recently had occasion to quote them to my own family over a month ago when I had became a great-uncle for the first time and my sister had become a grandmother. My niece had just given birth to a baby boy whose most immediately striking attribute was what everyone described as being his eyes: big, curious, outward-looking and serious. So I paraphrased from memory for my family:

“All men by nature desire to know. As an indication of this, consider the delight we take in our senses, particularly the sense of sight.” – Aristotle, *Metaphysics.*

It is our nature to desire to know. At least that is true of all those I call friends.

-Ross Barlow.

[BaalChatzaf]

Aristotle: writings by him or about him, as well as your thoughts about him.

If I may, I would like to start a topic thread dedicated to Aristotle and the literature connected to his work, as I have not found one yet on OL. I am not an expert on him, but I have long been an enthusiastic fan, inspired by another fan of his: Ayn Rand.

The first book that leaps to my mind is: *Aristotle* by John Herman Randall, Jr.

It is really a small world. Last evening I met some interesting American expatriates in Bangkok. After one of them heard that I had majored in philosophy and had taught it at high school level, he started telling me about his uncle who had been a philosophy professor at Columbia University. He was telling me about what an interesting man his uncle had been, about his great witty dinner table conversations and then about his writings. I interrupted him at one point and said, “What was your uncle’s name.”

He replied, “John Herman Randall, Jr.”

I almost choked on my coffee: “THE John Herman Randall, Jr.? Who wrote *Aristotle*?” Yep.

How many of you here have read this book? It has been over 35 years since I last read it, yet I still recommend it highly. It is probably out of print, yet available used.

I remember it being reviewed quite prominently sometime in the 1960s in either *The Objectivist Newsletter* or *The Objectivist,* and I am quite sure that Rand was the reviewer. Correct me if I am wrong about that. Later, my dear late mother mailed me a whole box of philosophy books at my request when I was in Vietnam, and Randall’s *Aristotle* was in it.

I was fresh out of high school and had no formal schooling in Western philosophy – only what I learned from the writings of Rand and her NBI associates, as well as a few odds and ends that I picked up here and there. Randall’s book was the one I really tried to tackle whenever we had lulls in fighting and down-time at base. It was tough reading for me, since my philosophical knowledge was so limited, and the vocabulary quite new to me and I had no dictionary.

I finally did plough through it and finish it, and I just sat back and thought: “Wow, I have a hell of a lot of hard learning ahead of me.” Randall had taken me on a guided tour of a great mind and, although I did not understand much of it, I was humbled and awed. I re-read it a couple of times after returning to civilian life. I still have that paperback volume with its owl drawing on the cover -- in my sister’s attic – and it still has the water damage, dirt and squashed mosquitoes between its pages from its time of hard use in the tropics.

I remember the reviewer (Rand) explaining how – even though she did not agree with everything Randall said – the appearance of this volume was very important in the context of 20th century philosophy. She viewed it as a breath of fresh air – and those may have been her exact words.

The first time I ever heard of the famous opening quote of Aristotle’s *Metaphysics* was in Randall’s volume, where Aristotle is quoted as writing: “All men by nature desire to know.” Randall immediately quipped something to the effect of: “But then Aristotle did not have the honor of teaching in an American university classroom.” (My own paraphrase from ancient memory.) This was an example of Randall’s excellent wit that his nephew said was typical of the man. (I later recycled this joke in my own teaching career, altering it to “…an American high school classroom.” My students never seemed to see the humor, so I guess I was just amusing myself.)

Randall then went on to state that Aristotle himself was one of the great Knowers in the Western tradition because of the range and depth of his thought.

Following up on the subject of these opening words of Aristotle’s, I recently had occasion to quote them to my own family over a month ago when I had became a great-uncle for the first time and my sister had become a grandmother. My niece had just given birth to a baby boy whose most immediately striking attribute was what everyone described as being his eyes: big, curious, outward-looking and serious. So I paraphrased from memory for my family:

“All men by nature desire to know. As an indication of this, consider the delight we take in our senses, particularly the sense of sight.” – Aristotle, *Metaphysics.*

It is our nature to desire to know. At least that is true of all those I call friends.

-Ross Barlow.

One of the most erudite Aristotelian scholars is Mortimer Adler. He has written several good popularizations of the philosophy of Aristotle.

Why popularizations? Because Aristotle is very hard to read in translation. We have, perhaps 1/5 of everything that Aristotle wrote. Unlike Plato of whom we have all his known works, what we have of Aristotle are the "Cliff Notes", i.e. lecture notes intended for advanced students. Plato wrote literary gems, whose wit comes through even in translation. They are a joy to read (for the most part). The writings we have of Aristotle are technical and dry. We have from the writings of Cicero that Aristotle also write witty dialogues, similar to those of Plato. Unfortunately they are all lost to us now.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle_for_Everybody for a pointer to Adler's commentary and explanation of Arisotle.

