aristotle essay topics

145 Aristotle Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best aristotle topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on aristotle, 💡 most interesting aristotle topics to write about, ❓ questions about aristotle.

• Plato and Aristotle on Literature Compare & Contrast Essay The controversy over the effects of literature has made the great philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, to differ in their perceptions of the literature impacts on the society.
• Plato and Aristotle’s Views of Virtue in Respect to Education Arguably, Plato and Aristotle’s views of education differ in that Aristotle considers education as a ‘virtue by itself’ that every person must obtain in order to have ‘happiness and goodness in life’, while Plato advocates […]
• Philosophy: Plato’s Republic Versus Aristotle’s Politics Plato as well turns off the partition amid the private and the public and he contends for common kids and wives for the guardians in a bid to create a society amongst the rulers of […]
• Compare and Contrast: Plato and Aristotle Essay Aristotle was a “the son of a renowned physician from Thrace” and he began his philosophy studies at the Plato’s academy.
• Classical Physics: Aristotle, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton Aristotle posited that the universe consists of two parts: the terrestrial and the celestial regions and that in Earth, all bodies were made up of a mixture of four types of matter: earth, water, air, […]
• Aristotle vs. Socrates: The Main Difference in the Concept of Virtue One of the main principles on which the ethical school is based is the notion of virtue as the representation of the moral perfectness of a man.
• Aristotle’s Views on Women Before the Greek physicians and philosophers of the Classical Age took up the question of the nature of women, the Greeks had serious attitudes toward women as revealed in their literature.
• Plato vs. Aristotle: Political Philosophy Compare and Contrast Essay Plato went further to associate all the parts of the soul to parts of the body with reason connected to the head, will connected to the heart and appetite connected to the abdomen and sensory […]
• Plato on Death: Comparison With Aristotle Afterlife – Essay on Life After Death Philosophy On the other hand, religion has maintained that the soul is immortal and survives the death of the body. Plato argued that the soul is immortal and therefore survives the death of the body.
• Conflict Between Aristotle and Copernicus Copernicus continued his research and developed a new model of the universe which contradicted Aristotle’s paradigm since the Earth was not the centre, but one of the planets moving around the Sun.
• Epistemologies of Plato and Aristotle It is also worth mentioning the Allegory of the Cave, in which Plato explains the relationship between people and the world of the Forms.
• “Man is a Political Animal” by Aristotle This is based on the fact that the philosophical ideas expressed by these scholars have proven to be greatly important in offering guidance to various facets of life-like cultural, social, political, and economic endeavors In […]
• Application of Aristotle’s Golden Mean The doctrine of the golden mean is a request for a realistic moral axiom. The word “virtue” is used in some cases to denote a personal quality and, in others, as a generalized indicator of […]
• Aristotle’s and Plato’s Views on Rhetoric One of the points that Plato expresses in this philosophical work is that rhetoric should be viewed primarily as the “artificer of persuasion”. This is one of the similarities that can be distinguished.
• Othello: A Tragic Hero Through the Prism of Aristotle’s Definition According to him, the prerequisite of a tragedy revolves around the plot of the play. Othello, who is the main character, is a perfect example of a tragic hero.
• Aristotle, His Life and Philosophical Ideas Later on at the age of eighteen, he moved to Athens to study and this became his home for the next twenty years, after which he moved to Asia after the death of Plato where […]
• Tragic Hero in Aristotle’s “Poetics” According to Aristotle, the tragic error is the main manifestation of a tragic hero and it sets out the basis of his fate.
• Impact on the Development of Natural Science a Aristotle’s Book “Physics” From Aristotle’s perspective, to know the purpose of nature is the most essential task of a philosopher and his strategies should be subjected to this task.
• Philosophy: Aristotle on Moral Virtue Both virtue and vice build one’s character and therefore can contribute to the view of happiness. Therefore, character education leads to happiness that is equal to the amount of wisdom and virtue.
• The Soul Ideas by Aristotle Their organization is such that the top in the rank consists of all properties of the one at the bottom. The rational soul’s ability to reason that is not in the other types of souls.
• Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle However, the fact that there are many actions that people engage in, Aristotle argues that their ends are countless. Aristotle concludes that happiness is the key principle that causes people to practice virtues such as […]
• Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Aristotle’s “High-Minded Man” The concept of a High-Minded man is close to Aristotle’s understanding of success and the contribution of different virtues to an individual’s happiness.
• Aristotle’s Notion of Time and Motion It is also pertinent that the concept of Time is comprehended in relation to the concept of Motion. In an analysis of the nature of Time, it is most relevant to remember that Aristotle was […]
• Aristotle’s Concept of Happiness Aristotle’s concept of happiness is an expression of virtue that is similar to the flow state, happiness is a combination of the baseline level where basic needs are fulfilled and a broader area managed by […]
• Aristotle’s Virtue Theory vs. Buddha’s Middle Path The purpose of this paper is to review each of the two theories and develop a comparison between them. This term is in contrast to the paths of extremities described by eternalism and annihilationism that […]
• Ethical Decision-Making: Aristotle on the Sources of the Ethical Life In that way, the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, as well as Magna Moralia make up the central elements of Aristotle’s wise decision-making. The Nicomachean Ethics work emphasizes the role of achieving one main aim in […]
• Greek Philosophies of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle It is argued that the origin of philosophy as a discipline owes its origin to the contribution of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.”Socrates’ contribution to the love of wisdom was manifested by the belief that philosophy […]
• Views on Writing Style by Plato, Aristotle and Dante In the end of a dialogue or a debate, the truth is supposed to emerge from the clash of the two opinions, and the defeated one is morally obliged to accept the force of a […]
• Significance of Emotions in Aristotle’s Philosophy Additionally, the philosopher distinguishes two moralities, each with its interpretation of the cognitive role of emotions: a civic morality of judicial process in the Nicomachean Ethics and a contemplative ethics of theoretical study in Politics.
• Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle: Views on Society In the video, it is highlighted that both Plato and Confucius shared a commitment to reason and the value of the state.
• Philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Marx The philosophical dilemma is how to do it, because in the overwhelming majority of cases, a human being is driven by the desire.
• Epicurus and Aristotle Philosophical Views on Emotions The two philosophers studied emotions to determine some of the common causes of this mental state, and the events that take place in the mind before one becomes emotional.
• Nature of Motion According To Lucretius and Aristotle Galileo utilized a number of scientific techniques to prove to the church that the earth was not the center of the universe.
• Plato and Aristotle: Criticisms of Democracy To speak of it in our present time, there are only a few people who are given the power of ‘sound judgement about what is right and what is wrong’ and should have the power […]
• Comparison of Plato’s and Aristotle’s Approaches to the Nature of Reality In contrast to Plato, Aristotle asserted that the senses were necessary for accurately determining reality and that they could not be used to deceive a person. Aristotle and Plato both considered that thoughts were superior […]
• Observation and Theory in Aristotle’s Scientific Practice Aristotle focuses on the distinction between the unobservable and observables, the content and structure of observation reports, and the epistemic importance of observational evidence for the theories he aims to access.
• Aristotle’s Ethical Theory and Nursing Therefore, the actions of an individual determine his happiness and the aspect of what is ethically good. This theory is directly related to the nursing professional code of ethics as indicated in the provisions of […]
• Aristotle’s and Freud’s Motivational Theories The efficient cause is the trigger that causes a person to behave in a certain way. These biological instincts are the source of mental or psychic energy that makes human behavior and that it is […]
• According to Aristotle, Is the Good Citizen the Same as the Good Human Being?? Why or Why Not?? Anticipating differentiation of human rights and the rights of citizen, issued in the corresponding Declaration of the period of the French revolution of the end of XVIII century, Aristotle is interested by a question – […]
• Morality and Politics: Aristotle and Machiavelli For a government to be effective, there must be a set of morals and virtues in place to ensure the people are happy.
• Being as Being: Aristotle vs. Aquinas The philosophical concept of being as being is concerned with the notion of existence, more specifically, that of the thing in and of itself.
• Syllogism and Enthymeme in Aristotle’s Rhetoric One of the implications of syllogism to audiences is in regards to the possibility of creating offensive conclusions from an argument’s statements.
• Classical Leadership Style and Aristotle’s Perspective He supported the ideas of Plato that the philosopher king has to be given a chance to exercise power while the soldiers were to provide the much-needed support by ensuring the citizens followed the law.
• Aristotle’s Ideologies Application in Practices The ideologies of philosophers have influenced the world and changed the perception and attitudes of people toward various issues. The peculiarity and popularity of Aristotle’s philosophy of life makes it easy for it to be […]
• Philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle Logic as understood by Socrates was to some extent influenced by the Pythagoreans since he practiced the dialectic methods in investigating the objectivity and authority of the different propositions.
• Aristotle’s Understanding of Happiness If happiness is “wholeness”, then for a person to become happy, it is necessary to become “whole”. Thus, all a person has to do to become whole is lower goods.
• “Nicomachean Ethics” and “Politics” by Aristotle In his works, Aristotle enunciates that the meaning of being a good citizen is relative to the institution that one is a citizen of.
• “The Rhetoric & Poetics of Aristotle” Book This is necessary to feed more meaning to the language used and contributes to the ability of rhetoric in interpersonal communication. Human interaction is a continuous communication and going back and forth in the rhetoric […]
• Aristotle’s Views on Intellect and Soul However, Aristotle insisted that parts of the intellect may operate independent of the soul, in opposition to theorists such as Xenocrates and Plato.
• Aristotle’s View on the Concept of Logic Thus, it was shown that logic is not just a specific doctrine of specific things or terms, but the science of the laws of syllogisms, such as modus ponens or modus tollens, expressed in variables. […]
• The Concept of Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics The essence of Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean is that virtue lies in between two extremes, none of which is virtuous on its own.
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Works and Their Effects The first insight from these philosophical writings that shifted my viewpoint about this field was the distinctive role of the end goal and action in Plato’s and Aristotle’s works.
• The Bell Experience From Aristotle’s Perspective First, it is important for an idea to make sense in the minds of the audience. The idea of playing in the subway made sense to both Bell and the people.
• Aristotle’s View of Ethics and Happiness Aristotle guarantees that to find the human great, we should recognize the capacity of an individual. He set forth the thought that joy is a delight in magnificence and great.
• Exegetical Paper on Aristotle: Meaning of Happiness It is in the balance, according to Aristotle, that the completeness of the human personality lies, and only through balance can a person find true self-satisfaction.
• Aristotle’s Philosophy and Views on Ethics In contrast, Aristotle believed that the purpose of ethics lies beyond the knowledge of what is good or evil, but rather focuses on the application and practice of the theory.
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Concepts of Political Theory In The Republic by Plato and The Politics by Aristotle, two unique originations of the state, equity, and political investment introduce themselves.
• Aristotle’s Account of Pleasure Since Aristotle is trying to discern the goal of human life, he is inclined to think that pleasure is not a chief good.
• Aristotle’s and Socrates’ Account of Virtue This is manifested in their teachings where Aristotle speaks of virtue as finding a balance between two extremes while Socrates says that virtue is the desire for one to do well in one’s life.
• Ancient Philosophy. Aristotle and Seneca on Anger Though there are conditions when anger is beneficial and useful, such as the feeling of anger that inspires the soldiers to fight abandoning hesitation and fear, Aristotle believes that the emotion of anger is constantly […]
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Views on Oedipus People in the Oedipus play lived in the dark of the unknown meaning of the riddle; until Oedipus answered the riddle.
• Plato, Aristotle and Socrates: Knowledge and Government It appears that Socrates believed in an intellectual aristocracy, where those who had more education and had proven themselves in sophistry the “Socratic method” of exchange and analysis of ideas as a path to all […]
• Argument Between Philosophy Aristotle and Philosophy Locke Aristotle considers human beings to possess the understanding of these differences and apply them in their writings as well as conversations.
• Aristotle’s Influence on History of Rhetoric: Treatise Rhetoric and the Concept of the Rhetorical Triangle Aristotle has written works in a number of subjects, such as ethics, poetry, politics, music, biology, physics, etc, but among these, his contributions into rhetoric are the most valuable; within this field, Aristotle is known […]
• The Theme of Slavery in Aristotle’s “Politics” He notes that the fundamental part of an association is the household that is comprised of three different kinds of relationships: master to slave, husband to wife, and parents to their children.
• Aristotle, Selections From The Politics. Book I The growth of the movement towards the formation of states is, however, a gradual one; it is continuous, from the sixteenth century to our day, and while, throughout this period, and in almost every country […]
• Aristotle’s – The Ethics of Virtue Ethics is not a theory of discipline since our inquiry as to what is good for human beings is not just gathering knowledge, but to be able to achieve a unique state of fulfillment in […]
• Political Science: Aristotle’s View on Human Nature A citizen, for Aristotle, is an individual who has the capacity and the right to engage in the governance of a “polies”.
• Plato’s, Aristotle’s, Petrarch’s Views on Education To begin with, Plato believed that acquisition of knowledge was the way to being virtuous in life but he tended to differ with philosophers like Aristotle stating that education to be acquired from the natural […]
• Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics Analysis When faced with the option of an apple of a muffin, a good person would choose the apple, because the part of the soul that desired the muffin would be controlled by self-control, the part […]
• Aristotle on Practical vs. Theoretical Knowledge The second argument that should be discussed in Aristotle’s view of the idea of pleasure as the way to meet the key function of a person.
• Aristotle: Natural Changes and His Theory of Form The form of an object is the arrangement of the comprising components making up the object in focus. This is the counterpart of the subjects of predication in the Categories.
• Plato and Aristotle Thoughts on Politics Aristotle emphasized that the lawgiver and the politician occupied the constitution and the state wholly and defined a citizen as one who had the right to deliberate or participate in the matters of the judicial […]
• Aristotle and His Definition of Happiness The best taste a person can have in his life is happiness because of success. But in my point of view, happiness is the main feeling that comes from the success of any useful act […]
• Aristotle’s “Knowing How” and Plato’s “Knowing That” The goal of Aristotle is knowledge in action and real knowing, which merge in the higher stratum of existence – the active mind.
• Happiness in “Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle The philosopher compares the life of gratification to that of slaves; the people who prefer this type of happiness are “vulgar,” live the same life as “grazing animals,” and only think about pleasure.
• Outlining Aristotle’s Ethics and Metaphysics As for one to be accorded the status of a professional he has to practice the skills required in that profession.
• Drama Elements Developed by Aristotle The sixth is a spectacle which is the visuals in the drama that include props, set, and actor’s costumes. An example of a tragic hero is King Macbeth in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Theories of Human Nature Chapter five of Kupperman’s book “Theories of human nature” looks at great philosophers, namely Plato’s and Aristotle’s points of view in trying to define humanity. The writer tries to illustrate the complexity of defining a […]
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Philosophical Differences According to Plato, the functioning of every human being is closely linked to the entire society. Therefore, the major difference here is that for Plato, the function of every individual is to improve the entire […]
• Aristotle Philosophical Perspective To understand the connection established by Aristotle between a good life and a rational one, it is first necessary to discuss the concept of good used in the Nicomachean Ethics.
• Philosophy: Free Will of Aristotle and Lucretius The philosopher says that every action having place under the influence of the external force is not a free will, which comes from the inner desire and motivation of an individual. Moreover, the movie is […]
• Art and Media Censorship: Plato, Aristotle, and David Hume The philosopher defines God and the creator’s responsibilities in the text of the Republic: The creator is real and the opposite of evil.
• Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in Historical View Nicomachean Ethics is one of the most significant works of the prominent ancient philosopher, dedicated to the analysis of the moral purposes and virtues of a man.
• Book V in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics The central discussion of the document revolves around justice to provide a scrutinized analysis of money and exchange. This is because the fair exchange of things is the reciprocity of proportion and not equality.
• If Aristotle Ran General Motors: Moral Perspective In the current paper, the author will extrapolate on what Morris is saying and analyze the impacts of the arguments on the workplace.
• Isocrates and Aristotle Views on Rhetorical Devices I find it hard to believe that such an accomplished rhetor as yourself, would doubt that the main rules and principles of rhetorical persuasion are universally applicable, and that it is specified by the mean […]
• Aristotle’s Ethics Conception and Workplace Relations Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is one of the ethical writings that have spurred understanding of ethics of work place relations. A critical discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics provided by Aristotle is the argument and conversation over […]
• Aristotle on Civic Relationships It takes account of the happiness is an end and not a means. It is a way of thinking with the set intention in mind; deliberation determines the end and not the means.
• Aristotle’s Notion of Civic Relationships According to Aristotle, it is impossible to provide a complete account of conditions that lead to the attainment of the highest level of happiness or public good.
• Aristotle’s and Modern Views on the Masses of Citizens It is also important to add that these values are only declared in many countries while the power is still in hands of the rich.
• Aristotle and Plato: How Do They Differ? Generally, Aristotle’s philosophy differs with that of Plato because the latter’s is too shallow to establish definitions or sensibly create standards.
• Aristotle’s Ideas on Civic Relationships Keeping law and order is thus essential in addition to evading things that are considered to be against the prospects of the society so as to be just, a virtue encouraged by Aristotle.
• What is Aristotle’s View on Trade? Aristotle argues that the art of exchanging goods or services in the pretext of trade is not good. Aristotle asserts that household management is necessary and honorable and therefore, families should never engage in retail […]
• Aristotle’s Definition of Virtue In particular, he writes that virtue is “a state that decides, consisting in a mean, relative to us, which is defined by reference to a reason, that is to say, to the reason by reference […]
• Aristotle With a Bust of Homer Rembrandt A careful study of the hair, the beards and the dress of Homer reveals that this is a painting of that era.
• Can Aristotle’s Theory of Happiness Be Achieved by Applying Friedman’s Ideas of Corporate Social Responsibilities? According to Aristotle, politics is the master of all arts since it is concerned with the end in itself. This is a central argument to the ideas of Aristotle and underscores his idea that politics […]
• Essence of Happiness of Indira’s Life According to Plato’s and Aristotle’s Views on Education She finds her inspiration in the languages and other subjects and, obviously, the girl knows that education is the best solution of solving a number of problems and difficulties that she may face during the […]
• Aristotle on Human Nature, State, and Slavery This should be done with restraint and caution in order not to compromise the validity of modern studies and to avoid bias, as evident in the studies of some historical philosophers in their quoting of […]
• Aristotle’s Ethics and Metaphysics He overlooks other important factors such as the act of feeling them in the most appropriate time, with special reference to the right objects, to the right individuals, with the right intention, and in the […]
• Ancient Political Theory: Plato and Aristotle Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s the Republic in Politics II focused on political regimes and cities by stating in general that it would be a dangerous activity to leave the governance of a city to a […]
• Aristotle vs. Scientific Cannons They had a hypothesis, given their argument, that the heavier the object, the faster it would move towards the center of the universe. That is, there was a degree of regularity given a similarity in […]
• Aristotle’s Ideas on Civic Relationships: Happiness, the Virtues, Deliberation, Justice, and Friendship On building trust at work, employers are required to give minimum supervision to the employees in an effort to make the latter feel a sense of belonging and responsibility.
• Aristotle’s Fundamentals of Public Relationship The paper reviews the traits of the best working places and compares the ideas with those offered by Aristotle. In fact, through training, the employees are able to develop virtues that enhance interactions, and the […]
• How Aristotle Views Happiness Aristotle notes that “the attainment of the good for one man alone is, to be sure, a source of satisfaction; yet to secure it for a nation and for states is nobler and more divine”.
• Aristotle and Modern Work Relationships This is not the case in the contemporary work place where a myriad of factors contribute to the happiness of the employees.
• Sophocle and Aristotle For an individual to achieve the qualities of a tragic hero, his or her actions must be consistent. The qualities of a tragic hero are similar to the qualities exhibited by Oedipus.
• Aristotle and Relationship at Work: Outline The first level appeals to a part of the human soul that focuses on reason while the second part appeals to the part of the human soul that follows reason.
• Aristotle’s Ethical Theory The weakness of philosophical theories is that they are mere intellectual theories void actions or activities, which require habitual practice as a process of achieving moral virtues.
• Aristotle’s Philosophical Theories Aristotle argued that the understanding of nature could only be accomplished through the analysis of the aspects of nature as the first step in understanding the target object, and then processing the mental reaction of […]
• How Do Aristotle’s Ideas Show Him to Be an Ancient Philosopher?
• What Does Aristotle Identify as the Ultimate Human Good?
• How Closely Does Hamlet Match Aristotle’s Definition of a Tragic Hero?
• What Was Aristotle’s Thought on Friendship?
• How Did Aristotle Understand Bravery?
• What Would Aristotle Have Thought About a State Lottery?
• How Does Aristotle Address the Issue of Individual Rights?
• What Did Aristotle Mean by the Final Cause?
• How Are Ethics and Politics Related to Aristotle’s Philosophy?
• Did Aristotle Value Politics Less Than Materialism and Feelings?
• How Does Aristotle Define Happiness?
• Does Aristotle’s Function Argument Offer a Convincing Account of the Human Good?
• How Does Aristotle’s Ideas on Justice Influence the American Judicial System?
• Does Sophocles’ Antigone Fit Aristotle’s Definition of a Tragic Heroine?
• How Does Aristotle’s View of Politics Differ From That of Plato’s?
• Why Does Aristotle Believe That Morality Leads to Happiness?
• How Would Aristotle Respond to Utilitarianism?
• How Do Aristotle and Machiavelli Use the Middle Class and the Masses to Achieve Stable Political Organizations?
• Was Aristotle the First Physicist?
• How Does Aristotle Define the Good Life?
• What Did Aristotle Contribute to the Discipline of Logic?
• How Does Aristotle Oppose Platos Attack on Poetry?
• What Does Aristotle Define as Virtue?
• How Does Aristotle Understand the Human Being Through Virtue Ethics?
• What Were Aristotle’s Main Ideas?
• How Does Aristotle’s Anthropic Hylomorphism Relate to His Logical Hylomorphism?
• What Would Aristotle Think of Hannibal Lecter?
• How Does Aristotle Systematically Arrive at Eudemonia via a Concept of Function?
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110 Aristotle Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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When it comes to ancient philosophy, one name that stands out is Aristotle. Known as one of the greatest thinkers in history, Aristotle's ideas have influenced countless fields of study, from politics and ethics to physics and biology. If you're tasked with writing an essay on Aristotle, you might be wondering where to start. To help you out, here are 110 Aristotle essay topic ideas and examples that cover a wide range of his works and theories:

