Aristotle

Aristotle on knowledge

• Knowledge is perception
  (if we did not perceive, we would not understand)
• The natural world is the real world
• The reality of the world is in the ‘matter and stuff’

Matter and Goal

• Everything in the world is made of stuff called matter
• The matter of each kind of object has the potentiality for acquiring a form proper to the object (called its end form of telos)
• Motion is the actualising of the potentiality of the object

All objects seek to achieve their natural goal or final form

Actualisation example (acorn and oak tree)

1. Acorn has the potentiality to become an oak tree
2. Process of change of acorn to oak is actualisation
3. End of ‘telos’ for acorn was to become an oak tree

• Instances in which objects do not change or move to accomplish an end have been interfered with by some outside agency. E.g. acorn eaten by squirrel
• Aristotle termed this unnatural interference

Cause and purpose

Aristotle believed that the visible world was the real world and sought all his life to describe the principles that brought about change and motion. Ultimately, Aristotle attempted to answer the question, “what does it mean for something to exist?” and “what causes motion and change in the universe?”

Aristotle answered these questions through the Four Causes:

1. The Material Cause
   The matter out of which  a thing is made (e.g. marble for a statue)
2. The Formal Cause
   The characteristics of a thing (e.g. resemblance to a famous person for a statue)
3. The Efficient Cause
   The means or agency by which a thing comes into existence (e.g. the sculptor that sculpted the statue)
4. The Final (‘Telos’) Cause
   The goal or purpose of a thing, its function or potential. The most important cause for Aristotle. (e.g. the sculptor may have meant the statue to be an attractive ornament)

Pure Forms

• Aristotle said that an object’s Relative Goal was to reach its final form.
• However, he said it also had an Ultimate Goal, which was to realise a state of complete rest from which it will be impossible to change. This was reached by becoming ‘pure’ – which means becoming devoid of matter. Only God has Form without matter.
• Aristotle said that the closest approximation to the state of rest was to be found in the heavens. E.g. stars and planets only changed position, their shape and size remained the same.
• Objects on earth were far removed from their ultimate goal since they grow, decay and die.

The Prime Mover or Unmoved Mover

Aristotle believed that all movement depends on there being a mover.  i.e if nothing acted on A then it would not change in any way. However, if A is moving or changing then it must have been acted upon by B, which in turn was set in motion by C. Since an infinite series is impossible, Aristotle said that this chain leads to something which moves but is itself unmoved or motionless – the Prime Mover or Unmoved Mover. The Christian Church adopted this Unmoved Mover as the basis for the Christian God.

Aristotle on the body and soul

Aristotle says that the soul:

1. is the structure, function and organisation of the body;
2. gives the body its ‘form’ – its characteristics;
3. gives a body life;
4. has a different nature according to the living thing that it is in.

An axe – if it was a living thing, its body would be the matter from which it is made – the wood and the metal. Its soul would be the thing that makes it and axe – its capacity to chop.

An eye – sight is its soul. When seeing is removed, the eye is only an eye by name.

A dead animal – it is an animal in name only. It has a body but no soul – matter but no form.

Aristotle believed that there was a hierarchy of types of soul:

3. Plants – have a vegetative type of soul with powers of nutrition, growth etc;

2. Animals – have souls with the capacity for appetite and so they have desires and feelings;

1. Humans – have a soul with the power of reason. The soul gives people the ability to develop intellects and ethical characters.

• The soul and body are not distinct – they are aspects of the same thing;
• Aristotle’s concept of the soul means that the soul is moral as the body is;
• The soul is inseparable form the body – one cannot exist without the other.

Contrast between Plato and Aristotle

1. Plato believed that empirical knowledge is merely opinion and thus is unreliable and useless since the world is a constant state of flux. He said that true knowledge cannot come from perceiving things in the world and so our senses are not to be trusted. He contends that in fact true knowledge is already in the mind – we only remember things, not learn them.

However, Aristotle said that the world that we live in is the real world and all knowledge we gain comes from our senses.

2. Plato also believed that the soul was separate to the body and could access the Forms to gain true knowledge. Since it is from the World of Ideals, Plato believed that it was eternal.
   However, Aristotle believed that the soul was what made the body work and that all forms of life had a soul. The soul was the form of a man (his characteristics), while his body was the matter – the soul of a man dies with his matter.