For those who want to tackle Aristotle head on, either learn Attic Greek (an ancient dialect of the Greek language) or read the translations by Joe Sachs who have declared war on the highly Latinate translations of Aristotle. Many of the English translations we get are effectively Latinized and obscure the plain meaning of Aristotle's Greek writing. Sachs has given a feel for what the Greek was like.

Look up translations by Joe Sachs on Amazon. This will give you the works which Sachs has translated. I have read -Physics- and -Nicomachean Ethics- as translated by Sachs. I find them to be reasonably plain to read.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

Aristotle: writings by him or about him, as well as your thoughts about him. -Ross Barlow.

I like the LOEB CLASSIC LIBRARY EDITIONS because they give the original in Greek or Latin on the left and the translation on the right. Before I owned my copy of Metaphysics, I used the one at the Michigan State University Library and I was amused to discover that it opened easily to the law of the excluded middle. Clearly, decades of Objectivists had gone there to find the Law of Non-Contradiction.

I confess to not reading much Aristotle straight through. With an interest in ancient numismatics and therefore ancient history, I have relied on his Athenian Constitution (discovered only in the 19th centruy!), Politics (origins of coinage) and a few others. I read closely his explanation of why the Earth is most likely a sphere. That discussion shows the depth of his knowledge and wisdom. He read everything that went before (apparently) and then considered the facts from his own understanding.

I also tried to chase down whether or not he actually said that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. I know that everyone says he said that, but what did he really say? The point is important because of the huge gap between ancient Greek and modern English. That passage about Non-Contradiction? Try it in Greek. It is inelegant at best.

(We recently watched The Lion in Winter and the DVD offered subtitles in French, but not English. That was appropriate enough, and we both know some, so we used that. It is amazing how much French there is in English when you see it in words as it is spoken and translated.)

So, you really have to approach it from the Greek, at least to get feel for it. While in The Physics, I also came upon his vector diagram for the resolution of forces, something allegedly not known until after Newton. However, further reading revealed that these books are likely the writings of his student, Theophrastus.

And there lies the problem. "Peripatetic" means "walking around." He walked and talked and the students took notes. Do we have his preparatory notes, their transcriptions, a combination?

After Alexander, the Macedonian royal family refused to release Aristotle's personal library. To them, it was "treasure." They kept it buried. When it was finally unearthed, it was worm-eaten and useless.

In the Introductions to the LOEB CLASSIC LIBRARY books, they explain which manuscripts they used, where they came from and how they were reconciled. Footnotes within the text also point to differences among manuscripts. I have about a dozen of these charming gems, five or six Aristotles, Greek Mathematics, the Biographies of Diogenes Laertus, etc. They are all still in print for about $20 each -- Barnes and Noble carry them, for instance -- and used stores near college campuses sell them for about half of retail. They are always marketable and marketed.

Edited December 14, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[Chris Grieb]

Ross; The date of the review of Aristotle by Ayn Rand was May 1963 in the Objectivist Newsletter.

[Reidy]

I'd recommend Ackrill's Aristotle the Philosopher as a place to start.

(A point of caution about Adler is that he thoroughly misunderstands excluded middle, thinking it means that one or the other of a pair of opposites must be present, with no third possibility. To put it briefly as people usually do, he takes it to mean that everything is black or white. What it means to Aristotle and to nearly everybody but Adler is, again in the same terms, that everything is black or not black. At greater length, the law entails that everything that has a color is, at a given time and in a given respect, black or not black.)

Edited December 14, 2008 by Reidy

[Guyau]

For Aristotle’s works, I rely on

The Complete Works of Aristotle

Jonathan Barnes, editor

Princeton (2 volumes)

These two collections are great:

The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle

Jonathan Barnes, editor

The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

Richard Kraut, editor

To the book mentioned by Peter, I’ll add:

Aristotle: The Desire to Understand

Jonathan Lear

Cambridge

Zooming in on Nicomachean Ethics:

Happy Lives and the Highest Good

Gabriel Richardson Lear

Princeton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Objectivity Aristotle's thought on the following topics is discussed on these pages:

Actions V1N3 93–94, V1N4 49, V2N3 6

Art V1N2 69, V2N5 47–49

Causality V1N3 23, 25, V2N1 31, 100, V2N3 2, 6, 8, 35, 84, 97, V2N4 219–20, V2N5 109

Conscious Faculties V1N2 52, V1N3 58–59, V2N2 62–63, V2N3 42, V2N4 28–30, 194

Definition V1N6 97, V2N6 45–47

Difference and Sameness V1N4 48–49, V2N6 44–45, 61, 63

Friends V1N2 67–68

Goodness V1N5 7, V1N6 138, V2N3 5–6, 32, 100, 102, V2N4 109–10, 218–23, V2N5 67–68, 96–97, 107, 110, 120–21, 126, 132, 135, 139–40