• The concept of virtue in Aristotle's ethics.
• Aristotle's theory of the mean and its relevance in modern society.
• The relationship between happiness and virtue according to Aristotle.
• Aristotle's views on the purpose and function of government.
• A comparative analysis of Aristotle's and Plato's political philosophies.
• The role of education in Aristotle's theory of the ideal state.
• Aristotle's theory of causality and its application in scientific methodology.
• The concept of teleology in Aristotle's philosophy.
• Aristotle's theory of substance and its implications for metaphysics.
• The significance of Aristotle's theory of potentiality and actuality in understanding change.
• Aristotle's views on the nature of the soul and its immortality.
• The role of pleasure in Aristotle's ethics.
• The concept of eudaimonia in Aristotle's ethical theory.
• Aristotle's theory of friendship and its importance in human relationships.
• The relationship between reason and virtue in Aristotle's ethics.
• Aristotle's views on the nature of art and its role in society.
• The concept of tragedy in Aristotle's Poetics.
• Aristotle's theory of rhetoric and its applications in persuasive communication.
• The significance of Aristotle's theory of catharsis in understanding the emotional impact of art.
• Aristotle's views on the nature of truth and knowledge.
• The concept of syllogism in Aristotle's logic.
• Aristotle's theory of four causes and its relationship to explanation.
• The role of habit in Aristotle's ethics.
• Aristotle's theory of justice and its implications for legal systems.
• The concept of natural slavery in Aristotle's political philosophy.
• Aristotle's views on the nature of women and their role in society.
• A comparative analysis of Aristotle's and Nietzsche's theories of ethics.
• The relationship between virtue and pleasure in Aristotle's ethical theory.
• Aristotle's theory of the golden mean and its application in moral decision-making.
• The role of emotions in Aristotle's ethics.
• The concept of tragedy in Aristotle's theory of literature.
• Aristotle's views on the balance between individual freedom and social order.
• The significance of Aristotle's theory of the unmoved mover in understanding the existence of God.
• The role of reason in Aristotle's theory of knowledge.
• Aristotle's theory of the self and its implications for personal identity.
• The concept of unity in Aristotle's metaphysics.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between body and soul.
• A comparative analysis of Aristotle's and Descartes' theories of the mind-body problem.
• Aristotle's theory of education and its role in shaping character.
• The concept of tragedy in Aristotle's theory of drama.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between nature and nurture.
• The significance of Aristotle's theory of the polis in understanding the origins of political society.
• The role of women in Aristotle's ideal state.
• Aristotle's theory of the good life and its implications for personal fulfillment.
• The concept of justice in Aristotle's ethical theory.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between ethics and politics.
• A comparative analysis of Aristotle's and Kant's theories of ethics.
• The role of reason in Aristotle's theory of moral virtue.
• Aristotle's theory of the soul and its implications for the afterlife.
• The concept of chance in Aristotle's theory of causality.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between art and morality.
• The significance of Aristotle's theory of tragedy in understanding human emotions.
• Aristotle's theory of rhetoric and its applications in public speaking.
• The role of pleasure in Aristotle's theory of aesthetics.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between language and thought.
• A comparative analysis of Aristotle's and Hume's theories of ethics.
• The concept of happiness in Aristotle's ethical theory.
• Aristotle's theory of the divine and its implications for religious belief.
• The role of virtue in Aristotle's theory of political leadership.
• Aristotle's views on the concept of beauty and its role in art.
• The significance of Aristotle's theory of the soul in understanding human consciousness.
• Aristotle's theory of causality and its application in understanding natural phenomena.
• The concept of self-realization in Aristotle's ethical theory.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between reason and emotion.
• A comparative analysis of Aristotle's and Mill's theories of ethics.
• The role of wisdom in Aristotle's theory of moral virtue.
• Aristotle's theory of the good and its implications for personal values.
• The concept of friendship in Aristotle's ethical theory.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between ethics and religion.
• The significance of Aristotle's theory of tragedy in understanding human suffering.
• Aristotle's theory of rhetoric and its applications in political discourse.
• Aristotle's views on the relationship between language and reality.
• The concept of virtue in Aristotle's ethical theory.

These essay topic ideas provide a comprehensive range of areas in which you can explore Aristotle's philosophy. From ethics and politics to metaphysics and aesthetics, Aristotle's theories continue to be relevant and influential today. Choose a topic that interests you the most and delve into the fascinating world of Aristotle's ideas. Good luck with your essay!

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125 Aristotle Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on aristotle, ✍️ aristotle essay topics for college, 👍 good aristotle research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting aristotle research titles, 💡 simple aristotle essay ideas.

• Aristotle and Virtue Ethics
• Plato and Aristotle Views on the Concept of Knowledge
• Plato and Aristotle Differences
• The Difference Between Socrates’s and Aristotle’s Prescriptions of Way of Life
• The Difference Between Plato and Aristotle’s Views
• Aristotle Theory About Euthanasia – Ethics
• Philosophy: Aristotle’s View on Substance
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Approaches to Metaphysics Comparison Plato’s and Aristotle’s approaches are thought to be polar: the idealistic and the materialistic, but they intersect in the comprehension and importance of the non-material.
• Aristotle, Mills, and Kant on Ethical Dilemmas Aristotle, Mill, and Kant provide their approaches to solving ethical dilemmas. The paper compares the three theories.
• Theories of Governance: Plato’s and Aristotle’s Theories This paper explores Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of governance and their relevance to governance thought throughout history, as well as current gun issues.
• Aristotle’s View on the Relationship Between Soul and Body Aristotle’s work called “De Anima” represents a study of the question of the soul and is phenomenal for the time of the thinker.
• Plato and Aristotle’s Philosophy on Common Interest While Aristotle strongly rejects Plato’s claim that there is no value in collective unity, this essay illustrates that both philosophers have a common view.
• Aristotle’s Teleological Understanding of Ethics as Virtue in Modern Society The described reasoning concerning Aristotle’s teleological understanding of ethics can be seen as a sensible platform for decision-making in the modern context.
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Dualism and Theory of Forms The difference between the ways in which Plato and Aristotle approached the theory of forms offers background into how the philosophers chose their stances on different phenomena.
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Argument on Forms and Universals The article is a comparison of the theories of Plato and Aristotle concerning the explanation of the nature of forms and universal states.
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Ideas of Ethics Plato and Aristotle were both two individuals who defiantly had brilliant ideas on how to make the world a good place to live.
• Aristotle’s Conception of Science Aristotle’s conception of science has remained a fundamental principle for guiding modern scholars to pursue new truths.
• Comparing Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle Aristotle is a disciple of Plato. Aristotle believed that Plato’s theory of ideas was entirely insufficient to explain empirical reality
• Plato’s Political Philosophy and Aristotle’s Political Science This essay will examine the reasons behind different perceptions of Plato’s and Aristotle’s works and their perspectives on government and politics.
• Odysseus Personality in Terms of Aristotle’s Ethics The purpose of the essay is to prove that Odysseus had crucial positive human characteristics described by Aristotle, and also, in the framework of practical philosophy.
• Cicero’s and Aristotle’s Friendship Notions In contrast to Aristotle, Cicero believes that there are some qualities that make a good friend and a bad friend.
• Citizenship and Civil Disobedience According to Aristotle and Sophocles Summarizing Aristotle’s ideas on this issue and applying them to a well-known play, “Antigone” by Sophocles, helps bring these concepts of Citizenship into clearer focus.
• Aristotle’s Biography: Philosopher’s Teaching and Outlook The path Aristotle followed as a philosopher was by large predetermined by his family background and circumstances of early years.
• Confucius, Aristotle, and Plato: The Issue of Harmony Confucius states that harmony is an equilibrium. Aristotle describes harmony as a connection between different and even opposite people. For Plato, harmony is within a soul.
• Ideas of Plato and Aristotle as a Basis for Medieval and Early Modern Period Concept of Soul Depending on the solution to this problem, the emphasis is shifted either to the biological nature of a person or to their spiritual essence.
• Happiness in Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” In the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle argues that there are different lives people tend to consider happiness; they include the life of political action, money-making, etc.
• Socrates in Aristotle’s and Plato’s Works This paper discusses the depiction of Socrates in Aristophanes Clouds, Plato’s dialogues, and how Aristophanes Cloud’s depiction differs from Plato’s dialogues.
• Aristotle’s Views on the Concept of Friendship Friendship, in Aristotle’s understanding, refers to any kind of interpersonal relationship that is both affectionate and beneficial.
• Aristotle’s Concept of Virtue Ethics Aristotle attached particular importance to the moral ethics of the individual’s personality traits, rather than social duties and rules.
• Aristotle’s Ethical Theory and Its Influences The essay describes the importance of Aristotle’s ethical theory to modern ethics and analyzes the key points of his most iconic writings.
• Aristotle and Augustine on Doing Wrong Aristotle, the Ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the 4th century BC and was a student of Plato, had a huge intellectual range and was involved in many different branches of science.
• Aristotle’s Involvement in Social Issues Aristotle’s philosophy united several approaches and regarded a human being as a multidimensional creature, which accounts for his entirely new look at society.
• Comparison Between Plato and Aristotle’s View on Women Plato and Aristotle have separate views on women where one of them advocated for equality, and the other proposed that there should be ab alienation of women.
• Aristotle’s Perspective on the Greek Tragedy Due to Aristotle’s concept of tragedy, modern audiences can examine a play and form a deep relationship with the protagonist.
• How Kreon Is the Tragic Hero, Based on Aristotle’s Principles Kreon is the tragic hero based on Aristotle’s principles because he meets all the four characteristics that go with that title.
• Appropriation of Aristotle’s Ideas in Christian Philosophy It should be mentioned that the Christian faith first spread among the Greek elites who were educated in the thought of Aristotle, Plato, or Socrates.
• Aristotle and Plato Works Comparison Along with Socrates and Plato, Aristotle is believed to be one of the most ancient Greek philosophers. Being arguably the most educated man of those times, Aristotle had a wide range of interests.
• Plato’s and Aristotle’s Views on Philosophy It is worth noting that the two great philosophers Plato and Aristotle had polar views on the essence, and the philosophy in general.
• Aristotle’s and Machiavelli’s Views on the Virtue This paper aims at discussing the essence of virtue, its goals, and contradictions in terms of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Machiavelli’s Prince.
• Aristotle’s Views on Ethics Ethics for people’s lives viewed in Aristotle’s argument stating that all humans share a certain function in life. This paper will present an objection to Aristotle’s function argument.
• Seneca’s Views on Anger Arguments of Aristotle Everyone gets annoyed at one time or the other. However, there are some people who are always angry. Both Aristotle and Seneca show that fury leads to varying reactions among different people.
• “The Nicomachean Ethics” Book by Aristotle The work “The Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle is a major guiding force in academic and political ethics, which is a fundamental factor for human existence.
• St. Thomas’s Natural Law Teaching and Aristotle’s Teaching in Ethics Jean-Jacques Rousseau criticized all prior natural law theories by stating that it was impossible to understand the laws of nature without understanding real nature.
• Plato’s, Aristotle’s, and Machiavelli’s Perspectives on the Ideal Form of Government Since Plato, Aristotle, and Machiavelli each single out a particular characteristic of human nature, their idea of a perfect political regime is tethered to it.
• Plato’s vs. Aristotle’s Political Approaches Aristotle’s political approach is different from Plato’s approach in the sense that Plato’s approach is not applicable in the ideal society.
• The Happiness Concept in Aristotle’s Ethics The concept of Happiness presented by the Greek philosopher Aristotle lies beyond the traditional notion of Happiness that has developed in the collective consciousness.
• Discussion of Aristotle Rhetoric The reading discusses the idea of rhetoric as a means of persuasion because Aristotle argues effective persuasion depends on the successful use of ethos, logos, and pathos.
• Han Fei and Aristotle: Interpret of the Passage by Confucius The primary aim of the current work is to interpret the passage by Confucius and analyze it from the philosophical perspectives of Han Fei and Aristotle.
• Plato’s, Aristotle’s, and Socrates’ Philosophical Ideas Despite the lack of similarity, the teachings of different philosophies are identified more easily, and their nature, as well as the similar concepts that appear in philosophy.
• Explaining Aristotle’s Understanding of Virtue For Aristotle and his followers, virtue is not a simple term connected to positive levels of morality in a human being.
• Virtue: Views of Aristotle and Machiavelli The paper discusses Aristotle and Machiavelli had divergent perspectives on the concept of virtue, as it is a balanced approach to life in both civic and moral aspects.
• Aristotle and His Vision of the Virtues of Man This work provides a brief description of Aristotle’s ideas about the virtues of character, virtues, and moral behavior of a person.
• Analysis of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics In this article, Aristotle’s concept of Nicomachean ethics is based on the philosophical view that happiness is the only justifiable ultimate end that people pursue.
• Connections Between Aristotle’s Views of the Universe and Aquinas’s Aristotle inspired many philosophers and thinkers with his ideas of how the universe functions. One of the people who built on the ideas of Aristotle was Aquinas.
• Video Advertisement: The Efficiency of the Aristotle’s Rhetoric This essay examines the effectiveness of using Ethos, Pathos, and Logos as the persuasive tools in the “Jason Momoa Super Bowl Commercial 2020. Rocket Mortgage” advertisement.
• Aristotle’s Ideas of Persuasion in Advertising The analysis of modern advertising campaigns from the point of view that decision-making is not based on logical thinking, but on emotional motivation, as Aristotle proved.
• Plato, Aristotle and Preferable Response to Literature The main task of the present paper is to analyze Aristotle and Plato’s points of view concerning art and to choose the one that is the most appropriate to reading literature.
• Aristotle’s Discussion in Nichomanchean Ethics Aristotle’s discussion in Nichomanchean Ethics provides a perfect definition of an ethical society and the meaning of such ethics.
• Kant’s and Aristotle’s Ethical Philosophy Kant claims that a person who helps others, with pleasure, from motives of natural sympathy displays no moral worth. It is helpful to take a look at Aristotle.
• Ethics and Morality as Philosophical Concepts: Definitions According to Aristotle, Dante, and Kant The work is aimed to tell about enlightenment according to Kant, Aristotle’s theory of ethics, moral philosophy and the arrangement of Dante’s hell and definition of justice.
• Philosophy. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics This paper will discuss and analyze the importance of friendship, virtue, and endurance and the way Aristotle presents these concepts.
• Virtue Perception by Aristotle and Today’s Society By analyzing Aristotle’s view of virtue, as well as its relevance in today’s society, one may comprehend its critical aspects and crucial impact on humanity.
• Aristotle and Aquinas on Happiness In his most renowned work, Nicomachean Ethics, the philosopher Aristotle explored the idea of a supreme good of people.
• Morality in Kant’s, Mill’s, Aristotle’s Philosophies This paper compares the positions of Kant, Mill, and Aristotle on the nature of morality and its relationship with reason or intellect, and with feelings.
• Equality in “The Politics” by Aristotle One of the outstanding works that discuss the origins of political life and organization of society is “The Politics” by Aristotle.
• Aristotle and His Views on Political Success
• Aristotle and the Irony of Guilt
• Aristotle and Plato’s View of Slavery
• Antigone and Creon Appreciated From Aristotle’s Theory of Poetics
• Aristotle and Adam Smith on Reason and Sentiment
• Nature and Biology According to Aristotle
• Aristotle and Human Origins
• Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the Ethics of Modern Advertising
• Aristotle and Plato’s Views on Knowledge
• Aristotle & Alchohol Abuse
• Aristotle’s Most Ideal Social and Political Good
• Aristotle and Charles Darwin: Two of the Great Biologist of All Time
• Human Reproduction and the Views of Aristotle
• Aristotle and Plato’s Views on Reality
• Plato and Aristotle’s Impact on Rhetoric
• Aristotle and the Development of Value Theory
• Aristotle and Citizenship Intellectual Virtue
• Friendship and Marriage According to Barbara Whitehead and Aristotle
• Happiness and the Good in Humanity in Nichomachean Ethics, a Book by Aristotle
• Aristotle’s Distinction Between Tragedy and Epic Poetry
• Goodness, Happiness, and Virtues in Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
• Aristotle and Buddhism: Comparing Philosophies
• Aristotle and the Canadian Political System
• Ethics and Religion According to Augustine and Aristotle
• Aristotle’s Definition and Description of Human Function
• Ethics and Psychology Theories of Aristotle
• Aristotle and His View of Women
• Plato and Aristotle’s Life-Blood Philosophy of Dialect Discussion
• Aristotle and the Philosophy of Happiness
• Oedipus and Othello Exemplify Aristotle’s Definition of a Tragic Hero
• Aristotle’s Life and Contributions to Western Civilization
• Aristotle: Substance, Demonstrative Knowledge, Luck, and Chance
• Alfarabi and Aristotle: The Four Causes and the Four Stages of the Doctrine of the Intelligence
• Philosophy: Aristotle and Medical Knowledge
• Aristotle’s Ethical Theory and How It Conflicts
• John Stuart Mill and Aristotle‘s Opposing Argumentative Theories
• Man’s Final Good and Methods of Determination in Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
• Aristotle and the Four Causes of the End Purpose of an Object or Action
• Aristotle’s Three Motivations for Friendship
• Aristotle and Juvenile Delinquency
• Comparing and Contrasting the Philosophers Aristotle and Plato
• Aristotle and His Basic Philosophies
• Ethics and Morals According to Kant and Aristotle
• Aristotle and the Correspondence Theory of Truth
• Aquinas vs. Aristotle: Justice as Virtue
• Aristotle and the Appeal to Reason
• Aristotle and His Idea of the Ideal Constitution
• Aristotle and Open Population Thinking
• Human Nature and the Views of Augustine and Aristotle
• Ethics and Morality According to Aristotle in the Legal Defense of a Guilty Man
• Aristotle and His Followers of the Aristotelian Tradition
• Similarities Between Aristotle and Aquinas
• Aristotle and Freud and the Theory of Tragedy
• Happiness and Morality According to Aristotle
• Aristotle’s Poetics: Catharsis and Rasas
• Aristotle and Epicurus Debate on Pleasure and Politics
• Plato, Aristotle, and Machiavelli on Democratic Rule
• Ancient Political Thought: Aristotle and Plato
• Aristotle and His Ethical Beliefs
• Abortion and the Philosophies of David Hume and Aristotle

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Aristotle was one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived and the first genuine scientist in history. He made pioneering contributions to all fields of philosophy and science, he invented the field of formal logic , and he identified the various scientific disciplines and explored their relationships to each other. Aristotle was also a teacher and founded his own school in Athens, known as the Lyceum .

After his father died about 367 BCE, Aristotle journeyed to Athens, where he joined the Academy of Plato. He left the Academy upon Plato’s death about 348, traveling to the northwestern coast of present-day Turkey . He lived there and on the island of Lésbos until 343 or 342, when King Philip II of Macedonia summoned him to the Macedonian capital, Pella , to act as tutor to Philip’s young teenage son, Alexander, which he did for two or three years. Aristotle presumably lived somewhere in Macedonia until his (second) arrival in Athens in 335. In 323 hostility toward Macedonians in Athens prompted Aristotle to flee to the island of Euboea, where he died the following year.

Aristotle’s most famous teacher was Plato (c. 428–c. 348 BCE), who himself had been a student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE). Socrates, Plato , and Aristotle, whose lifetimes spanned a period of only about 150 years, remain among the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy. Aristotle’s most famous student was Philip II’s son Alexander, later to be known as Alexander the Great , a military genius who eventually conquered the entire Greek world as well as North Africa and the Middle East . Aristotle’s most important philosophical student was probably Theophrastus , who became head of the Lyceum about 323.

Aristotle wrote as many as 200 treatises and other works covering all areas of philosophy and science . Of those, none survives in finished form. The approximately 30 works through which his thought was conveyed to later centuries consist of lecture notes (by Aristotle or his students) and draft manuscripts edited by ancient scholars, notably Andronicus of Rhodes , the last head of the Lyceum , who arranged, edited, and published Aristotle’s extant works in Rome about 60 BCE. The naturally abbreviated style of these writings makes them difficult to read, even for philosophers.

Aristotle’s thought was original, profound, wide-ranging, and systematic. It eventually became the intellectual framework of Western Scholasticism , the system of philosophical assumptions and problems characteristic of philosophy in western Europe during the Middle Ages . In the 13th century St. Thomas Aquinas undertook to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy and science with Christian dogma, and through him the theology and intellectual worldview of the Roman Catholic Church became Aristotelian. Since the mid-20th century, Aristotle’s ethics has inspired the field of virtue theory, an approach to ethics that emphasizes human well-being and the development of character. Aristotle’s thought also constitutes an important current in other fields of contemporary philosophy, especially metaphysics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of science.

Aristotle (born 384 bce , Stagira, Chalcidice , Greece—died 322, Chalcis , Euboea) was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of Classical antiquity and Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy . Even after the intellectual revolutions of the Renaissance , the Reformation , and the Enlightenment , Aristotelian concepts remained embedded in Western thinking .

Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of the arts, including biology , botany , chemistry , ethics , history , logic , metaphysics , rhetoric , philosophy of mind , philosophy of science , physics , poetics, political theory, psychology , and zoology . He was the founder of formal logic , devising for it a finished system that for centuries was regarded as the sum of the discipline; and he pioneered the study of zoology, both observational and theoretical, in which some of his work remained unsurpassed until the 19th century. But he is, of course, most outstanding as a philosopher. His writings in ethics and political theory as well as in metaphysics and the philosophy of science continue to be studied, and his work remains a powerful current in contemporary philosophical debate.

This article deals with Aristotle’s life and thought. For the later development of Aristotelian philosophy , see Aristotelianism . For treatment of Aristotelianism in the full context of Western philosophy, see philosophy, Western .

Aristotle was born on the Chalcidic peninsula of Macedonia, in northern Greece . His father, Nicomachus, was the physician of Amyntas III (reigned c. 393–c. 370 bce ), king of Macedonia and grandfather of Alexander the Great (reigned 336–323 bce ). After his father’s death in 367, Aristotle migrated to Athens , where he joined the Academy of Plato (c. 428–c. 348 bce ). He remained there for 20 years as Plato’s pupil and colleague.

Many of Plato’s later dialogues date from these decades, and they may reflect Aristotle’s contributions to philosophical debate at the Academy. Some of Aristotle’s writings also belong to this period, though mostly they survive only in fragments. Like his master, Aristotle wrote initially in dialogue form, and his early ideas show a strong Platonic influence. His dialogue Eudemus , for example, reflects the Platonic view of the soul as imprisoned in the body and as capable of a happier life only when the body has been left behind. According to Aristotle, the dead are more blessed and happier than the living, and to die is to return to one’s real home.

Another youthful work, the Protrepticus (“Exhortation”), has been reconstructed by modern scholars from quotations in various works from late antiquity. Everyone must do philosophy, Aristotle claims, because even arguing against the practice of philosophy is itself a form of philosophizing. The best form of philosophy is the contemplation of the universe of nature; it is for this purpose that God made human beings and gave them a godlike intellect. All else—strength, beauty, power, and honour—is worthless.

It is possible that two of Aristotle’s surviving works on logic and disputation, the Topics and the Sophistical Refutations , belong to this early period. The former demonstrates how to construct arguments for a position one has already decided to adopt; the latter shows how to detect weaknesses in the arguments of others. Although neither work amounts to a systematic treatise on formal logic, Aristotle can justly say, at the end of the Sophistical Refutations , that he has invented the discipline of logic—nothing at all existed when he started.

During Aristotle’s residence at the Academy, King Philip II of Macedonia (reigned 359–336 bce ) waged war on a number of Greek city-state s. The Athenians defended their independence only half-heartedly, and, after a series of humiliating concessions , they allowed Philip to become, by 338, master of the Greek world. It cannot have been an easy time to be a Macedonian resident in Athens.

Within the Academy, however, relations seem to have remained cordial. Aristotle always acknowledged a great debt to Plato; he took a large part of his philosophical agenda from Plato, and his teaching is more often a modification than a repudiation of Plato’s doctrines. Already, however, Aristotle was beginning to distance himself from Plato’s theory of Forms, or Ideas ( eidos ; see form ). (The word Form , when used to refer to Forms as Plato conceived them, is often capitalized in the scholarly literature; when used to refer to forms as Aristotle conceived them, it is conventionally lowercased.) Plato had held that, in addition to particular things, there exists a suprasensible realm of Forms, which are immutable and everlasting. This realm, he maintained, makes particular things intelligible by accounting for their common natures: a thing is a horse, for example, by virtue of the fact that it shares in, or imitates, the Form of “Horse.” In a lost work, On Ideas , Aristotle maintains that the arguments of Plato’s central dialogues establish only that there are, in addition to particulars, certain common objects of the sciences. In his surviving works as well, Aristotle often takes issue with the theory of Forms, sometimes politely and sometimes contemptuously. In his Metaphysics he argues that the theory fails to solve the problems it was meant to address. It does not confer intelligibility on particulars, because immutable and everlasting Forms cannot explain how particulars come into existence and undergo change. All the theory does, according to Aristotle, is introduce new entities equal in number to the entities to be explained—as if one could solve a problem by doubling it. ( See below Form .)

When Plato died about 348, his nephew Speusippus became head of the Academy, and Aristotle left Athens. He migrated to Assus , a city on the northwestern coast of Anatolia (in present-day Turkey), where Hermias , a graduate of the Academy, was ruler. Aristotle became a close friend of Hermias and eventually married his ward Pythias. Aristotle helped Hermias to negotiate an alliance with Macedonia, which angered the Persian king, who had Hermias treacherously arrested and put to death about 341. Aristotle saluted Hermias’s memory in “ Ode to Virtue,” his only surviving poem.

While in Assus and during the subsequent few years when he lived in the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos , Aristotle carried out extensive scientific research, particularly in zoology and marine biology . This work was summarized in a book later known, misleadingly, as The History of Animals , to which Aristotle added two short treatises , On the Parts of Animals and On the Generation of Animals . Although Aristotle did not claim to have founded the science of zoology, his detailed observations of a wide variety of organisms were quite without precedent. He—or one of his research assistants—must have been gifted with remarkably acute eyesight, since some of the features of insects that he accurately reports were not again observed until the invention of the microscope in the 17th century.

The scope of Aristotle’s scientific research is astonishing. Much of it is concerned with the classification of animals into genus and species; more than 500 species figure in his treatises, many of them described in detail. The myriad items of information about the anatomy, diet, habitat, modes of copulation, and reproductive systems of mammals, reptiles, fish, and insects are a melange of minute investigation and vestiges of superstition. In some cases his unlikely stories about rare species of fish were proved accurate many centuries later. In other places he states clearly and fairly a biological problem that took millennia to solve, such as the nature of embryonic development.

Despite an admixture of the fabulous, Aristotle’s biological works must be regarded as a stupendous achievement. His inquiries were conducted in a genuinely scientific spirit, and he was always ready to confess ignorance where evidence was insufficient. Whenever there is a conflict between theory and observation, one must trust observation, he insisted, and theories are to be trusted only if their results conform with the observed phenomena.

In 343 or 342 Aristotle was summoned by Philip II to the Macedonian capital at Pella to act as tutor to Philip’s 13-year-old son, the future Alexander the Great. Little is known of the content of Aristotle’s instruction; although the Rhetoric to Alexander was included in the Aristotelian corpus for centuries, it is now commonly regarded as a forgery. By 326 Alexander had made himself master of an empire that stretched from the Danube to the Indus and included Libya and Egypt. Ancient sources report that during his campaigns Alexander arranged for biological specimens to be sent to his tutor from all parts of Greece and Asia Minor .

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Aristotle (384 b.c.e.—322 b.c.e.).

A prolific writer, lecturer, and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most of the topics he investigated. In his lifetime, he wrote dialogues and as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31 survive. These works are in the form of lecture notes and draft manuscripts never intended for general readership. Nevertheless, they are the earliest complete philosophical treatises we still possess.

As the father of western logic, Aristotle was the first to develop a formal system for reasoning. He observed that the deductive validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather than its content, for example, in the syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. Even if the content of the argument were changed from being about Socrates to being about someone else, because of its structure, as long as the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. Aristotelian logic dominated until the rise of modern propositional logic and predicate logic 2000 years later.

The emphasis on good reasoning serves as the backdrop for Aristotle’s other investigations. In his natural philosophy, Aristotle combines logic with observation to make general, causal claims. For example, in his biology, Aristotle uses the concept of species to make empirical claims about the functions and behavior of individual animals. However, as revealed in his psychological works, Aristotle is no reductive materialist. Instead, he thinks of the body as the matter, and the psyche as the form of each living animal.

Though his natural scientific work is firmly based on observation, Aristotle also recognizes the possibility of knowledge that is not empirical. In his metaphysics, he claims that there must be a separate and unchanging being that is the source of all other beings. In his ethics, he holds that it is only by becoming excellent that one could achieve eudaimonia, a sort of happiness or blessedness that constitutes the best kind of human life.

Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school based in Athens, Greece; and he was the first of the Peripatetics, his followers from the Lyceum. Aristotle’s works, exerted tremendous influence on ancient and medieval thought and continue to inspire philosophers to this day.

Table of Contents

• Life and Lost Works
• The Meaning and Purpose of Logic
• Demonstrative Syllogistic
• Induction, Experience, and Principles
• Rhetoric and Poetics
• Cosmology and Geology
• Mathematics
• First Philosophy
• Habituation and Excellence
• Ethical Deliberation
• Self and Others
• The Household and the State
• Aristotle’s Influence
• Abbreviations of Aristotle’s Works
• Other Abbreviations
• Aristotle’s Complete Works
• Life and Early Works
• Theoretical Philosophy
• Practical Philosophy

1. Life and Lost Works

Though our main ancient source on Aristotle’s life, Diogenes Laertius, is of questionable reliability, the outlines of his biography are credible. Diogenes reports that Aristotle’s Greek father, Nicomachus, served as private physician to the Macedonian king Amyntas (DL 5.1.1). At the age of seventeen, Aristotle migrated to Athens where he joined the Academy, studying under Plato for twenty years (DL 5.1.9). During this period Aristotle acquired his encyclopedic knowledge of the philosophical tradition, which he draws on extensively in his works.

Aristotle left Athens around the time Plato died, in 348 or 347 B.C.E. One explanation is that as a resident alien, Aristotle was excluded from leadership of the Academy in favor of Plato’s nephew, the Athenian citizen Speusippus. Another possibility is that Aristotle was forced to flee as Philip of Macedon’s expanding power led to the spread of anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens (Chroust 1967). Whatever the cause, Aristotle subsequently moved to Atarneus, which was ruled by another former student at the Academy, Hermias. During his three years there, Aristotle married Pythias, the niece or adopted daughter of Hermias, and perhaps engaged in negotiations or espionage on behalf of the Macedonians (Chroust 1972). Whatever the case, the couple relocated to Macedonia, where Aristotle was employed by Philip, serving as tutor to his son, Alexander the Great (DL 5.1.3–4). Aristotle’s philosophical career was thus directly entangled with the rise of a major power.

After some time in Macedonia, Aristotle returned to Athens, where he founded his own school in rented buildings in the Lyceum . It was presumably during this period that he authored most of his surviving texts, which have the appearance of lecture transcripts edited so they could be read aloud in Aristotle’s absence. Indeed, this must have been necessary, since after his school had been in operation for thirteen years, he again departed from Athens, possibly because a charge of impiety was brought against him (DL 5.1.5). He died at age 63 in Chalcis (DL 5.1.10).