Happiness V1N6 138–39, 169, V2N4 220

Induction V1N2 36, V1N3 26, V2N6 45

Knowledge V2N4 28–34, 47, 50–51, V2N6 46–47, 74

Life V1N2 69, V1N5 7, V1N6 148, V2N2 138, V2N3 35

Mathematics V1N2 4–8, V2N4 30

Matter and Form V1N1 26–27, V1N2 5, V1N3 45, V1N6 97, V2N4 6, 10, 223, V2N5 109

Non-Contradiction V1N2 33, V1N3 3, V1N4 26, 31, 33, 45–50, V2N2 1, 3–4, V2N2 63–64, V2N3 1

Physics V1N3 28–29, V2N2 63–64, 67, V2N3 35, V2N4 22–23, 175, V2N5 6, 47

Poetry V2N3 43

Politics V1N6 142, V2N3 2, 119, V2N5 105

Propositions V1N4 41

Speech V1N4 47–50

Substance V1N1 26–27, V1N3 9, 45, V1N4 41, V2N2 63–64

Syllogism V1N4 45, V2N4 14, 30

Truth V1N4 1–3, 8, 45, V1N5 119, 122–23, 126, V1N6 84, 87, 97, 100, V2N2 115–16, V2N4 194

Wisdom V1N3 93–94, V2N3 2, 14–15

http://objectivity-archive.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my favorite passages is Metaphysics 1075a15–17.

And all things are ordered together somehow, but not all alike,—both fishes and fowls and plants; and the world is not such that one thing has nothing to do with another but they are all connected.

[BaalChatzaf]

I also tried to chase down whether or not he actually said that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. I know that everyone says he said that, but what did he really say? The point is important because of the huge gap between ancient Greek and modern English. That passage about Non-Contradiction? Try it in Greek. It is inelegant at best.

He said heavier objects fall faster than light objects. Look in -On the Heavens-. Also see -Physics- book VII. He also denied atoms, denied the existence of a vacuum (now an observable fact) and had no notion of inertia. He was of the opinion that the less resistance (or density) of the plenum the faster would be the natural motion of objects. Empty plenum, zero resistance ergo infinite velocity. His -Physics- is empirically a shambles. That is because he did not check. Systematic experimentation as a mode of scientific operation was not adopted until the renaissance. Aristotle believed that the Kosmos was integrated, organic, holistic and had purposes. In fact, most of physical reality is dead and dumber than a sack full of rocks (how smart can a dilute hydrogen gas be?). Since Aristotle believed the Kosmos was an organized entity, experiment and isolation of effects would give a false conclusion. For Aristotle it was look but don't touch. His reluctance to experiment reductively was based on his metaphysics, rather than a lack of curiosity.

As a result, Aristotle's biological observations were as good as could be gotten without magnifiers or microscopes. Unfortunately Aristotle could not have developed optics since he, as did most Greeks, believed that light came -from- the eye* and went to the object viewed. This belief was not corrected until the time of Alhazen (also spelled al Haythan), the Muslim scholar (Islam used to be intelligent about 800 years ago), circa the 11-th century or thereabout. Alhazen concluded from his own experiments that light entered the eye from the outside. So no magnifiers or microscopes for the Greeks.

Aristotle, a brilliant researcher and scholar, so overawed his followers, that physics (as we know it) was inhibited for the better part of 2000 years. For a long time people preferred looking at the "Cliff Notes" to examining the real thing. After some initial resistance, the Church adopted Aristotle as a secular saint (the works of Thomas is an example) and opposition to Aristotelean views was looked upon askance, as Galileo found out to his sorrow.

*See -The Fire Within- by David Park which is a story of light and how we came to understand what it is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Aristotle, a brilliant researcher and scholar, so overawed his followers, that physics (as we know it) was inhibited for the better part of 2000 years. For a long time people preferred looking at the "Cliff Notes" to examining the real thing.

Bob,

You keep mentioning this as an historical cause. I find history to be a bit more complex and I certainly do not see any evidence of awe of Aristotle as a reason for intellectual complacency of entire civilizations.

Also, this certainly does nothing to explain lack of development of physics in the Oriental world.

Eras and civilizations that held values other than physics as much, much higher than physics rings more true to my ear.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Aristotle, a brilliant researcher and scholar, so overawed his followers, that physics (as we know it) was inhibited for the better part of 2000 years. For a long time people preferred looking at the "Cliff Notes" to examining the real thing.

Bob,

You keep mentioning this as an historical cause. I find history to be a bit more complex and I certainly do not see any evidence of awe of Aristotle as a reason for intellectual complacency of entire civilizations.

Also, this certainly does nothing to explain lack of development of physics in the Oriental world.

Eras and civilizations that held values other than physics as much, much higher than physics rings more true to my ear.

Michael

It explains why real science was held up in the West. In China, they had a different probleml Their metaphysics was based on holism and -chi- (energy flow). Such a view precluded isolation and reductive experimentation. The Chinese thinkers did not think reality could be taken apart at the joints. The Europeans thought otherwise from the late Middle Ages on.