Diogenes tells us that Aristotle was a thin man who dressed flashily, wearing a fashionable hairstyle and a number of rings. If the will quoted by Diogenes (5.1.11–16) is authentic, Aristotle must have possessed significant personal wealth, since it promises a furnished house in Stagira, three female slaves, and a talent of silver to his concubine, Herpyllis. Aristotle fathered a daughter with Pythias and, with Herpyllis, a son, Nicomachus (named after his grandfather), who may have edited Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics . Unfortunately, since there are few extant sources on Aristotle’s life, one’s judgment about the accuracy and completeness of these details depends largely on how much one trusts Diogenes’ testimony.

Since commentaries on Aristotle’s work have been produced for around two thousand years, it is not immediately obvious which sources are reliable guides to his thought. Aristotle’s works have a condensed style and make use of a peculiar vocabulary. Though he wrote an introduction to philosophy, a critique of Plato’s theory of forms, and several philosophical dialogues, these works survive only in fragments. The extant Corpus Aristotelicum consists of Aristotle’s recorded lectures, which cover almost all the major areas of philosophy. Before the invention of the printing press, handwritten copies of these works circulated in the Near East, northern Africa, and southern Europe for centuries. The surviving manuscripts were collected and edited in August Immanuel Bekker’s authoritative 1831–1836 Berlin edition of the Corpus (“Bekker” 1910). All references to Aristotle’s works in this article follow the standard Bekker numbering.

The extant fragments of Aristotle’s lost works, which modern commentators sometimes use as the basis for conjectures about his philosophical development, are noteworthy. A fragment of his Protrepticus preserves a striking analogy according to which the psyche or soul’s attachment to the body is a form of punishment:

The ancients blessedly say that the psyche pays penalty and that our life is for the atonement of great sins. And the yoking of the psyche to the body seems very much like this. For they say that, as Etruscans torture captives by chaining the dead face to face with the living, fitting each to each part, so the psyche seems to be stretched throughout, and constrained to all the sensitive members of the body. (Pistelli 1888, 47.24–48.1)

According to this allegedly inspired theory, the fetters that bind the psyche to the body are similar to those by which the Etruscans torture their prisoners. Just as the Etruscans chain prisoners face to face with a dead body so that each part of the living body touches a part of the corpse, the psyche is said to be aligned with the parts of one’s living body. On this view, the psyche is embodied as a painful but corrective atonement for its badness. (See Bos 2003 and Hutchinson and Johnson’s webpage ).

The incompatibility of this passage with Aristotle’s view that the psyche is inseparable from the body (discussed below) has been explained in various ways. Neo-Platonic commentators distinguish between Aristotle’s esoteric and exoteric writings, that is, writings intended for circulation within his school, and writings like the Protrepticus intended for a broader reading public (Gerson 2005, 47–75). Some modern scholars have argued to the contrary that the imprisonment of the psyche in the body indicates that Aristotle was still a Platonist at the time he composed the Protrepticus , which must have been written earlier than his mature works (Jaeger 1948, 100). Aristotle’s dialogue Eudemus , which contains arguments for the immortality of the psyche, and his Politicus , which is about the ideal statesman, seem to corroborate the view that Aristotle’s exoteric works hold much that is Platonic in spirit (Chroust 1965; 1966). The latter contains the seemingly Platonic assertion that “the good is the most exact of measures” (Kroll 1902, 168: 927b4–5).

But not all agree. Owen (1968, 162–163) argues that Aristotle’s fundamental logical distinction between individual and species depends on an antecedent break with Plato. According to this view, Aristotle’s On Ideas (Fine 1993), a collection of arguments against Platonic forms , shows that Aristotle rejected Platonism early in his career, though he later became more sympathetic to the master’s views. However, as Lachterman (1980) points out, such historical theses depend on substantive hermeneutical assumptions about how to read Aristotle and on theoretical assumptions about what constitutes a philosophical system. This article focuses not on this historical debate but on the theories propounded in Aristotle’s extant works.

2. Analytics or “Logic”

Aristotle is usually identified as the founder of logic in the West (although autonomous logical traditions also developed in India and China ), where his “Organon,” consisting of his works the Categories , On Interpretation , Prior Analytics , Posterior Analytics , Sophistical Refutations , and Topics , long served as the traditional manuals of logic. Two other works— Rhetoric and Poetics —are not about logic, but also concern how to communicate to an audience. Curiously, Aristotle never used the words “logic” or “organon” to refer to his own work but calls this discipline “analytics.” Though Aristotelian logic is sometimes referred to as an “art” (Ross 1940, iii), it is clearly not an art in Aristotle’s sense, which would require it to be productive of some end outside itself. Nevertheless, this article follows the convention of referring to the content of Aristotle’s analytics as “logic.”

a. The Meaning and Purpose of Logic

What is logic for Aristotle? On Interpretation begins with a discussion of meaning, according to which written words are symbols of spoken words, while spoken words are symbols of thoughts ( Int .16a3–8). This theory of signification can be understood as a semantics that explains how different alphabets can signify the same spoken language, while different languages can signify the same thoughts. Moreover, this theory connects the meaning of symbols to logical consequence, since commitment to some set of utterances rationally requires commitment to the thoughts signified by those utterances and to what is entailed by them. Hence, though Cook Wilson (1926, 30–33) correctly notes that Aristotle nowhere defines logic, it may be called the science of thinking, where the role of the science is not to describe ordinary human reasoning but rather to demonstrate what one ought to think given one’s other commitments. Though the elements of Aristotelian logic are implicit in our conscious reasoning, Aristotelian “analysis” makes explicit what was formerly implicit (Cook Wilson 1926, 49).

Aristotle shows how logic can demonstrate what one should think, given one’s commitments, by developing the syntactical concepts of truth, predication, and definition. In order for a written sentence, utterance, or thought to be true or false, Aristotle says, it must include at least two terms: a subject and a predicate. Thus, a simple thought or utterance such as “horse” is neither true nor false but must be combined with another term, say, “fast” in order to form a compound—“the horse is fast”—that describes reality truly or falsely. The written sentence “the horse is fast” has meaning insofar as it signifies the spoken sentence, which in turn has meaning in virtue of its signifying the thought that the horse is fast ( Int .16a10–18, Cat .13b10–12, DA 430a26–b1). Aristotle holds that there are two kinds of constituents of meaningful sentences: nouns and their derivatives, which are conventional symbols without tense or aspect; and verbs, which have a tense and aspect. Though all meaningful speech consists of combinations of these constituents, Aristotle limits logic to the consideration of statements, which assert or deny the presence of something in the past, present, or future ( Int .17a20–24).

Aristotle analyzes statements as cases of predication, in which a predicate P is attributed to a subject S as in a sentence of the form “S is P.” Since he holds that every statement expresses something about being, statements of this form are to be read as “S is (exists) as a P” (Bäck 2000, 11). In every true predication, either the subject and predicate are of the same category, or the subject term refers to a substance while the predicate term refers to one of the other categories. The primary substances are individuals, while secondary substances are species and genera composed of individuals ( Cat .2a11–18). This distinction between primary and secondary reflects a dependence relation: if all the individuals of a species or genus were annihilated, the species and genus could not, in the present tense, be truly predicated of any subject.

Every individual is of a species and that species is predicated of the individual. Every species is the member of a genus, which is predicated of the species and of each individual of that species ( Cat .2b13–22). For example, if Callias is of the species “man,” and the species is a member of the genus “animal,” then “man” is predicated of Callias, and “animal” is predicated both of “man” and of Callias. The individual, Callias, inherits the predicate “animal” in virtue of being of the species “man.” But inheritance stops at the individual and does not apply to its proper parts. For example, “man” is not truly predicated of Callias’ hand. A genus can be divided with reference to the specific differences among its members; for example, “biped” differentiates “man” from “horse.”

While no definition can be given of an individual or primary substance such as Callias, when one gives the genus and all the specific differences possessed by a kind of thing, one can define a thing’s species. A specific difference is a predicate that falls under one of the categories. Thus, Aristotelian categories can be seen as a taxonomical scheme, a way of organizing predicates for discovery, or as a metaphysical doctrine about the kinds of beings there are. But any reading must accommodate Aristotle’s views that primary substances are never predicated of a subject ( Cat .3a6), that a predicate may fall under multiple categories ( Cat .11a20–39), and that some terms, such as “good,” are predicated in all the categories ( NE 1096a23–29). Moreover, definitions are reached not by demonstration but by other kinds of inquiry, such as dialectic, the art by which one makes divisions in a genus; and induction, which can reveal specific differences from the observation of individual examples.

b. Demonstrative Syllogistic

Syllogistic reasoning builds on Aristotle’s theory of predication, showing how to reason from premises to conclusions. A syllogism is a discourse in which when taking some statements as premises a different statement can be shown to follow as a conclusion ( AnPr .24b18–22). The basic form of the Aristotelian syllogism involves a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion, so that it has the form

If A is predicated of all B,

And B is predicated of all C,

Then A is predicated of all C.

This is an assertion of formal logic, since by removing the values of the variables A, B, and C, one treats the inference formally, such that the values of the subject A and predicates B and C are not given as part of the syllogistic form (Łukasiewicz, 10–14).

Though this form can be utilized in dialectic, in which the major term A is related to C through the middle term B credibly rather than necessarily ( AnPo .81b10–23), Aristotle is mainly concerned with how to use syllogistic in what he calls demonstrative reasoning, that is, in inference from certain premises to a certain conclusion. A demonstrative syllogism is not concerned with a mere opinion but proves a cause, that is, answers a “why” question ( AnPo .85b 23–26).

Figure 1: The Traditional Square of Opposition illustrates the relations between the fundamental judgment-forms in Aristotelian syllogistic: (A) All S are P, (E) No S are P, (I) Some S are P, and (O) Some S are not P.

Syllogistic may be employed dialectically when the premises are accepted on the authority of common opinion, from tradition, or from the wise. In any dialectical syllogism, the premises can be generally accepted opinions rather than necessary principles ( Top .100a25–b21). At least some premises in rhetorical proofs must be not necessary but only probable, happening only for the most part.

When the premises are known, and conclusions are shown to follow from those premises, one gains knowledge by demonstration. Demonstration is necessary ( AnPo .73a21–27) because the conclusion of a demonstrative syllogism predicates something that is either necessarily true or necessarily false of the subject of the premise. One has demonstrative knowledge when one knows the premises and has derived a necessary conclusion from them, since the cause given in the premises explains why the conclusion is so ( AnPo .75a12–17, 35–37). Consequently, valid demonstration depends on the known premises containing terms for the genus of which the species in the conclusion is a member ( AnPo .76a29–30).

One interesting problem that arises within Aristotle’s theory of demonstration concerns the connection between temporality and necessity. By the principle of excluded middle, necessarily, either there will be a sea-battle tomorrow or there will not be a sea-battle tomorrow. But since the sea-battle itself has yet neither come about nor failed to come about, it seems that one must say, paradoxically, that one alternative is necessary but that either alternative might come about ( Int .19a22–34). The question of how to account for unrealized possibilities and necessities is part of Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is discussed at length in his Prior Analytics . For a discussion, see Malink (2013).

c. Induction, Experience, and Principles

Whenever a speaker reasons from premises, an auditor can ask for their demonstration. The speaker then needs to adduce additional premises for that demonstration. But if this line of questioning went on interminably, no demonstration could be made, since every premise would require a further demonstration, ad infinitum. In order to stop an infinite regress of premises, Aristotle postulates that for an inference to count as demonstrative, one must know its indemonstrable premises ( AnPo .73a16–20). Thus, demonstrative science depends on the view that all teaching and learning proceed from already present knowledge ( AnPo .72b5–20). In other words, the possibility of making a complete argument, whether inductive or deductive, depends on the reasoner possessing the concept in question.

The acquisition of concepts must in some way be perceptual, since Aristotle says that universals come to rest in the soul through experience, which comes about from many memories of the same thing, which in turn comes about by perception ( AnPo .99b32–100a9). However, Aristotle holds that some concepts are already manifested in one’s perceptual experience: children initially call all men father and all women mother, only later developing the capacity to apply the relevant concepts to particular individuals ( Phys .184b3–5). As Cook Wilson (1926, 45) puts it, perception is in a way already of a universal. Upon learning to speak, the child already possesses the concept “mother” but does not grasp the conditions of its correct application. The role of perception, and hence of memory and experience, is then not to supply the child with universal concepts but to fix the conditions under which they are correctly predicated of an individual or species. Hence the ability to arrive at definitions, which serve as starting points of a science, rests on the human being’s natural capacity to use language and on the culturally specific social and political conditions in which that capacity is manifested (Winslow 2013, 45–49).

While deduction proceeds by a form of syllogistic reasoning in which the major and minor premise both predicate what is necessarily true of a subject, inductive reasoning moves from particulars to universals, so it is impossible to gain knowledge of universals except by induction ( AnPo .81a38–b9). This movement, from the observation of the same occurrence, to an experience that emerges from many memories, to a universal judgment, is a cognitive process by which human beings understand reality (see AnPo .88a2–5, Met .980b28–981a1, EN 1098b2–4, 1142a12).

But what makes such an inference a good one? Aristotle seems to say an inductive inference is sound when what is true in each case is also true of the class under which the cases fall ( AnPr .68b15–29). For example, it is inferred from the observation that each kind of bileless animal (men, horses, mules, and so on) is long-lived just when the following syllogism is sound: (1) All men, horses, mules, and so on are long-lived; (2) All long-lived animals are bileless; therefore (3) all men, horses, mules, and so on are bileless (see Groarke sections 10 and 11). However, Aristotle does not think that knowledge of universals is pieced together from knowledge of particulars but rather he thinks that induction is what allows one to actualize knowledge by grasping how the particular case falls under the universal ( AnPr .67a31–b5).

A true definition reveals the essential nature of something, what it is to be that thing ( AnPo .90b30–31). A sound demonstration shows what is necessary of an observed subject ( AnPo .90b38–91a5). It is essential, however, that the observation on which a definition is based be inductively true, that is, that it be based on causes rather than on chance. Regardless of whether one is asking what something is in a definition or why something is the way it is by giving its cause, it is only when the principles or starting points of a science are given that demonstration becomes possible. Since experience is what gives the principles of each science ( AnPr .46a17–27), logic can only be employed at a later stage to demonstrate conclusions from these starting points. This is why logic, though it is employed in all branches of philosophy, is not a part of philosophy. Rather, in the Aristotelian tradition, logic is an instrument for the philosopher, just as a hammer and anvil are instruments for the blacksmith (Ierodiakonou 1998).

d. Rhetoric and Poetics

Just as dialectic searches for truth, Aristotelian rhetoric serves as its counterpart ( Rhet .1354a1), searching for the means by which truth can be grasped through language. Thus, rhetorical demonstration, or enthymeme, is a kind of syllogism that strictly speaking belongs to dialectic ( Rhet .1355a8–10). Because rhetoric uses the particularly human capacity of reason to formulate verbal arguments, it is the art that can cause the most harm when it is used wrongly. It is thus not a technique for persuasion at any cost, as some Sophists have taught, but a fundamentally second-personal way of using language that allows the auditor to reach a judgment (Grimaldi 1972, 3–5). More fundamentally, rhetoric is defined as the detection of persuasive features of each subject matter ( Rhet .1355b12–22).

Proofs given in speech depend on three things: the character ( ethos ) of the speaker, the disposition ( pathos ) of the audience, and the meaning ( logos ) of the sounds and gestures used ( Rhet .1356a2–6). Rhetorical proofs show that the speaker is worthy of credence, producing an emotional state (pathos) in the audience, or demonstrating a consequence using the words alone. Aristotle holds that ethos is the most important of these elements, since trust in the speaker is required if one is to believe the speech. However, the best speech balances ethos, pathos, and logos. In rhetoric, enthymemes play a deductive role, while examples play an inductive role ( Rhet .1356b11–18).

The deductive form of rhetoric, enthymeme, is a dialectical syllogism in which the probable premise is suppressed so that one reasons directly from the necessary premise to the conclusion. For example, one may reason that an animal has given birth because she has milk ( Rhet .1357b14–16) without providing the intermediate premise. Aristotle also calls this deductive form of inference “reasoning by signs” or “reasoning from evidence,” since the animal’s having milk is a sign of, or evidence for, her having given birth. Though the audience seemingly “immediately” grasps the fact of birth without it being given in perception, the passage from the perception to the fact is inferential and depends on the background assumption of the suppressed premise.

The inductive form of rhetoric, reasoning from example, can be illustrated as follows. Peisistratus in Athens and Theagenes in Megara both petitioned for guards shortly before establishing themselves as tyrants. Thus, someone plotting a tyranny requests a guard ( Rhet .1357b30–37). This proof by example does not have the force of necessity or universality and does not count as a case of scientific induction, since it is possible someone could petition for a guard without plotting a tyranny. But when it is necessary to base some decision, for example, whether to grant a request for a bodyguard, on its likely outcome, one must look to prior examples. It is the work of the rhetorician to know these examples and to formulate them in such a way as to suggest definite policies on the basis of that knowledge.

Rhetoric is divided into deliberative, forensic, and display rhetoric. Deliberative rhetoric is concerned with the future, namely with what to do, and the deliberative rhetorician is to discuss the advantages and harms associated with a specific course of action. Forensic rhetoric, typical of the courtroom, concerns the past, especially what was done and whether it was just or unjust. Display rhetoric concerns the present and is about what is noble or base, that is, what should be praised or denigrated ( Rhet .1358b6–16). In all these domains, the rhetorician practices a kind of reasoning that draws on similarities and differences to produce a likely prediction that is of value to the political community.

A common characteristic of insightful philosophers, rhetoricians, and poets is the capacity to observe similarities in things that are unlike, as Archytas did when he said that a judge and an alter are kindred, since someone who has been wronged has recourse to both ( Rhet .1412a10–14). This noticing of similarities and differences is part of what separates those who are living the good life from those who are merely living ( Sens .437a2–3). Likewise, the highest achievement of poetry is to use good metaphors, since to make metaphors well is to contemplate what is like ( Poet .1459a6–9). Poetry is thus closely related to both philosophy and rhetoric, though it differs from them in being fundamentally mimetic, imitating reality through an artistic form.