A combination of Platonic mysticism (which fueled Augustinian theology) and veneration of Aristotle held up real science until the fifteenth century.

In the Islamic domains, before Darkness Descended, there were outpourings of real science. The Muslim and Jewish scholars developed algebra (analytic mathematics) and a correct understanding of light which produced correct optics. Also in the Islamic domains medicine advanced whereas in Europe it did not until the renaissance.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Matus1976]

He said heavier objects fall faster than light objects. Look in -On the Heavens-. Also see -Physics- book VII.

Ah, BaalChatzaf loves his out of context Aristotle bashing... Actually Aristotle reasoned that the natural tendency was for all objects to move toward the center of the Earth, which he argued was a sphere, because it was the natural tendency for all matter to clump together and the natural shape of that clumping would be a sphere (he also presented numerous empirical proofs that the earth was a sphere, that we see the masts of ships before the hull, that in traveling south we see constellations that we do not see further north, and that the shadow cast by the earth on the moon was round) and within the context of the observational abilities of the ancient world, it was a reasonable extrapolation to think that heavier items fell faster, since it was rare to find two objects of the same volume but which had largely different rates, and even rarer to be in a situation to drop them any significant distance to determine the different rates

He also denied atoms,

Atoms as defined by the ancients, not 'atoms' as we use the term today. Those atomists atoms were indivisible entities which retained their identity and were separated by the void. 'Atoms' of today are not individisible, and in fact aristotle proposed that an arrangement of a minute amount of material is required for an entity to have an identity, which is much more similar to today's atomic theory than the atomic theory of democratus. Just a lucky guess of course though.

denied the existence of a vacuum (now an observable fact)

Again, he was not discounting the 'vacuum' of modern physics (which is not a void but is in fact filled with quantum fluctuations) and a region of 'space-time' but was discrediting the ancient argument of a 'void' which was an area of non-existence between individisble entities.

and had no notion of inertia. He was of the opinion that the less resistance (or density) of the plenum the faster would be the natural motion of objects. Empty plenum, zero resistance ergo infinite velocity. His -Physics- is empirically a shambles. That is because he did not check. Systematic experimentation as a mode of scientific operation was not adopted until the renaissance. ... For Aristotle it was look but don't touch. His reluctance to experiment reductively was based on his metaphysics, rather than a lack of curiosity.

Aristotle was an observational first and foremost. His father was a physician, he texts on animals were nothing but observations and descriptions. Taxonomy of living organisms, which he basically founded, was by it's nature observational. He identified the fact that the male octopus inseminated the female using the tip of a tentacle, something not confirmed until the 18th century. His evidence that the Earth was round was clear and observational. The notion that Aristotle sat around and imagined everything is ludicrous. He likely spent nearly every waking moment engaging in his passionate curiosity, examining anything and everything he could. It is more likely that some of these things were simply too difficult to test, too difficult to observe, or believed too obvious by the ancients to spend a significant amount of time examining. Why don't you write a text predicting the state of scientific knowledge 2000 years after your death and see how well you score?

As a result, Aristotle's biological observations were as good as could be gotten without magnifiers or microscopes.

As where his descriptions of physical phenomea, such as the evidence of the spherical nature of the Earth.

Unfortunately Aristotle could not have developed optics since he, as did most Greeks, believed that light came -from- the eye*

So now you hold it against Aristotle that he didnt also invent the microscope and glass lenses? Jeez.

Aristotle, a brilliant researcher and scholar, so overawed his followers, that physics (as we know it) was inhibited for the better part of 2000 years. For a long time people preferred looking at the "Cliff Notes" to examining the real thing. After some initial resistance, the Church adopted Aristotle as a secular saint (the works of Thomas is an example) and opposition to Aristotelean views was looked upon askance, as Galileo found out to his sorrow.

The idea that Aristotle was responsible for this is also absurd. Aristotle did not arrogantly proclaim he was the final arbiter of all that was true, his writings are full or reasoned arguments and discussions about ideas with other contemporary greeks, reflecting the notion that in ancient greece debates and discussions on natural philosophy were normal. It was the christian theology of the middle ages that largely dominated the serious lack of development of natural philosophy, an idealogy that focused on debating matters of biblical interpretation and theology, not matters of the practical world and natural philosophy. The same behavior was seen with the adopting of Galen's medical texts for nearly a thousands years lauded as pure and complete (Galen actually did arrogantly proclaim himself to be the final arbiter of knowledge) This stagnation in knowledge was a product of the middle ages. Isaac Newton, a devout admirer of Aristotle, himself wrestled with the fact that his own ideas contradicted Aristotle, but ultimately appealed to Aristotle in his final rejection of Aristotle, quoting Aristotle he wrote in his own notes "Aristotle is dear to me, but dearer still is the truth" paraphrasing Aristotle's rejection of Plato.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It explains why real science was held up in the West. In China, they had a different probleml Their metaphysics was based on holism and -chi- (energy flow). Such a view precluded isolation and reductive experimentation. The Chinese thinkers did not think reality could be taken apart at the joints. The Europeans thought otherwise from the late Middle Ages on.

Bob,

Really?

I thought Western metaphysics of old was based on the Holy Trinity, or at least a Jealous and Vengeful Yahweh (יהוה or Jehovah), and miracles.

I never imagined that the Dark Ages was based on awe of Aristotle.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

It explains why real science was held up in the West. In China, they had a different probleml Their metaphysics was based on holism and -chi- (energy flow). Such a view precluded isolation and reductive experimentation. The Chinese thinkers did not think reality could be taken apart at the joints. The Europeans thought otherwise from the late Middle Ages on.

Bob,

Really?

I thought Western metaphysics of old was based on the Holy Trinity, or at least a Jealous and Vengeful Yahweh (יהוה or Jehovah), and miracles.

I never imagined that the Dark Ages was based on awe of Aristotle.

Michael

Aristotle did not make a comeback in the West until the 12-th or 13-th century. Most of his works were lost to Europe. Fortunately some of Aristotle was saved in the Islamic domains and later retranslated into Latin. A European in the 12-th century had to travel to Baghdad or Andalucia (in Spain) to learn Aristotle, and first he had to learn Arabic.

More of Plato made it into the West (initially) than Aristotle. Neo-Platonism as formulated by Plotinus was an influential philosophy among the scholastics.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

So that's how Aristotle held back physics for over 2,000 years?

Don't you even perceive a contradiction?

Michael

[Selene]

Folks:

Actually, the real truth is that Aristotle was Lazaras Long and just kept appearing when we needed him, which means he should be here on January 19th 2009!

Hey, it's as good as any other historical mythology.

Can we all agree that it does not really matter how he got into our hands, his works are great.

Adam

[syrakusos]

Actually Aristotle reasoned that the natural tendency was for all objects to move toward the center of the Earth, which he argued was a sphere ...

Nice piece of work, there, especially on the atoms. We freely admit that we have only lecture notes, that the corpus is lost, and then excoriate the man for what he did not say.

Aristotle said that the path to good government was through the middle class. That, after examining something like 19 kinds of governments known in his time, and neatly categorizing them into legitimate or illegitimate examples.

Legitimate Illegitimate

republic democracy

aristocracy oligarchy

monarchy tyranny.

Aristotle is criticized for justifying slavery by the same people who do not criticize Plato for his republic.

Also, the claim that the Greeks denigrated physical labor is false. That opinion does, indeed, come from Plato in The Republic, however, the Dialog of Protagoras shows just the opposite: craftsmen are held in high regard in the assembly for their expert opinions on the matters of their craft, such as architecture and shipbuilding, and if anyone presumes to speak from ignorance, no matter how handsome or high-born, he is shouted down, and if he persists, he is dragged off by the guards.

I just finished writing an article for The Celator about the great fairs of medieval Champagne. I have a new appreciation for the Middle Ages and a deeper understanding of the slow (glacially slow) decline of the Roman West -- and the comparatively quicker and longer lasting "rebirth." In fact, much of the so-called "ignorance" and "superstition" of the Middle Ages was just the continuation of Roman habits of culture. We Objectivists like to say good things about Rome basking in the sunshine of Greece and all, but 350 years separated Cicero from Solon and Pericles and even to mention Solon and Pericles in the same breath is to tie George Washington to Abraham Lincoln. Too easily do we collapse the past to fit a carrying case of our own devising.

[BaalChatzaf]

Can we all agree that it does not really matter how he got into our hands, his works are great.

Adam

His -Physics- is not even wrong. It is a muddle. It is a good example of how unquantified common sense can lead one astray. We know from modern physics that common sense is a poor guide to correct theory.

Aristotle's science was fairly good in the area of natural history and biology.

It is our misfortune that the works of Strato of Lampsacus did not survive. Had his works existed side by with that of Aristotle, many of Aristotle's mistakes would have been avoided in the later years.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strato_of_Lampsacus

for an indiciation of what we missed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited December 18, 2008 by BaalChatzaf

[Matus1976]

Actually Aristotle reasoned that the natural tendency was for all objects to move toward the center of the Earth, which he argued was a sphere ...

Nice piece of work, there, especially on the atoms. We freely admit that we have only lecture notes, that the corpus is lost, and then excoriate the man for what he did not say.

Thanks. I've read that Kuhn in rejecting out of context dismissals of Aristotle like Baal's here instigated his formulating his 'paradigm shifts' concept. Baal should take note.