Imitation in poetry is achieved by means of rhythm, language, and harmony ( Poet .1447a13–16, 21–22). While other arts share some or all these elements—painting imitates visually by the same means, while dance imitates only through rhythm—poetry is a kind of vocalized music, in which voice and discursive meaning are combined. Aristotle is interested primarily in the kinds of poetry that imitate human actions, which fall into the broad categories of comedy and tragedy. Comedy is an imitation of worse types of people and actions, which reflect our lower natures. These imitations are not despicable or painful, but simply ridiculous or distorted, and observing them gives us pleasure ( Poet .1449a31–38). Aristotle wrote a book of his Poetics on comedy, but the book did not survive. Hence, through a historical accident, the traditions of aesthetics and criticism that proceed from Aristotle are concerned almost completely with tragedy.

Tragedy imitates actions that are excellent and complete. As opposed to comedy, which is episodic, tragedy should have a single plot that ends in a presentation of pity and fear and thus a catharsis—a cleansing or purgation—of the passions ( Poet .1449b24–28). (As discussed below, the passions or emotions also play an important role in Aristotle’s practical philosophy.) The most important aspect of a tragedy is how it uses a story or myth to lead the psyches of its audience to this catharsis ( Poet .1450a32–34). Since the beauty or fineness of a thing—say, of an animal—consists in the orderly arrangement of parts of a definite magnitude ( Poet .1450b35–38), the parts of a tragedy should also be proportionate.

A tragedy’s ability to lead the psyche depends on its myth turning at a moment of recognition at which the central character moves from a state of ignorance to a state of knowledge. In the best case, this recognition coincides with a reversal of intention, such as in Sophocles’ Oedipus , in which Oedipus recognizes himself as the man who was prophesied to murder his father and marry his mother. This moment produces pity and fear in the audience, fulfilling the purpose of tragic imitation ( Poet .1452a23–b1). The pity and fear produced by imitative poetry are the source of a peculiar form of pleasure ( Poet .1453b11–14). Though the imitation itself is a kind of technique or art, this pleasure is natural to human beings. Because of this potential to produce emotions and lead the psyche, poetics borders both on what is well natured and on madness ( Poet .1455a30–34).

Why do people write plays, read stories, and watch movies? Aristotle thinks that because a series of sounds with minute differences can be strung together to form conventional symbols that name particular things, hearing has the accidental property of supporting meaningful speech, which is the cause of learning ( Sens .437a10–18). Consequently, though sound is not intrinsically meaningful, voice can carry meaning when it “ensouled,” transmitting an appearance about how absent things might be ( DA 420b5-10, 27–33). Poetry picks up on this natural capacity, artfully imitating reality in language without requiring that things are actually the way they are presented as being ( Poet .1447a13–16).

The poet’s consequent power to lead the psyche through true or false imitations, like the rhetorician’s power to lead it through persuasive speech, leads to a parallel question: how should the poet use his power? Should the poet imitate things as they are, or as they should be? Though it is clear that the standard of correctness in poetry and politics is not the same ( Poet .1460b13–1461a1), the question of how and to what extent the state should constrain poetic production remains unresolved.

3. Theoretical Philosophy

Aristotle’s classification of the sciences makes a distinction between theoretical philosophy, which aims at contemplation, and practical philosophy, which aims at action or production. Within theoretical philosophy, first philosophy studies objects that are motionless and separate from material things, mathematics studies objects that are motionless but not separate, and natural philosophy studies objects that are in motion and not separate ( Met .1026a6–22).

This threefold distinction among the beings that can be contemplated corresponds to the level of precision that can be attained by each branch of theoretical philosophy. First philosophy can be perfectly exact because there is no variation among its objects and thus it has the potential to give one knowledge in the most profound sense. Mathematics is also absolutely certain because its objects are unchanging, but since there are many mathematical objects of a given kind (for example, one could draw a potentially infinite number of different triangles), mathematical proofs require a peculiar method that Aristotle calls “abstraction.” Natural philosophy gives less exact knowledge because of the diversity and variability of natural things and thus requires attention to particular, empirical facts. Studies of nature—including treatises on special sciences like cosmology, biology, and psychology—account for a large part of Aristotle’s surviving writings.

a. Natural Philosophy

Aristotle’s natural philosophy aims for theoretical knowledge about things that are subject to change. Whereas all generated things, including artifacts and products of chance, have a source that generates them, natural change is caused by a thing’s inner principle and cause, which may accordingly be called the thing’s “nature” ( Phys. 192b8–20). To grasp the nature of a thing is to be able to explain why it was generated essentially: the nature of a thing does not merely contribute to a change but is the primary determinant of the change as such (Waterlow 1982, p.28).

Though some hold that Aristotle’s principles are epistemic, explanatory concepts, principles are best understood ontologically as unique, continuous natures that govern the generation and self-preservation of natural beings. To understand a thing’s nature is primarily to grasp “how a being displays itself by its nature.” Such a grasp counts as a correct explanation only insofar as it constitutes a form of understanding of beings in themselves as they give themselves (Winslow 2007, 3–7).

Aristotle’s description of principles as the start and end of change ( Phys .235b6) distinguishes between two kinds of natural change. Substantial change occurs when a substance is generated ( Phys .225a1–5), for example, when the seed of a plant gives rise to another plant of the same kind. Non-substantial change occurs when a substance’s accidental qualities are affected, for example, the change of color in a ripening pomegranate. Aristotelians describe this as the activity of contraries of blackness and whiteness in the plant’s material in which the fruit of the pomegranate, as its juices become colored by ripening, itself becomes shaded, changing to a purple color ( de Coloribus 796a20–26). Ripening occurs when heat burns up the air in the part of the plant near the ground, causing convection that alters the originally light color of the fruit to its dark contrary ( de Plantis 820b19–23). Both kinds of change are caused by the plant’s containing in itself a principle of change. In substantial change, a new primary substance is generated; in non-substantial change, some property of preexisting substance changes to a contrary state.

A process of change is completely described when its four causes are given. This can be illustrated with Aristotle’s favorite example of the production of a bronze sculpture. The (1) material cause of the change is given when the underlying matter of the thing has been described, such as the bronze matter of which a statue is composed. The (2) formal cause is given when one says what kind of thing the thing is, for example, “sphere” for a bronze sphere or “Callias” for a bronze statue of Callias. The (3) efficient cause is given when one says what brought the change about, for example, when one names the sculptor. The (4) final cause is given when one says the purpose of the change, for example, when one says why the sculptor chose to make the bronze sphere ( Phys. 194b16–195a2).

In natural change the principle of change is internal, so the formal, efficient, and final causes typically coincide. Moreover, in such cases, the metaphysical and epistemological sides of causal explanation are normally unified: a formal cause counts both as a thing’s essence—what it is to be that thing—and as its rational account or reason for being (Bianchi 2014, 35). Thus, when speaking of natural changes rather than the making of an artifact, Aristotle will usually offer “hylomorphic” descriptions of the natural being as a compound of matter and form.

Because Aristotle holds that a thing’s underlying nature is analogous to the bronze in a statue ( Phys. 191a7–12), some have argued that the underlying thing refers to “prime matter,” that is, to an absolutely indeterminate matter that has no form. But Cook (1989) has shown that the underlying thing normally means matter that already has some form. Indeed, Aristotle claims that the matter of perceptible things has no separate existence but is always already informed by a contrary ( Gen et Corr. 329a25–27). The matter that traditional natural philosophy calls the “elements”—fire, water, air, and earth—already has the form of the basic contraries, hot and cold, and moist and dry, so that, for example, fire is matter with a hot and dry form ( Gen et Corr .330a25–b4). Thus, even in the most basic cases, matter is always actually informed, even though the form is potentially subject to change. For example, throwing water on a fire cools and moistens it, and bringing about a new quality in the underlying material. Thus, Aristotle sometimes describes natural powers as being latent or active “in the material” ( Meteor. 370b14–18).

Aristotle’s general works in natural philosophy offer analyses of concepts necessarily assumed in accounts of natural processes, including time, change, and place. In general, Aristotle will describe changes that occur in time as arising from a potential, which is actualized when the change is complete. However, what is actual is logically prior to what is potential, since a potentiality aims at its own actualization and thus must be defined in terms of what is actual. Indeed, generically the actual is also temporally prior to potentiality, since there must invariably be a preexisting actuality that brings the potentiality to its own actualization ( Met .1049b4–19). Perhaps because of the priority of the actual to the potential, whenever Aristotle speaks of natural change, he is concerned with a field of naturalistic inquiry that is continuous rather than atomistic and purposeful or teleological rather than mechanical. In his more specific naturalistic works, Aristotle lays out a program of specialized studies about the heavens and Earth, living things, and the psyche.

i. Cosmology and Geology

Aristotle’s cosmology depends on the basic observation that while bodies on Earth either rise to a limit or fall to Earth, heavenly bodies keep moving, without any apparent external force being exerted on them ( DC 284a10–15). On the basis of this observation, he distinguishes between circular motion, which is operative in the “superlunary” heavens, and rectilinear motion on “sublunary” Earth below the Moon. Since all sublunary bodies move in a rectilinear pattern, the heavenly bodies must be composed of a different body that naturally moves in a circle ( DC 269a2–10, Meteor .340b6–15). This body cannot have an opposite, because there is no opposite to circular motion ( DC 270a20, compare 269a19–22). Indeed, since there is nothing to oppose its motion, Aristotle supposes that this fifth element, which he calls “aether,” as well as the heavenly bodies composed of it, move eternally ( DC 275b1–5, 21–25).

In Aristotle’s view the heavens are ungenerated, neither coming to be nor passing away ( DC 279b18–21, 282a24–30). Aristotle defines time as the number of motion, since motion is necessarily measured by time ( Phys .224a24). Thus, the motion of the eternal bodies is what makes time, so the life and being of sublunary things depends on them. Indeed, Aristotle says that their own time is eternal or “aeon.”

Noticing that water naturally forms spherical droplets and that it flows towards the lowest point on a plane, Aristotle concludes that both the heavens and the earth are spherical ( DC 287b1–14). This is further confirmed by observations of eclipses ( DC 297b23–31) and that different stars are visible at different latitudes ( DC 297b14–298a22).

The gathering of such observations is an important part of Aristotle’s scientific procedure ( AnPr .46a17–22) and sets his theories above those of the ancients that lacked such “experience” ( Phys. 191a24–27). Just as in his biology, where Aristotle draws on animal anatomy observed at sacrifices ( HA 496b25) and records reports from India ( HA 501a25), so in his astronomy he cites Egyptian and Babylonian observations of the planets ( DC 292a4–9). By gathering evidence from many sources, Aristotle is able to conclude that the stars and the Moon are spherical ( DC 291b11–20) and that the Milky Way is an appearance produced by the sight of many stars moving in the outermost sphere ( Meteor .346a16–24).

Assuming the hypothesis that the Earth does not move ( DC 289b6–7), Aristotle argues that there are in the heavens both stars, which are large and distant from earth, and planets, which are smaller and closer. The two can be distinguished since stars appear to twinkle while planets do not (Aristotle somewhat mysteriously attributes the twinkling stars to their distance from the eye of the observer) ( DC 290b14–24). Unlike earthly creatures, which move because of their distinct organs or parts, both the moving stars and the unmoving heaven that contains them are spherical ( DC 289a30–b11). As opposed to superlunary (eternal) substances, sublunary beings, like clouds and human beings, participate in the eternal through coming to be and passing away. In doing so, the individual or primary substance is not preserved, but rather the species or secondary substance is preserved (as we shall see below, the same thought is utilized in Aristotle’s explanation of biological reproduction) ( Gen et Corr .338b6–20).

Aristotle holds that the Earth is composed of four spheres, each of which is dominated by one of the four elements. The innermost and heaviest sphere is predominantly earth, on which rests upper spheres of water, air, and fire. The sun acts to burn up or vaporize the water, which rises to the upper spheres when heated, but when cooled later condenses into rain ( Meteor. 354b24–34). If unqualified necessity is restricted to the superlunary sphere, teleology—the seeking of ends that may or may not be brought about—seems to be limited to the sublunary sphere.

Due to his belief that the Earth is eternal, being neither created nor destroyed, Aristotle holds that the epochs move cyclically in patterns of increase and decrease ( Meteor. 351b5–19). Aristotle’s cyclical understanding of both natural and human history is implicit in his comment that while Egypt used to be a fertile land, it has over the centuries grown arid ( Meteor. 351b28–35). Indeed, parts of the world that are ocean periodically become land, while those that are land are covered over by ocean ( Meteor. 253a15–24). Because of periodic catastrophes, all human wisdom that is now sought concerning both the arts and divine things was previously possessed by forgotten ancestors. However, some of this wisdom is preserved in myths, which pass on knowledge of the divine by allegorically portraying the gods in human or animal form so that the masses can be persuaded to follow laws ( Met. 1074a38-b14, compare Meteor. 339b28–30, Pol .1329b25).

Aristotle’s geology or earth science, given in the latter books of his Meteorology , offers theories of the formation of oceans, of wind and rainfall, and of other natural events such as earthquakes, lightning, and thunder. His theory of the rainbow suggests that drops of water suspended in the air form mirrors which reflect the multiply-colored visual ray that proceeds from the eye without its proper magnitude ( Meteor. 373a32–373b34). Though the explanations given by Aristotle of these phenomena contradict those of modern physics, his careful observations often give interest to his account.

Aristotle’s material science offers the first description of what are now called non-Newtonian fluids—honey and must—which he characterizes as liquids in which earth and heat predominate ( Meteor. 385b1–5). Although the Ancient Greeks did not distill alcohol, he reports on the accidental distillation of some ethanol from wine (“sweet wine”), which he observes is more combustible than ordinary wine ( Meteor. 387b10–14). Finally, Aristotle’s material science makes an informative distinction between compounds, in which the constituents maintain their identity, and mixtures, in which one constituent comes to dominate or in which a new kind of material is generated (see Sharvy 1983 for discussion). Though it would be inaccurate to describe him as a methodological empiricist, Aristotle’s collection and careful recording of observations shows that in all of his scientific endeavors, his explanations were designed to accord with publicly observable natural phenomena.

ii. Biology

The phenomenon of life, as opposed to inanimate nature, involves distinctive types of change ( Phys .244b10–245a5) and thus requires distinctive types of explanation. Biological explanations should give all four causes of an organism or species—the material of which it is composed, the processes that bring it about, the particular form it has, and its purpose. For Aristotle, the investigation of individual organisms gives one causal knowledge since the individuals belong to a natural kind. Men and horses both have eyes, which serve similar functions in each of them, but because their species are different, a man’s eye is similar to the eyes of other men, while a horse’s eyes are similar to the eyes of other horses ( HA 486a15–20). Biology should explain both why homologous forms exist in different species and the ways in which they differ, and therefore the causes for the persistence of each natural kind of living thing.

Although all four causes are relevant in biology, Aristotle tends to group final causes with formal causes in teleological explanations, and material causes with efficient causes in mechanical explanations. Boylan (section 4) shows, for example, that Aristotle’s teleological explanation of respiration is that it exists in order to bring air into the body to produce pneuma, which is the means by which an animal moves itself. Aristotle’s mechanical explanation is that air that has been heated in the lungs is pushed out by colder air outside the body ( On Breath  481b10–16, PA 642a31–b4).

Teleological explanations are necessary conditionally; that is, they depend on the assumption that the biologist has correctly identified the end for the sake of which the organism behaves as it does. Mechanical explanations, in distinction, have absolute necessity in the sense that they require no assumptions about the purpose of the organism or behavior. In general, however, teleological explanations are more important in biology ( PA 639b24–26), because making a distinction between living and inanimate things depends on the assumption that “nature does nothing in vain” ( GA 741b5).

The final cause of each kind corresponds to the reason that it continues to persist. As opposed to superlunary, eternal substances, sublunary living things cannot preserve themselves individually or, as Aristotle puts it, “in number.” Nevertheless, because living is better than not living ( EN 1170b2–5), each individual has a natural drive to preserve itself “in kind.” Such a drive for self-preservation is the primary way in which living creatures participate in the divine ( DA 415a25–b7). Nutrition and reproduction therefore are, in Aristotle’s philosophy, value-laden and goal-directed activities. They are activated, whether consciously or not, for the good of the species, namely for its continuation, in which it imitates the eternal things ( Gen et Corr .338b12–17). In this way, life can be considered to be directed toward and imitative of the divine ( DC 292b18–22).

This basic teleological or goal-directed orientation of Aristotle’s biology allows him to explain the various functions of living creatures in terms of their growth and preservation of form. Perhaps foremost among these is reproduction, which establishes the continuity of a species through a generation. As Aristotle puts it, the seed is temporally prior to the fully developed organism, since each organism develops from a seed. But the fully developed organism is logically prior to the seed, since it is the end or final cause, for the sake of which the seed is produced ( PA 641b29–642a2).

In asexual reproduction in plants and animals, the seed is produced by an individual organism and implanted in soil, which activates it and thus actualizes its potentiality to become an organism of the kind from which it was produced. Aristotle thus utilizes a conception of “type” as an endogenous teleonomic principle, which explains why an individual animal can produce other animals of its own type (Mayr 1982, 88). Hence, the natural kind to which an individual belongs makes it what it is. Animals of the same natural kind have the same form of life and can reproduce with one another but not with animals of other kinds.

In animal sexual reproduction, Aristotle understands the seed possessed by the male as the source or principle of generation, which contains the form of the animal and must be implanted in the female, who provides the matter ( GA 716a14–25). In providing the form, the male sets up the formation of the embryo in the matter provided by the female, as rennet causes milk to coagulate into cheese ( GA 729a10–14). Just as rennet causes milk to separate into a solid, earthy part (or cheese), and a fluid, watery part (or whey), so the semen causes the menstrual fluid to set. In this process, the principle of growth potentially contained in the seed is activated, which, like a seed planted in soil, produces an animal’s body as the embryo ( GA 739b21–740a9).

The form of the animal, its psyche, may thus be said to be potentially in the matter, since the matter contains all the necessary nutrients for the production of the complete organism. However, it is invariably the male that brings about the reproduction by providing the principle of the perceptual soul, a process Aristotle compares with the movement of automatic puppets by a mover that is not in the puppet ( GA 741b6–15). (Whether the female produces the nutritive psyche is an open question.) Thus, form or psyche is provided by the male, while the matter is provided by the female: when the two come together, they form a hylomorphic product—the living animal.