Aristotle is criticized for justifying slavery by the same people who do not criticize Plato for his republic.

and, ironically, the same people who justify in the exact same way slavery in their own day. Aristotle wrote that slavery was moral if the slave lived, objectively, a better life as a slave than if he was a free man. The exact same justification liberals have for their paternalism. But in the context of ancient greece, most slaves came from the defeated opponents in war, and slavery was seen as humane because the alternative was merely execution.

I just finished writing an article for The Celator about the great fairs of medieval Champagne. I have a new appreciation for the Middle Ages and a deeper understanding of the slow (glacially slow) decline of the Roman West -- and the comparatively quicker and longer lasting "rebirth." In fact, much of the so-called "ignorance" and "superstition" of the Middle Ages was just the continuation of Roman habits of culture. We Objectivists like to say good things about Rome basking in the sunshine of Greece and all, but 350 years separated Cicero from Solon and Pericles and even to mention Solon and Pericles in the same breath is to tie George Washington to Abraham Lincoln. Too easily do we collapse the past to fit a carrying case of our own devising.

Good comments. I've taken an significant interest in the renaissance period lately as I'll be traveling to Italy and Greece in the spring of 09, and after listening to a few lectures on the topic have a different assessment than my previous blanket dismissal. One lecturer made a compelling case that the middle ages fostered an environment of debate and founded the first universities. I'd object however that most of that debate was theological in nature, and not discussions of natural philosophy. Where they debated Aristotle was reconciling his notion of Pride as a virtue against the christian virtue of humility. I"d probably agree on the relationship of Roman mysticism to the middle ages, however there was one major difference, that of the monotheism of Christianity, which promulgated greater and greater debates over less and less important things, as any monolithic religion would demand, and also celebrated (unlike Islam) meekness, passivity, humility, and even suffering. What middle ages peasant, who throughout their life witnessed the glorification of saints tortured to death and christ suffering a brutal death for their sins, being told that suffering in this life is irrelevant when compared to an eternity in heaven, would stand up and risk his life in opposition of a murderous tyrant? especially when great medieval philosophers insisted that tyrants were placed in power by god to test the faith of their subjects.

Romans, while still mystical, had a profound concern with the practical real world, and their material achievements reflected that. Greeks and Romans celebrated strength of body, mind, and will. Christianity celebrated suffering and passivity. This certainly contributed to the diminishing of the Roman empire. However, Roman's appeared to have virtually no interest in science beyond the immediate material gains of the moment, and read Greek philosophy almost as pop culture without developing and introspecting it on their own. Beyond Cicero, who was mostly a moral philosopher, we have little to no contributions from Rome in the arena of philosophy. It was really the culture of intellectual questioning (originating in questioning theology) of the middle ages later combined with a revival of interest in natural philosophy that sparked the renaissance period and the science, material progress on earth, and philosophical progress that would soon follow. Without the obsession of passivity and discerning the one true 'revealed' narrative (Romans would simply add another God, Christians would go to war to determine if Jesus was God, or God's son, or the blood of sacrament was considered cannibalism) this renaissance might have happened much earlier.

[syrakusos]

I've taken an significant interest in the renaissance period lately as I'll be traveling to Italy and Greece in the spring of 09, and after listening to a few lectures on the topic have a different assessment than my previous blanket dismissal. One lecturer made a compelling case that the middle ages fostered an environment of debate and founded the first universities. I'd object however that most of that debate was theological in nature ...

I highly recommend Liberal Education by Mark Van Doren. The medieval university required seven studies for the baccalaureate. They were divided into the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy). Of course, in a class-based society not everyone could get the benefit of formal education. Many were "homeschooled", Richard "Lionheart" Plantegenet, for example. (His poems are known, if you care.) The debates about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin were for doctoral students in theology There were four doctoral programs: medicine, law, theology and philosophy. The last being what we would call "science."

Romans, while still mystical, had a profound concern with the practical real world, and ... Greeks and Romans celebrated strength of body, mind, and will. ... However, Roman's appeared to have virtually no interest in science beyond the immediate material gains of the moment ...

The Romans were not all that bright. It was all that lead in their drinking water. In his History of Pi, Petr Becker calls them the nazis of the ancient world, triumph of the Will, indeed. Do not confuse the Romans and the Greeks. That's the Roman viewpoint, thinking they could enslave the Greeks, then learn from them, while not being degenerated by "Greek customs" (ahem).

Christianity celebrated suffering and passivity.

Roman virtues (see here for all): Gravitas, civitas, humanitas. Christianity derived from Judaism, of course, which allowed being kicked around in the hopes that the Messiah would set everything to rights. Jews are congenital underdogs and you couple that with Roman virtues that "transcend" the flesh and Christianity fits right in. But it could have been Mithras. The empire was ripe for it. Rome absorbed religions. Even Minerva and Mercury and Mars were probably Etruscan gods first. Jupiter is but Zeus Pater. When Diocletian reorganized the empire -- including wage and price controls and the inheritance of skilled trade -- he did so with new "diocese" prefectures. That was just before Constantine. All of which is to say, that much of what we regard as "medieval" was just a continuance of things Roman.

Without the obsession of passivity and discerning the one true 'revealed' narrative ...

I think that you will find the Middle Ages more complex than this. For one thing (just one), according to Roman Catholic dogma, no translation of the Bible -- including Saint Jerome's "Vulgate" -- is the revealed Word of God. The Revealed Word of God is found only in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. However, and as a result, in the Middlel Ages, it was common for clergy with any erudition to write glosses "explaining" the Bible. That ultimately led to a multiplicity of opinions on many topics. And that was only the Bible.

Chretian of Champagne created the Arthurian legends out of whole cloth, likely to entertain the courts of Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie of Champagne who were (were not... were... were not...) having illicit affairs with brave knights while their husbands were away at the Crusades.

As for Aristotle, his works came back to Europe via Islamic Spain about 1000 AD through the efforts of one Gebert d'Aurillac who would later be Pope Sylvester II.

[Brant Gaede]

The Romans were not all that bright. It was all that lead in their drinking water. In his History of Pi, Petr Becker calls them the nazis of the ancient world, triumph of the Will, indeed. Do not confuse the Romans and the Greeks. That's the Roman viewpoint, thinking they could enslave the Greeks, then learn from them, while not being degenerated by "Greek customs" (ahem).

That's Petr Beckmann, my late friend.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Romans, while still mystical, had a profound concern with the practical real world, and their material achievements reflected that. Greeks and Romans celebrated strength of body, mind, and will. Christianity celebrated suffering and passivity. This certainly contributed to the diminishing of the Roman empire. However, Roman's appeared to have virtually no interest in science beyond the immediate material gains of the moment, and read Greek philosophy almost as pop culture without developing and introspecting it on their own. Beyond Cicero, who was mostly a moral philosopher, we have little to no contributions from Rome in the arena of philosophy. It was really the culture of intellectual questioning (originating in questioning theology) of the middle ages later combined with a revival of interest in natural philosophy that sparked the renaissance period and the science, material progress on earth, and philosophical progress that would soon follow. Without the obsession of passivity and discerning the one true 'revealed' narrative (Romans would simply add another God, Christians would go to war to determine if Jesus was God, or God's son, or the blood of sacrament was considered cannibalism) this renaissance might have happened much earlier.

There were some Roman philosophical works (nothing to the extent the Greeks and Arabs did). The works of Lucretius and Marcus Aureleus. In Rome the Stoic and Epicurean philosophy held on a bit. Mathematics suffered greatly. Betrand Russell pointed out the no Roman ever died proving a theorem, as did Archimedes.

While the Romans were anti-theoretical in attitude they did build some of the greatest water delivery and waste disposal systems of the ancient world. In fact, after Rome crumbled and the systems crumbled with it, Europe did not develop such good water supply systems and toilets until the middle and late 19-th century. Likewise for roads. The Romans were grade A master road builders. There road systems would not be equaled until the autobahn in Germany and the interstate highway system in the U.S. In Rome one could drive a chariot from the City to the borders of Parthia on good roads. In the United States one could not drive from coast to coast on decent paved roads until the 1920s. Some of the Roman roads still exist and are in reasonably good shape after the better part of 1800 years. Our highways crumble after ten years and have to be continuously rebuilt.

I have the greatest admiration and respect for Roman civil engineering and for their military prowess (when they were in their prime). The Roman Legions kicked ass from Britain to Parthia and kept the peace for a period of nearly two hundred years before their political instability and over reaching did them in. When I see the Romans (at their best) I get in touch with my Inner Fascist.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Jews are congenital underdogs and you couple that with Roman virtues that "transcend" the flesh and Christianity fits right in.

If you visit the Titus Arch in Rome you will see the inscription "Judea Capta". While doing so ask where the Imperium Romanum is. I know where the Jews are. In Jerusalem, even now as we converse.

These congenital underdogs (as you put it) kicked the Greeks out of the Holy Land, an historical event which even now we celebrate by lighting the Channukah Lights. According to Rabbinic thinking we display the lights at an unobstructed window to "advertise the Miracle" to the world. In effect those lights are saying to the world: don't fuck with the Jews - the congenital underdogs.

In the meantime we underdogs do more than our share to keep the intellect of the West from turning to squash-rot.

Not by the strength of arms, but by the spirit saith the Lord.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ross Barlow]

As for Aristotle, his works came back to Europe via Islamic Spain about 1000 AD through the efforts of one Gebert d'Aurillac who would later be Pope Sylvester II.

Michael, thanks for pointing out Gebert d'Aruillac, aka, Pope Sylvester II. Interesting man. I am eager to read more about him.

Also regarding the introduction of Aristotle into medieval Europe, I have an old memory of reading somewhere about Christian universities holding out and refusing to allow courses or lectures on Aristotle to be taught even though rumors of his works were starting to excite university students.