While the form of an animal is preserved in kind by reproduction, organisms are also preserved individually over their natural lifespans through feeding. In species that have blood, feeding is a kind of concoction, in which food is chewed and broken down in the stomach, then enters the blood, and is finally cooked up to form the external parts of the body. In plants, feeding occurs by the nutritive psyche alone. But in animals, the senses exist for the sake of detecting food, since it is by the senses that animals pursue what is beneficial and avoid what is harmful. In human beings, a similar explanation can be given of the intellectual powers: understanding and practical wisdom exist so that human beings might not only live but also enjoy the good life achievable by action ( Sens .436b19–437a3).

Although Aristotle’s teleology has been criticized by some modern biologists, others have argued that his biological work is still of interest to naturalists. For example, Haldane (1955) shows that Aristotle gave the earliest report of the bee waggle dance, which received a comprehensive explanation only in the 20 th century work of Von Frisch. Aristotle also observed lordosis behavior in cattle ( HA 572b1–2) and notes that some plants and animals are divisible ( Youth and Old Age 468b2–15), a fact that has been vividly illustrated in modern studies of planaria. Even when Aristotle’s biological explanations are incorrect, his observations may be of enduring value.

iii. Psychology

Psychology is the study of the psyche, which is often translated as “soul.” While prior philosophers were interested in the psyche as a part of political inquiry, for Aristotle, the study of the psyche is part of natural science (Ibn Bajjah 1961, 24), continuous with biology. This is because Aristotle conceives of the psyche as the form of a living being, the body being its material. Although the psyche and body are never really separated, they can be given different descriptions. For example, the passion of anger can be described physiologically as a boiling of the blood around the heart, while it can be described dialectically as the desire to pay back with pain someone who has insulted one ( DA 403a25–b2). While the physiologist examines the material and efficient causes, the dialectician considers only the form and definition of the object of investigation ( DA 403a30–b3). Since the psyche is “the first principle of the living thing” ( DA 402a6–7), neither the dialectical method nor the physiological method nor a combination of the two is sufficient for a systematic account of the psyche ( DA 403a2, b8). Rather than relying on dialectical or materialist speculation, Aristotle holds that demonstration is the proper method of psychology, since the starting point is a definition ( DA 402b25–26), and the psyche is the form and definition of a living thing.

Aristotle conceives of psychology as an exact science, with greater precision than the lesser sciences ( DA 402a1–5), and accordingly offers a complete sequence of the kinds or “parts” of psyche. The nutritive psyche—possessed by both plants and animals—is responsible for the basic functions of nourishment and reproduction. Perception is possible only in an animal that also has the nutritive power that allows it to grow and reproduce, while desire depends on perceiving the object desired, and locomotion depends on desiring objects in different locations ( DA 415a1–8). More intellectual powers like imagination, judgment, and understanding itself exist only in humans, who also have the lower powers.

The succession of psychological powers ensures the completeness, order, and necessity of the relations of psychological parts. Like rectilinear figures, which proceed from triangles to quadrilaterals, to pentagons, and so forth, without there being any intermediate forms, there are no other psyches than those in this succession ( DA 414b20–32). This demonstrative approach ensures that although the methods of psychology and physiology are distinct, psychological divisions map onto biological distinctions. For Aristotle, the parts of the psyche are not separable or “modular” but related genetically: each posterior part of the psyche “contains” the parts before it, and each lower part is the necessary but not sufficient condition for possession of the part that comes after it.

The psyche is defined by Aristotle as the first actuality of a living animal, which is the form of a natural body potentially having life ( DA 412a19–22). This form is possessed even when it is not being used; for example, a sleeping person has the power to hear a melody, though while he is sleeping, he is not exercising the power. In distinction, though a corpse looks just like a sleeping body, it has no psyche, since it lacks the power to respond to such stimuli. The second actuality of an animal comes when the power is actually exercised such as when one actually hears the melody ( DA 417b9–16).

Perception is the reception of the form of an object of perception without its matter, just as wax receives the seal of a ring without its iron or gold ( DA 424a17–28). When one sees wine, for example, one perceives something dark and liquid without becoming dark and liquid. Some hold that Aristotle thinks the reception of the form happens in matter so that part of the body becomes like the object perceived (for example, one’s eye might be dark while one is looking at wine). Others hold that Aristotelian perception is a spiritual change so that no bodily change is required. But presumably one is changing both bodily and spiritually all the time, even when one is not perceiving. Consequently, the formulation that perception is of “form without matter” is probably not intended to describe physiological or spiritual change but rather to indicate the conceptual nature of perception. For, as discussed in the section on first philosophy below, Aristotle considers forms to be definitions or concepts; for example, one defines “horse” by articulating its form. If he is using “form” in the same way in his discussion of perception, he means that in perceiving something, such as in seeing a horse, one gains an awareness of it as it is; that is, one grasps the concept of the horse. In that case, all the doctrine means is that perception is conceptual, giving one a grasp not just of parts of perceptible objects, say, the color and shape of a horse, but of the objects themselves, that is, of the horse as horse. Indeed, Aristotle describes perception as conferring knowledge of particulars and in that sense being like contemplation ( DA 417b19–24).

This theory of perception distinguishes three kinds of perceptible objects: proper sensibles, which are perceived only by one sense modality; common sensibles, which are perceived by all the senses; and accidental sensibles, which are facts about the sensible object that are not directly given ( DA 418a8–23). For example, in seeing wine, its color is a proper sensible, its volume a common sensible, and the fact that it belongs to Callias an accidental sensible. While one normally could not be wrong about the wine’s color, one might overestimate or underestimate its volume under nonstandard conditions, and one is apt to be completely wrong about the accidental sensible (for example, Callias might have sold the wine).

The five senses are distinguished by their proper sensibles: though the wine’s color might accidentally make one aware that it is sweet, color is proper to sight and sweetness to taste. But this raises a question: how do the different senses work together to give one a coherent experience of reality? If they were not coordinated, then one would perceive each quality of an object separately, for example, darkness and sweetness without putting them together. However, actual perceptual experience is coordinated: one perceives wine as both dark and sweet. In order to explain this, Aristotle says that they must be coordinated by the central sense, which is probably located in the body’s central organ, the heart. When one is awake, and the external sense organs are functioning normally, they are coordinated in the heart to discern reality as being the way it is ( Sens .448b31–449a22).

Aristotle claims that one hears that one hears and sees that one sees ( DA 425b12–17). Though there is a puzzle as to whether such higher-order seeing is due to sight itself or to the central perceptual power (compare On Sleep 455a3–26), the higher-order perception counts as an awareness of how the perceptual power grasps an object in the world. Though later philosophers named this higher-order perception “consciousness” and argued that it could be separated from an actualized perception of a real object, for Aristotle it is intrinsically dependent on the first-order grasp of an object (Nakahata 2014, 109–110). Indeed, Aristotle describes perceptual powers as being potentially like the perceptual object in actuality ( DA 418a3–5) and goes so far as to say that the activity of the external object and that of the perceptual power are one, though what it is to be each one is different ( DA 425b26–27). Thus, consciousness seems to be a property that arises automatically when perception is activated.

In at least some animals, the perceptual powers give rise to other psychological powers that are not themselves perceptual in a strict sense. In one simple case, the perception of a color is altered by its surroundings, that is, by how it is illuminated and by the other colors in one’s field of vision. Far from assuming the constancy of perception, Aristotle notes that under such circumstances, one color can take the place of another and appear differently than it does under standard conditions, for example, of full illumination ( Meteor. 375a22–28).

Memory is another power that arises through the collection of many perceptions. Memory is an affection of perception (though when the content of the memory is intellectual, it is an affection of the judgmental power of the psyche, see Mem .449b24–25), produced when the motion of perception acts like a signet ring in sealing wax, impressing itself on an animal and leaving an image in the psyche ( Mem .450a25–b1). The resultant image has a depictive function so that it can be present even when the object it portrays is absent: when one remembers a person, for example, the memory-image is fully present in one’s psyche, though the person might be absent ( Mem .450b20–25).

Closely related to memory, the imagination is a power to present absent things to oneself. Identical neither to perception nor judgment ( DA 427b27–8, 433a10), imagining has an “as if” quality. For example, imagining a terror is like looking at a picture without feeling the corresponding emotion of fear ( DA 427b21–24). Imagination may be defined as a kind of change or motion that comes about by means of activated perception ( DA 429a1–2). This does not entail that imagination is merely reproductive but simply that activated perceptions trigger the imagination, which in turn produces an image or appearance “before our eyes” ( DA 427b19–20). The resultant appearances that “comes to be for us” ( DA 428a1–2, 11–12) could be true or false, since unlike the object of perception, what is imagined is not present (Humphreys 2019).

Human beings are distinct from other animals, Aristotle says, in their possession of rational psyche. Foremost among the rational powers is intellect or understanding (this article uses the terms interchangeably), which grasps universals in a way that is analogous to the perceptual grasp of particulars. However, unlike material particulars grasped by perception, universals are not mixed with body and are thus in a sense contained in the psyche itself ( DA 417b22–24, 432a1–3). This has sometimes been called the intentional inexistence of an object, or intentionality, the property of being directed to or about something. Since one can think or understand any universal, the understanding is potentially about anything, like an empty writing tablet ( DA 429b29–430a1).

The doctrine of the intentionality of intellect leads Aristotle to make a distinction between two kinds of intellect. Receptive or passive intellect is characterized by the ability to become like all things and is analogous to the writing tablet. Productive or active intellect is characterized by the ability to bring about all things and is analogous to the act of writing. The active intellect is thus akin to the light that illuminates objects, making them perceptible by sight. Aristotle holds that the soul never thinks without an image produced by imagination to serve as its material. Thus, in understanding something, the productive intellect actuates the receptive intellect, which stimulates the imagination to produce a particular image corresponding to the universal content of the understanding. Hence, while Aristotle describes the active intellect as unaffected, separate, and immaterial, it serves to bring to completion the passive intellect, the latter of which is inseparable from imagination and hence from perception and nutrition.

Aristotle’s insistence that intellect is not a subject of natural science ( PA 641a33–b9) motivates the view that thinking requires a contribution from the supernatural or divine. Indeed, in Metaphysics (1072b19–30) Aristotle argues that intellect actively understanding the intelligible is the everlasting God. For readers like the medieval Arabic commentator Ibn Rushd , passive intellect is spread like matter among thinking beings. This “material intellect” is activated by God, the agent intellect, so that when one is thinking, one participates in the activity of the divine intellect. According to this view, every act of thinking is also an act of divine illumination in which God actuates one’s thinking power as the writer actuates a blank writing tablet.

However, in other passages Aristotle says that when the body is destroyed, the soul is destroyed too ( Length and Shortness of Life , 465b23–32). Thus, it seems that Aristotle’s psychological explanations assume embodiment and require that thinking be something done by the individual human being. Indeed, Aristotle argues that if thinking is either a kind of imaginative representation or impossible without imagination, then it will be impossible without body ( DA 403a8–10). But the psyche never thinks without imagination ( DA 431a16–17). It seems to follow that far from being a part of the everlasting thinking of God, human thinking is something that happens in a living body and ends when that body is no longer alive. Thus, Jiminez (2014, 95–99) argues that thinking is embodied in three ways: it is proceeded by bodily processes, simultaneous with embodied processes, and anticipates bodily processes, namely intentional actions. For further discussion see Jiminez (2017).

The whole psyche governs the characteristic functions and changes of a living thing. The nutritive psyche is the formal cause of growth and metabolism and is shared by plants, while the perceptual psyche gives rise to desire, which causes self-moving animals to act. When one becomes aware of an apparent good by perception or imagination, one forms either an appetite, the desire for pleasure, or thumos, the spirited desire for revenge or honor. A third form of desire, wish, is the product of the rational psyche ( DA 433a20–30).

Boeri has pointed out that Aristotle’s psychology cuts a middle path between physicalism, which identifies the psyche with body, and dualism, which posits the independent existence of the soul and body. By characterizing the psyche as he does, Aristotle can at once deny that the psyche is a body but also insist that it does not exist without a body. The living body of an animal can thus be thought of as a form that has been “materialized” (Boeri 2018, 166–169).

b. Mathematics

Aristotle was educated in Plato’s Academy, in which it was commonly argued that mathematical objects like lines and numbers exist independently of physical beings and are thus ”separable” from matter. Aristotle’s conception of the hierarchy of beings led him to reject Platonism since the category of quantity is posterior to that of substance. But he also rejects nominalism, the view that mathematical things are not real. Against both positions, Aristotle argues that mathematical things are real but do not exist separately from sensible bodies ( Met. 1090a29–30, 1093b27–28). Mathematical objects thus depend on the things in which they inhere and have no separate or independent being ( Met. 1059b12–14).

Although mathematical beings are not separate from the material cosmos, when the mathematician defines what it is to be a sphere or circle, he does not include a material like gold or bronze in the definition, because it is not the gold ball or bronze ring that the mathematician wants to define. The mathematician is justified in proceeding in this way, because although there are no separate entities beyond the concrete thing, it is just the mathematical aspects of real things that are relevant to mathematics ( DC 278a2–6). This process by which the material features of a substance are systematically ignored by the mathematician, who focuses only on the quantitative features, Aristotle describes as “abstraction.” Because it always involves final ends, no abstraction is possible in natural science ( PA 641b11–13, Phys .193b31–35). A consequence of this abstraction is that “why” questions in mathematics are invariably answered not by providing a final cause but by giving the correct definition ( Phys .198a14–21, 200a30–34).

One reason that Aristotle believes that mathematics must proceed by abstraction is that he wants to prevent a multiplication of entities. For example, he does not want to say that, in addition to there being a sphere of bronze, there is another separate, mathematical sphere, and that in addition to that sphere, there is a separate mathematical plane cutting it, and that in addition to that plane, there is an additional line limiting the plane (see Katz 2014). It is enough for a mathematical ontology simply to acknowledge that natural objects have real mathematical properties not separate in being, which can nevertheless be studied independently from natural investigation. Aristotle also favors this view due to his belief that mathematics is a demonstrative science. Aristotle was aware that geometry uses diagrammatic representations of abstracted properties, which allow one to grasp how a demonstration is true not just of a particular object but of any class of objects that share its quantitative features (Humphreys 2017). Through the concept of abstraction, Aristotle could explain why a particular diagram may be used to prove a universal geometrical result.

Why study mathematics? Although Aristotle rejected the Platonic doctrine that mathematical beings are separate, intermediate entities between perceptible things and forms, he agreed with the Platonists that mathematics is about things that are beautiful and good, since it offers insight into the nature of arrangement, symmetry, and definiteness ( Met .1078a31–b6). Thus, the study of mathematics reveals that beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as it is in the nature of things (Hoinski and Polansky 2016, 51–60). Moreover, Aristotle holds that mathematical beings are all potential objects of the intellect, which exist only potentially when they are not understood. The activity of understanding is the actuation of their being, but also actuates the intellect ( Met .1051a26–33). Mathematics, then, not only gives insight into beauty but is also a source of intellectual pleasure, since gaining mathematical knowledge exercises the human being’s best power.

c. First Philosophy

In addition to natural and mathematical sciences, there is a science of independent beings that Aristotle calls “first philosophy” or “wisdom.” What is the proper aim of this science? In some instances, Aristotle seems to say that it concerns being insofar as it is ( Met .1003a21–22), whereas in others, he seems to consider it to be equivalent to “theology,” restricting contemplation to the highest kind of being ( Met .1026a19–22), which is unchanging and separable from matter. However, Menn (2013, 10–11) shows that Aristotle is primarily concerned with describing first philosophy as a science that seeks the causes and sources of being qua being. Hence, when Aristotle holds that wisdom is a kind of rational knowledge concerning causes and principles ( Met .982a1–3), he probably means that the investigation of these causes of being as being seeks to discover the divine things as the cause of ordinary beings. First philosophy is consequently quite unlike natural philosophy and mathematics, since rather than proceeding from systematic observation or from hypotheses, it begins with an attitude of wonder towards ordinary things and aims to contemplate them not under a particular description but simply as beings ( Sachs 2018 ).

The fundamental premise of this science is the law of noncontradiction, which states that something cannot both be and not be ( Met .1006a1). Aristotle holds that this law is indemonstrable and necessary to assume in any meaningful discussion about being. Consequently, a person who demands a demonstration of this principle is no better than a plant. As Anscombe (1961, 40) puts it, “Aristotle evidently had some very irritating people to argue with.” But as Anscombe also points out, this principle is what allows Aristotle to make a distinction between substances as the primary kind of being and accidents that fall in the other categories. While it is possible for a substance to take on contrary accidents, for example, coffee first being hot and later cold, substances have no contraries. The law requires that a substance either is or is not, independently of its further, accidental properties.

Aristotle insists that in order for the word “being” to have any meaning at all, there must be some primary beings, whereas other beings modify these primary beings ( Met .1003b6–10). As we saw in the section on Aristotle’s logic, primary substances are individual substances while their accidents are what is predicated of them in the categories. This takes on metaphysical significance when one thinks of this distinction in terms of a dependence relation in which substances can exist independently of their accidents, but accidents are dependent in being on a substance. For example, a shaggy dog is substantially a dog, but only accidentally shaggy. If it lost all its hair, it would cease to be shaggy but would be no less a dog: it would then be a non-shaggy dog. But if it ceased to be a dog—for example, if it were turned into fertilizer—then it would cease to be shaggy at the same moment. Unlike the “shagginess,” “dogness” cannot be separated from a shaggy dog: the “what it is to be” a dog is the dog’s dogness in the category of substance, while its accidents are in other categories, in this case shagginess being in the category of quality ( Met .1031a1–5).

Given that substances can be characterized as forms, as matter, or as compounds of form and matter, it seems that Aristotle gives the cause and source of a being by listing its material and formal cause. Indeed, Aristotle sometimes describes primary being as the “immanent form” from which the concrete primary being is derived ( Met .1037a29). This probably means that a primary substance is always a compound, its formal component serving as the substance’s final cause. However, primary beings are not composed of other primary beings ( Met .1041a3–5). Thus, despite some controversy on the question, there seems to be no form of an individual, form being what is shared by all the individuals of a kind.

A substance is defined by a universal, and thus when one defines the form, one defines the substance ( Met .1035b31–1036a1). However, when one grasps a substance directly in perception or thought, one grasps the compound of form and matter ( Met .1036a2–8). But since form by itself does not make a primary substance, it must be immanent—that is, compounded with matter—in each individual, primary substance. Rather, in a form-matter compound, such as a living thing, the matter is both the prior stuff out of which the thing has become and the contemporaneous stuff of which it is composed. The form is what makes what a thing is made of, its matter, into that thing (Anscombe 1961, 49, 53).

Due to this hylomorphic account, one might worry that natural science seems to explain everything there is to explain about substances. However, Aristotle insists that there is a kind of separable and immovable being that serves as the principle or source of all other beings, which is the special object of wisdom ( Met .1064a35–b1). This being might be called the good itself, which is implicitly pursued by substances when they come to be what they are. In any case, Aristotle insists that this source and first of beings sets in motion the primary motion. But since whatever is in motion must be moved by something else, and the first thing is not moved by something else, it is itself motionless ( Met .1073a25–34). As we have seen, even the human intellect is “not affected” ( DA 429b19–430a9), producing its own object of contemplation in a pure activity. Following this, Aristotle describes the primary being as an intellect or a kind of intellect that “thinks itself” perpetually ( Met .1072b19–20). Thus, we can conceive of the Aristotelian god as being like our own intellect but unclouded by what we undergo as mortal, changing, and fallible beings (Marx 1977, 7–8).

4. Practical Philosophy

Practical philosophy is distinguished from theoretical philosophy both in its goals and in its methods. While the aim of theoretical philosophy is contemplation and the understanding of the highest things, the aim of practical philosophy is good action, that is, acting in a way that constitutes or contributes to the good life. But human beings can only thrive in a political community: the human is a “political animal” and thus the political community exists by nature ( Pol .1253a2–5, compare EN 1169b16–19). Thus, ethical inquiry is part of political inquiry into what makes the best life for a human being. Because of the intrinsic variability and complexity of human life, however, this inquiry does not possess the exactness of theoretical philosophy ( EN 1094b10–27).

In a similar way that he holds animals are said to seek characteristic ends in his biology, Aristotle holds in his “ergon argument” that the human being has a proper ergon —work or function ( EN 1097b24–1098a18). Just as craftsmen like flautists and sculptors and bodily organs like eyes and ears have a peculiar work they do, so the human being must do something peculiarly human. Such function is definitive, that is, distinguishes what it is to be the thing that carries it out. For example, a flautist is a flautist insofar as she plays the flute. But the function serves as an implicit success condition for being that thing. For example, what makes a flautist good as a what she is (“good qua flautist” one might say) is that she plays the flute well. Regardless of the other work she does in her other capacities (qua human, qua friend, and so forth) the question “is she a good flautist?” can be answered only in reference to the ergon of the flautist, namely flute playing.

The human function cannot be nutrition or perception, since those activities are shared with other living things. Since other animals lack reason, the human function must be an activity of the psyche not without reason. A human being that performs this function well will be functioning well as a human being. In other words, by acting virtuously one will by that fact achieve the human good (Angier 2010, 60–61). Thus, Aristotle can summarize the good life as consisting of activities and actions in accordance with ­arete —excellence or virtue—and the good for the human being as the activity of the psyche in accordance with excellence in a complete life ( EN 1098a12–19). Though it has sometimes been objected that Aristotle assumes without argument that human beings must have a characteristic function, Angier (2010, 73–76) has shown that the key to Aristotle’s argument is his comparison of the human function to a craft: just as a sculptor must possess a wide variety of subordinate skills to achieve mastery in his specialized activity, so in acting well the human being must possess an inclusive set of dispositions and capacities that serve to fulfill the specialized task of reason.

Ethics and politics are, however, not oriented merely to giving descriptions of human behavior but on saying what ends human beings ought to pursue, that is, on what constitutes the good life for man. While the many, who have no exposure to philosophy, should agree that the good life consists in eudaimonia —happiness or blessedness—there is disagreement as to what constitutes this state ( EN 1095a18–26). The special task of practical philosophy is therefore to say what the good life consists in, that is, to give a more comprehensive account of eudaimonia than is available from the observation of the diverse ends pursued by human beings. As Baracchi (2008, 81–83) points out, eudaimonia indicates a life lived under the benevolent or beneficial sway of the daimonic, that is, of an order of existence beyond the human. Thus, the view that eudaimonia is a state of utmost perfection and completion for a human being ( Magna Moralia 1184a14, b8) indicates that the full actualization of a human depends on seeking something beyond what is strictly speaking proper to the human.

a. Habituation and Excellence

Though the original meaning of ethics has been obscured due to modern confusion of pursuing proper ends with following moral rules, in the Aristotelian works, ethical inquiry is limited to the investigation of what it is for a human being to flourish according to her own nature. For the purposes of this inquiry, Aristotle distinguishes three parts of the psyche: passions, powers, and habits ( EN 1105b20). Passions include attitudes such as feeling fear, hatred, or pity for others, while powers are those parts of our form that allow us to have such passions and to gain knowledge of the world. However, while all human beings share passions and powers, they differ with regard to how they are trained or habituated and thus with respect to their dispositions or states of character. Those who are habituated correctly are said to be excellent and praiseworthy, while those whose characters are misshapen through bad habituation are blameworthy ( EN 1105b28–a2).

How does a human being become good, cultivating excellence within herself? Aristotle holds that this happens by two related but distinct mechanisms. Intellectual excellences arise by teaching, whereas ethical excellences by character, such as moderation and courage, arise by ethos, habituation, or training ( EN 1103a14–26). Since pleasure or pain results from each of our activities ( EN 1104b4), training happens through activity; for example, one learns to be just by doing just things ( EN 1103a35–b36). Legislators, who aim to make citizens good, therefore must ensure that citizens are trained from childhood to produce certain good habits—excellences of character—in them ( EN 1103b23–25).

Such training takes place via pleasure and pain. If one is brought up to take pleasure or suffer pain in certain activities, one will develop the corresponding character ( EN 1104b18–25). This is why no one becomes good unless one does good things ( EN 1105b11–12). Rather than trying to answer the question of why one ought to be good in the abstract, Aristotle assumes that taking pleasure in the right kinds of activities will lead one to have a good life, where “right kinds” means those activities that contribute to one’s goal in life. Hence the desires of children can be cultivated into virtuous dispositions by providing rewards and punishments that induce them to follow good reason ( EN 1119b2–6).

Since Aristotle conceives of perception as the reception of the perceived object’s form without its matter, to perceive correctly is to grasp an object as having a pleasurable or painful generic form ( DA 424a17–19, 434a27–30). The cognitive capacity of perception and the motive capacity of desire are linked through pleasure, which is also “in the soul” ( EE 1218b35). Excellence is not itself a pleasure but rather a deliberative disposition to take pleasure in certain activities, a mean between extreme states ( EN 1106b36–1107a2).

Although he offers detailed descriptions of the virtues in his ethical works, Aristotle summarizes them in a table:

This shows that each excellence is a mean between excessive and defective states of character ( EE 1220b35–1221a15). Accordingly, good habituation is concerned with avoiding extreme or pathological states of character. Thus, Aristotle can say that ethical excellence is “concerned with pleasures and pains” ( EN 1104b8–11), since whenever one has been properly trained to take the correct pleasure and suffer correct pain when one acts in excess or defect, one possesses the excellence in question.

b. Ethical Deliberation

Human action displays excellence only when it is undertaken voluntarily, that is, is chosen as the means to bring about a goal wished for by the agent. Excellence in general is thus best understood as a disposition to make correct choices ( EN 1106b36–1107a2), where “choice” is understood as the product of deliberation or what “has been deliberated upon” ( EN 1113a4). Deliberation is not about ends but about what contributes to an end already given by one of the three types of desire discussed above: appetite, thumos, or wish ( EN 1112b11–12, 33–34).

But if all excellent action must be chosen, how can actions undertaken in an instant, such as when one acts courageously, be excellent? Since such actions can be undertaken without the agent having undergone a prior process of conscious deliberation, which takes time, it seems that one must say that quick actions were hypothetically deliberated, that is, that they count as what one would have chosen to do had one had time to deliberate (Segvic 2008, 162–163).

Such reasoning can be schematized by the so-called the “practical syllogism.” For example, supposing one accepts the premises

One should not drink heavy water

This water in this cup is heavy

The syllogism concludes with one’s not drinking water from the cup ( EN 1142a22–23). If this is how Aristotle understands ethical deliberation, then it seems that all one’s voluntary actions count as deliberated even if one has not spent any time thinking about what to do.

However, Contreras (2018, 341) points out that the “practical syllogism” cannot represent deliberation since its conclusion is an action, whereas the conclusion of deliberation is choice. Though one’s choice typically causes one to act, something external could prevent one from acting even once the choice has been made. Thus, neither are choice and action the same, nor are the processes or conditions from which they result identical. Moreover, even non-rational desires like appetite and thumos present things under the “guise of the good” so that whatever one desires appears to be good. Hence an action based on those desires could still be described by a practical syllogism, though it would not be chosen through deliberation. Deliberation does not describe a kind of deduction but a process of seeking things that contribute to an aim already presented under the guise of the good (Segvic 2008, 164–167).

This “seeking” aspect of deliberation is brought out in Aristotle’s comparison of the deliberator to the geometer, who searches and analyzes by diagrams ( EN 1112b20–24). Geometrical analysis is the method by which a mathematician works backwards from a desired result to find the elements that constitute that result. Similarly, deliberation is a search for the elements that would allow the end one has in view to be realized ( EN 1141b8–15).

However, while geometrical reasoning is abstracted from material conditions, the prospective reasoning of deliberation is constrained both modally and temporally. One cannot deliberate about necessities, since practical things must admit of being otherwise than they are ( DA 433a29–30). Similarly, one cannot deliberate about the past, since what is chosen is not what has become—“no one chooses that Ilium be destroyed”—but what may or may not come about in the future ( EN 1139b5–9, DA 431b7–8). One can describe deliberation, then, as starting from premises in the future perfect tense, and as working backwards to discover what actions would make those statements true.

In addition to these constraints, the deliberating agent must have a belief about herself, namely that she is able to either bring about or not bring about the future state in question ( EN 1112a18–31). Since rational powers alone are productive of contrary effects, deliberation must be distinctively rational, since it produces a choice to undertake or not to undertake a certain course of action ( Met .1048a2–11). In distinction to technical deliberation, the goal of which is to produce something external to the activity that brings it about, in ethical deliberation there is no external end since good action is itself the end (EN 1140b7). So rather than concerning what an agent might produce externally, deliberation is ethical when it is about the agent’s own activity. Thus, deliberation ends when one has reached a decision, which may be immediately acted upon or put into practice later when the proper conditions arise.

c. Self and Others

Life will tend to go well for a person who has been habituated to the right kinds of pleasures and pains and who deliberates well about what to do. Unfortunately, this is not always sufficient for happiness. For although excellence might help one manage misfortunes well and avoid becoming miserable as their result, it is not reasonable to call someone struck with a major misfortune blessed or happy ( EN 1100b33–1101a13). So there seems to be an element of luck in happiness: although bad luck cannot make one miserable, one must possess at least some external goods in order to be happy.

One could also ruin things by acting in ignorance. When one fails to recognize a particular as what it is, one might bring about an end one never intended. For example, one might set off a loaded catapult through one’s ignorance of the fact that it was loaded. Such actions are involuntary. But there is a more fundamental kind of moral ignorance for which one can be blamed, which is not the cause of involuntary actions but of badness ( EN 1110b25–1111a11). In the first case, one does what one does not want to do because of ignorance, so is not worthy of blame. In the second case, one does what one wants to do and is thus to be blamed for the action.

Given that badness is a form of ignorance about what one should do, it is reasonable to ask whether acting acratically, that is, doing what one does not want to do, just comes down to being ignorant. This is the teaching of Socrates, who, arguing against what appears to be the case, reduced acrasia to ignorance ( EN 1145b25–27). Though Aristotle holds that acrasia is distinct from ignorance, he also thinks it is impossible for knowledge to be dragged around by the passions like a slave. Aristotle must, then, explain how being overcome by one’s passions is possible, when knowledge is stronger than the passions.

Aristotle’s solution is to limit acrasia to those cases in which one generically knows what to do but fails to act on it because one’s knowledge of sensibles is dragged along by the passions ( EN 1147b15–19). In other words, he admits that the passions can overpower perceptual knowledge of particulars but denies that it can dominate intellectual knowledge of universals. Hence, like Socrates, Aristotle thinks of acrasia as a form of ignorance, though unlike Socrates, he holds that this ignorance is temporary and relates only to one’s knowledge of particulars. Acrasia consists, then, in being unruled with respect to thumos or with respect to sensory pleasures. In such cases, one is unruled because one’s passions or lower desires temporarily take over and prevent one from grasping things as one should ( EN 1148a2–22). In this sense, acrasia represents a conflict between the reasoning and unreasoning parts of the psyche (for discussion see Weinman 2007, 95–99).

If living well and acting well are the same ( EN 1095a18–20, EE 1219b1–4) and acting well consists in part in taking the proper pleasure in one’s action, then living well must be pleasurable. Aristotle thinks the pleasure one has in living well comes about through a kind of self-consciousness, that of being aware of one’s own activity. In such activity, one grasps oneself as the object of a pleasurable act of perception or contemplation and consequently takes pleasure in that act (Ortiz de Landázuri 2012). But one takes pleasure in a friend’s life and activity almost as one takes pleasure in one’s own life ( EN 1170a15–b8). Thus, the good life may be accompanied not only by a pleasurable relation to oneself but also by relationships to others in which one takes a contemplative pleasure in their activities.

The value of friendship follows from the ideas that when a person is a friend to himself, he wishes the good for himself and thus to improve his own character. Only such a person who has a healthy love of self can form a friendship with another person ( EN 1166b25–29). Indeed, one’s attitudes towards a friend are based on one’s attitudes towards oneself ( EN 1166a1–10), attitudes which are extended to another in the formation of a friendship ( EN 1168b4–7). However, because people are by nature communal or political, in order to lead a complete life, one needs to form friendships with excellent people, and it is in living together with others that one comes to lead a happy life. When a true friendship between excellent persons is formed, each will regard one another with the same attitude with which he regards himself, and thus as an “another self” ( EN 1170b5–19)

Friendship is a bridging concept between ethics concerning the relations of individuals and political science, which concerns the nature and function of the state. For Aristotle, friendship holds a state together, so the lawgiver must focus on promoting friendship above all else ( EN 1155a22–26). Indeed, when people are friends, they treat one another with mutual respect so that justice is unnecessary or redundant ( EN 1155a27–29). Aristotle’s ethics are thus part of his political philosophy. Just as an individual’s good action depends on her taking the right kinds of pleasures, so a thriving political community depends on citizens taking pleasure in one another’s actions. Such love of others and mutual pleasure are strictly speaking neither egoistic nor altruistic. Instead, they rest on the establishment of a harmony of self and others in which the completion of the individual life and the life of the community amount to the same thing.

d. The Household and the State

Aristotle’s political philosophy stems from the idea that the political community or state is a creation of nature prior to the individual who lives within it. This is shown by the fact that the individual human being is dependent on the political community for his formation and survival. One who lives outside the state is either a beast or a god, that is, does not participate in what is common to humanity ( Pol .1253a25–31). The political community is natural and essentially human, then, because it is only within this community that the individual realizes his nature as a human being. Thus, the state exists not only for the continuation of life but for the sake of the good life ( Pol .1280a31–33).

Aristotle holds that the human being is a “political animal” due to his use of speech. While other gregarious animals have voice, which nature has fashioned to indicate pleasure and pain, the power of speech enables human beings to indicate not only this but also what is expedient and inexpedient and what is just and unjust ( Pol .1253a9–18). Berns (1976, 188–189) notes that for Aristotle, the speech symbol’s causes are largely natural: the material cause of sound, the efficient cause of the living creatures that produce them, and the final cause of living together, are all parts of human nature. However, the formal cause, the distinctive way in which symbols are organized, is conventional. This allows for a variability of constitutions and hence the establishment of good or bad laws. Thus, although the state is natural for human beings, the specific form it takes depends on the wisdom of the legislator.

Though the various forms of constitution cannot be discussed here (for discussion, see Clayton, Aristotle: Politics ), the purpose of the state is the good of all the citizens ( Pol .1252a3), so a city is excellent when its citizens are excellent ( Pol .1332a4). This human thriving is most possible, however, when the political community is ruled not by an individual but by laws themselves. This is because even the best rulers are subject to thumos, which is like a “wild beast,” whereas law itself cannot be perverted by the passions. Thus, Aristotle likens rule of law to the “rule of God and reason alone” ( Pol .1287a16–32). Although this is the best kind of political community, Aristotle does not say that the best life for an individual is necessarily the political life. Instead he leaves open the possibility that the theoretical life, in which philosophy is pursued for its own sake, is the best way for a person to live.

The establishment of any political community depends on the existence of the sub-political sphere of the household, the productive unit in which goods are produced for consumption. Whereas the political sphere is a sphere of freedom and action, the household consists of relations of domination: that of the master and slave, that of marriage, and that of procreation. Hence household management or “economics” is distinct from politics, since the organization of the household has the purpose of production of goods rather than action ( Pol .1253b9–14). Crucial to this household production is the slave, which Aristotle defines as a living tool ( Pol .1253b30–33) who is controlled by a master in order to produce the means necessary for the survival and thriving of the household and state. As household management, economics is concerned primarily with structuring slave labor, that is, with organizing the instruments of production so as to make property necessary for the superior, political life.