If I remember right, the University of Toulouse in southern France was the first Christian university to have teachings about Aristotle, mainly because it was just across the Pyrenees from Islamic Spain where Arab scholars had written such great commentaries on Aristotle.

The “free market” nature of the university systems at that time meant that students went to hear the lectures of whichever teacher they liked, and they took their tuition money with them and paid the lecturers. (Perhaps teachers paid a sum from this to the school, I am not sure.) Since Aristotle was the latest trend in the imaginations of some of the best and brightest students, they flocked to Toulouse. Any other university in Christian Europe that wanted to compete now had to open the floodgates and allow lectures on Aristotle after that.

(I may have read this in Will Durant’s works.)

-Ross Barlow.

[BaalChatzaf]

Aristotle did indeed write that all men desire to know. Unfortunately not all men desire to check their conclusions. Aristotle was one of them. Aristotle's program did not succeed until the empirical approach was melded with the rational approach as happened with the development of science (as we know it, the hypothetico-deductive method) in Europe. It didn't happen in Greece (the Greek naturalists were insufficiently empirical), it did not happen in China, it almost happened in the Islamic domains until their dreadful religious memes ended their brief period of brilliance. It finally happened in Europe starting in the late Middle Ages (vide Roger Bacon, Robert Grossteste and others). Empiricism made a stealth move on rationalism and the the rest is history.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Alfonso Jones]

Aristotle did indeed write that all men desire to know. Unfortunately not all men desire to check their conclusions. Aristotle was one of them. Aristotle's program did not succeed until the empirical approach was melded with the rational approach as happened with the development of science (as we know it, the hypothetico-deductive method) in Europe. It didn't happen in Greece (the Greek naturalists were insufficiently empirical), it did not happen in China, it almost happened in the Islamic domains until their dreadful religious memes ended their brief period of brilliance. It finally happened in Europe starting in the late Middle Ages (vide Roger Bacon, Robert Grossteste and others). Empiricism made a stealth move on rationalism and the the rest is history.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob (Ba'al) -

I note a pretty consistent pattern on your part of criticism of Aristotle. I think some of it, frankly, omits the historical context and era in which Aristotle lived.

So, I ask you - - - do you agree that Aristotle led a MASSIVE ADVANCE over the Platonic ideas which held sway before him? Can you think of anyone of Aristotle's time or prior who you would consider to be more advanced than Aristotle?

Bill P (Alfonso)

[BaalChatzaf]

Aristotle did indeed write that all men desire to know. Unfortunately not all men desire to check their conclusions. Aristotle was one of them. Aristotle's program did not succeed until the empirical approach was melded with the rational approach as happened with the development of science (as we know it, the hypothetico-deductive method) in Europe. It didn't happen in Greece (the Greek naturalists were insufficiently empirical), it did not happen in China, it almost happened in the Islamic domains until their dreadful religious memes ended their brief period of brilliance. It finally happened in Europe starting in the late Middle Ages (vide Roger Bacon, Robert Grossteste and others). Empiricism made a stealth move on rationalism and the the rest is history.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob (Ba'al) -

I note a pretty consistent pattern on your part of criticism of Aristotle. I think some of it, frankly, omits the historical context and era in which Aristotle lived.

So, I ask you - - - do you agree that Aristotle led a MASSIVE ADVANCE over the Platonic ideas which held sway before him? Can you think of anyone of Aristotle's time or prior who you would consider to be more advanced than Aristotle?

Bill P (Alfonso)

In mathematics Archimides, Eudoxus, Euclid, Appolonius. In logic Cyrsippus, the Stoic, who almost invented modern conditional logic (as opposed to the logic of the categorical syllogism). In physics Aristotle was an abomination. Almost everything he concluded was wrong. But, Aristotle was top notch in literary criticism.

Aristotle won out because many of his works survived. The Stoics did not do as well in that department. Fortunately, most of Aristotle's nonsense has been purged from physical science (mostly since, Galileo, Kepler and Newton). The abstract program of Plato and Pythagoras has won the day in physics. The Stoics were atomists. Aristotle was not. Who won? Hmmmm.

In ethics, consequentialism, relativism and pragmatism has emerged victorious. There goes the virtue based ethics of Aristotle. Hardly a soul alive cares about eudamion. It has little cash value.

In biology Aristotle did better than in physics. Even so he screwed up badly as to the number of ribs in the human body (for which one does not need a microscope to determine) or the number of teeth in the female mouth. Did he bother looking? Then there is the matter of vision. No, nothing comes out of the eye. Rather, light goes in. And making the heart the center of consciousness? Really. Did Aristotle ever wonder why people lost consciousness when struck in the head. They were out cold, but their hearts kept right on beating. Now do you see what I mean about not checking"

But rejoice! The small subset of logic that Aristotle formulated is still as good as it ever was. If all men are mortal and Socrates is a man then (son of a gun!) Socrates is mortal.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited December 29, 2008 by BaalChatzaf