Aristotle thus offers a staunch defense of the institution of slavery. Against those who claim that slavery is contrary to nature, Aristotle argues that there are natural slaves, humans who are born to be ruled by others ( Pol .1254a13–17). This can be seen by analogy: the body is the natural slave of the psyche, such that a good person exerts a despotic rule over his body. In the same way, humans ought to rule over other animals, males over females, and masters over slaves ( Pol .1254a20–b25). But this is only natural when the ruling part is more noble than the part that is ruled. Thus, the enslavement of the children of conquered nobles by victors in a war is a mere convention since the children may possess the natures of free people. For Aristotle, then, slavery is natural and just only when it is in the interest of slave and master alike ( Pol .1255b13–15).

The result of these doctrines is the view that political community is composed of “unlikes.” Just as a living animal is composed of psyche and body, and psyche is composed of a rational part and an appetite, so the family is composed of husband and wife, and property of master and slave. It is these relations of domination, in Aristotle’s view, that constitute the state, holding it together and making it function ( Pol .1277a5–11). As noted in the biographical section, Aristotle had close ties to the expanding Macedonian empire. Thus his political philosophy, insofar as it is prescriptive of how a political community should be managed, might have been intended to be put into practice in the colonies established by Alexander. If that is the case, then perhaps Aristotle’s politics is at base a didactic project intended to teach an indefinite number of future legislators (Strauss 1964, 21).

5. Aristotle’s Influence

Aristotle and Plato were the most influential philosophers in antiquity, both because their works were widely circulated and read and because the schools they founded continued to exert influence for hundreds of years after their deaths. Aristotle’s school gave rise to the Peripatetic movement, with his student Theophrastus being its most famous member. In late antiquity, there emerged a tradition of commentators on Aristotle’s works, beginning with Alexander of Aphrodisias, but including the Neo-Platonists Simplicius, Syrianus, and Ammonius. Many of their commentaries have been edited and translated into English as part of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project .

In the middle ages, Aristotle’s works were translated into Arabic, which led to generations of Islamic Aristotelians, such as Ibn Bajjah and Ibn Rushd (see Alwishah and Hayes 2015). In the Jewish philosophical tradition, Maimonides calls Aristotle the chief of the philosophers and uses Aristotelian concepts to analyze the contents of the Hebrew Bible. Though Boethius’ Latin commentaries on Aristotle’s logical works were available from the fifth century onwards, the publication of Aristotle’s works in Latin in the 11 th and 12 th centuries led to a revival of Aristotelian ideas in Europe. Indeed, a major controversy broke out at the University of Paris in the 1260s between the Averroists—followers of Ibn Rushd who believed that thinking happens through divine illumination—and those who held that the active intellect is individual in humans (see McInerny 2002). A further debate, concerning realism (the doctrine that universals are real) and nominalism (the doctrine that universals exist “in name” only) continued for centuries. Although they disagreed in their interpretations, prominent scholastics like Bacon, Buridan, Ockham, Scotus, and Aquinas, tended to accept Aristotelian doctrines on authority, often referring to Aristotle simply as “The Philosopher.”

Beginning in the sixteenth century, the scholastics came under attack, particularly from natural philosophers, often leading to the disparagement of Aristotelian positions. Copernicus’ model made Earth not the center of the universe as in Aristotle’s cosmology but a mere satellite of the sun. Galileo showed that some of the predictions of Aristotle’s physical theory were incorrect; for example, heavier objects do not fall faster than lighter objects. Descartes attacked the teleological aspect of Aristotle’s physics, arguing for a mechanical conception of all of nature, including living things. Hobbes critiqued the theory of perception, which he believed unrealistically described forms or ideas as travelling through the air. Later, Hume disparaged causal powers as mysterious, thus undermining the conception of the four causes. Kantian and utilitarian ethics argued that duties to humanity rather than happiness were the proper norms for action. Darwin showed that species are not eternal, casting doubt on Aristotle’s conception of biological kinds. Frege’s logic in the late nineteenth century developed notions of quantification and predication that made the syllogism obsolete. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Aristotle looked not particularly relevant to modern philosophical concerns.

The latter part of the twentieth century, however, has seen a slow but steady intellectual shift, which has led to a large family of neo-Aristotelian positions being defended by contemporary philosophers. Anscombe’s (1958) argument for a return to virtue ethics can be taken as a convenient starting point of this change. Anscombe’s claim, in summary, is that rule-based ethics of the deontological or utilitarian style is unconvincing in an era wherein monotheistic religions have declined, and commandments are no longer understood to issue from a divine authority. Modern relativism and nihilism on this view are products of the correct realization that without anyone making moral commandments, there is no reason to follow them. Since virtue ethics grounds morality in states of character rather than in universal rules, only a return to virtue ethics would allow for a morality in a secular society. In accordance with this modern turn to virtue ethics, neo-Aristotelian theories of natural normativity have increasingly been defended, for example, by Thompson (2008). In political philosophy, Arendt’s (1958) distinction between the public and private spheres takes the tension between the political community and household as a fundamental force of historical change.

In the 21 st century, philosophers have drawn on Aristotle’s theoretical philosophy. Cartwright and Pemberton (2013) revive the concept of natural powers being part of the basic ontology of nature, which explain many of the successes of modern science. Umphrey (2016) argues for the real existence of natural kinds, which serve to classify material entities. Finally, the ‘Sydney School’ has adopted a neo-Aristotelian, realist ontology of mathematics that avoids the extremes of Platonism and nominalism (Franklin 2011). These philosophers argue that, far from being useless antiques, Aristotelian ideas offer fruitful solutions to contemporary philosophical problems.

6. Abbreviations

A. abbreviations of aristotle’s works.

b. Other Abbreviations

7. References and Further Reading

A. aristotle’s complete works.

• Aristotelis Opera. Edited by A.I. Bekker, Clarendon, 1837.
• Complete Works of Aristotle. Edited by J. Barnes, Princeton University Press, 1984.

b. Secondary Sources

I. life and early works.

• Bos, A.P. “Aristotle on the Etruscan Robbers: A Core Text of ‘Aristotelian Dualism.’” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 41, no. 3, 2003, pp. 289–306.
• Chroust, A-H. “Aristotle’s Politicus: A Lost Dialogue.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Neue Folge, 108. Bd., 4. H, 1965, pp. 346–353.
• Chroust, A-H. “Eudemus or on the Soul: A Lost Dialogue of Aristotle on the Immortality of the Soul.” Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, vol. 19, fasc. 1, 1966, pp. 17–30.
• Chroust, A-H. “Aristotle Leaves the Academy.” Greece and Rome, vol. 14, issue 1, April 1967, pp. 39–43.
• Chroust, A-H. “Aristotle’s Sojourn in Assos.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschischte, Bd. 21, H. 2, 1972, pp. 170–176.
• Fine, G. On Ideas. Oxford University Press, 1993.
• Jaeger, W. Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development. 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948.
• Kroll, W., editor. Syrianus Commentaria in Metaphysica (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. VI, part I). Berolini, typ. et impensis G. Reimeri, 1902.
• Lachterman, D.R. “Did Aristotle ‘Develop’? Reflections on Werner Jaeger’s Thesis.” The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter, vol. 33, 1980.
• Owen, G.E.L. “The Platonism of Aristotle.” Studies in the Philosophy of Thought and Action, edited by P.F. Strawson, Oxford University Press, 1968, pp. 147–174.
• Pistelli, H., editor. Iamblichi Protrepticus. Lipsiae: In Aedibus B.G. Tubneri, 1888.
• Bäck, A.T. Aristotle’s Theory of Predication. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
• Cook Wilson, J. Statement and Inference, vol.1. Clarendon, 1926.
• Groarke, L.F. “Aristotle: Logic.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/aris-log.
• Ierodiakonou, K. “Aristotle’s Logic: An Instrument, Not a Part of Philosophy.” Aristotle: Logic, Language and Science, edited by N. Avgelis and F. Peonidis, Thessaloniki, 1998, pp. 33–53.
• Lukasiewicz, J. Aristotle’s Syllogistic. 2nd ed., Clarendon, 1957.
• Malink, M. Aristotle’s Modal Syllogistic. Harvard University Press, 2013.

iii. Theoretical Philosophy

• Anscombe, G.E.M. and P.T. Geach. Three Philosophers. Cornell University Press, 1961.
• Bianchi, E. The Feminine Symptom. Fordham University Press, 2014.
• Boeri, M. D. “Plato and Aristotle on What Is Common to Soul and Body. Some Remarks on a Complicated Issue.” Soul and Mind in Greek Thought. Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle, edited by M.D. Boeri, Y.Y. Kanayama, and J. Mittelmann, Springer, 2018, pp. 153–176.
• Boylan, M. “Aristotle: Biology.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-bio.
• Cook, K. “The Underlying Thing, the Underlying Nature and Matter: Aristotle’s Analogy in Physics I 7.” Apeiron, vol. 22, no. 4, 1989, pp. 105–119.
• Hoinski, D. and R. Polansky. “Aristotle on Beauty in Mathematics.” Dia-noesis, October 2016, pp. 37–64.
• Humphreys, J. “Abstraction and Diagrammatic Reasoning in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Geometry.” Apeiron, vol. 50, no. 2, April 2017, pp. 197–224.
• Humphreys, J. “Aristotelian Imagination and Decaying Sense.” Social Imaginaries. 5:1, 37-55, Spring 2019.
• Ibn Bjjah. Ibn Bajjah’s ‘Ilm al-Nafs (Book on the Soul). Translated by M.S.H. Ma’Sumi, Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1961.
• Ibn Rushd. Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle. Translated by R.C. Taylor, Yale University Press, 2009.
• Jiminez, E. R. “Mind in Body in Aristotle.” The Bloomsbury Companion to Aristotle, edited by C. Baracchi, Bloomsbury, 2014.
• Jiminez, E. R. Aristotle’s Concept of Mind. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
• Katz, E. “An Absurd Accumulation: Metaphysics M.2, 1076b11–36.” Phronesis, vol. 59, no. 4, 2014, pp. 343–368.
• Marx, W. Introduction to Aristotle’s Theory of Being as Being. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.
• Mayr, E. The Growth of Biological Thought. Harvard University Press, 1982.
• Menn, S. “The Aim and the Argument of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.” Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2013, www.philosophie.hu-berlin.de/de/lehrbereiche/antike/mitarbeiter/menn/contents.
• Nakahata, M. “Aristotle and Descartes on Perceiving That We See.” The Journal of Greco-Roman Studies, vol. 53, no. 3, 2014, pp. 99–112.
• Sachs, J. “Aristotle: Metaphysics.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/aris-met.
• Sharvy, R. “Aristotle on Mixtures.” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 80, no. 8, 1983, pp. 439–457.
• Waterlow, S. Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle’s Physics: A Philosophical Study. Clarendon, 1982.
• Winslow, R. Aristotle and Rational Discovery. New York: Continuum, 2007.

iv. Practical Philosophy

• Angier, T. Techne in Aristotle’s Ethics: Crafting the Moral Life. London: Continuum, 2010.
• Baracchi, C. Aristotle’s Ethics as First Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Berns, L. “Rational Animal-Political Animal: Nature and Convention in Human Speech and Politics.” The Review of Politics, vol. 38, no. 2, 1976, pp. 177–189.
• Clayton, E. “Aristotle: Politics.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/aris-pol.
• Contreras, K.E. “The Rational Expression of the Soul in the Aristotelian Psychology: Deliberating Reasoning and Action.” Eidos, vol. 29, 2018, pp. 339–365 (in Spanish).
• Ortiz de Landázuri, M.C. “Aristotle on Self-Perception and Pleasure.” Journal of Ancient Philosophy, vol. VI, issue. 2, 2012.
• Segvic, H. From Protagoras to Aristotle. Princeton University Press, 2008.
• Strauss, L. The City and Man. University of Chicago Press, 1964.
• Weinman, M. Pleasure in Aristotle’s Ethics. London: Continuum, 2007.

v. Aristotle’s Influence

• Alwishah, A. and J. Hayes, editors. Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
• Anscombe, G.E.M. “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 124, 1958, pp. 1–19.
• Arendt, H. The Human Condition. 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1958.
• Cartwright, N. and J. Pemberton. “Aristotelian Powers: Without Them, What Would Modern Science Do?” Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, edited by R. Groff and J. Greco, Routledge, 2013, pp. 93–112.
• Franklin, J. “Aristotelianism in the Philosophy of Mathematics.” Studia Neoaristotelica, vol. 8, no. 1, 2011, pp. 3–15.
• McInerny, R. Aquinas Against the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect. Purdue University Press, 2002.
• Umphrey, S. Natural Kinds and Genesis. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016.

Author Information

Justin Humphreys Email: [email protected] University of Pennsylvania U. S. A.

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Aristotle Doctrine of Mean: Teachings About the Importance of Balance

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How Ethical Theories Can Be Applied to Business

The ethical business decision making theories of Aristotle, Kant, and JS Mills can aid in framing complex business decisions. From Aristotle’s virtuous “Golden Mean” theory to Kant’s “Categorical Imperative” to JS Mill’s utilitarianism approach, these three ethical decision-making models, virtuous, deontological, and utilitarian, can be...

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Main Elements of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle was a philosopher who lived from 384-322 B.C.E. He was a student of Plato as well as the teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle thought differently than the other philosophers of his time. 2500 years ago, he wrote Nichomachean Ethics, which was named after...

Early Astronomers: Ptolemy, Aristotle, Copernicus, and Galileo 

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The Influence of the Works of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato

“Philosophy can make people sick”, Aristotle said this in the Nicomachean ethics and of course, has been taken out of context by people for generations. Could this statement mean that people actually get sick and tired of philosophy or philosophy actually makes people sick? E.G....

Comparison of Francis Bacon's and Aristotle's Ways of Science

Francis Bacon's way of science, unlike Aristotle, is arguing rationally by using logic. He believed that natural philosophers should help improve the comfort and wellbeing of humanity through advances in technology. He believed that manipulating nature meant by deriving useful arts also know as “techne”.In...

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Nicomachean Ethics: Guiding People to the Better Way of Living

Every single human action goes for some end that we think about good. Most exercises are a way to a better quality. The most noteworthy human good, at that point, is that movement that is an end in itself. That good is bliss. When we...

My Views on the Topic of Nicomachean Ethics

Desire is a want or something people believe they need, it can cloud their judgment and make them think that their only true happiness will come from their desire. Instead of happiness, eudaimonia is a better word to describe the ultimate desire as happiness is...

Aristotle's Principles in Nicomachean Ethics

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Why You Should Participate in Nicomachean Ethics Program

In the vast scope of great philosophical works from the Western intellectual tradition, there is one that stands out for its relevance, influence, and introspection. Aristotle introduces the general principles virtue ethics in his work Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotelian ethics concern moral decisions related to how...

Metaphysics Around God in Aristotle's Works

The works of Aristotle, that survived, can be sorted into four categories. The Organon, which is a set of writings that give us a rational toolkit that can be used in any scientific or philosophical study (Shields, 2015). The next one would be his theoretical...

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Neoplatonism and Metaphysics In Plotinus's Works

Plotinus is regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism. He remains the most influential philosopher in antiquity after Plato and Aristotle. The words of wisdom life is a mystery to be lived, not just a problem to be solved have always intrigued me. I have reason...

Virtue of Philosophic Thinkers, Aristotle and Confucius

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Aristotle's Antigone Tragic Hero in Modern Fiction

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Aristotle’s Theories Of Happines And Friendship

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The Role Of Aristotle In The History Of Theatrics

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Aristotle's View On Seeping And Dreams

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The Greek Philosophers And Their Philosophies

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Aristotle's Ideas Of Achieving Happiness

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Best topics on Aristotle

1. Aristotle’s Interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus: Character Analysis

2. Determining The Certainty With Aristotle And Descartes’ Works

3. Aristotle’s Contribution to the Field of Education

4. Aristotle Doctrine of Mean: Teachings About the Importance of Balance

5. How Ethical Theories Can Be Applied to Business

6. Main Elements of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

7. Early Astronomers: Ptolemy, Aristotle, Copernicus, and Galileo 

8. The Influence of the Works of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato

9. Comparison of Francis Bacon’s and Aristotle’s Ways of Science

10. Nicomachean Ethics: Guiding People to the Better Way of Living

11. My Views on the Topic of Nicomachean Ethics

12. Aristotle’s Principles in Nicomachean Ethics

13. Why You Should Participate in Nicomachean Ethics Program

14. Metaphysics Around God in Aristotle’s Works

15. Neoplatonism and Metaphysics In Plotinus’s Works

• Human Nature
• Personal Identity
• Ethics in Everyday Life
• Immortality
• Enlightenment

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Aristotle: A Complete Overview of His Life, Work, and Philosophy

Aristotle is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western philosophy. But how much do you really know about this ancient philosopher?

As Plato’s student and Alexander the Great’s teacher, Aristotle left a lasting impact on Western philosophy. He has shaped today’s perceptions of philosophy with his teachings on ethics and logic and thoughts on politics and metaphysics. His philosophy has been both scrutinized and venerated for years, thereby establishing him as an essential personality in Western philosophy.

From discussing topics like ethics to exploring concepts like metaphysics and politics, Aristotle’s writings had a profound influence that endures to this day. Let’s explore Aristotle’s life, his teachings, and their legacy!

Who Was The Great Philosopher Aristotle?

Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) was a renowned ancient Greek philosopher who greatly influenced the world of philosophy, science, and logic. He is considered one of the most influential figures in the history of Western thought.

His works have been pivotal in developing metaphysics , ethics, politics, biology, and aesthetics. In addition, he famously wrote about topics such as natural philosophy, logic, and rhetoric which were studied extensively by many later philosophers.

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Aristotle was born in 384 BC in a doctor’s family, which is likely why his future works would also focus on physiology and anatomy. At 15, he became an orphan, and his uncle, who took the boy under his guardianship, told him about the already famous teacher at that time— Plato in Athens.

At 18, Aristotle independently reached Athens and entered the academy of Plato, whose admirer he had already been for three years. Due to his talent and success in scientific activity, Aristotle was given a teaching position in the academy.

In 347 BC, after the death of Plato, Aristotle moved to the city of Assos. Five years later, the Macedonian King Philip invited the philosopher to educate his son Alexander .

In 339 BC, Philip died, and the heir no longer needed lessons, so Aristotle returned to Athens, now a popular and well-known scholar, largely due to his connection to the royal court.

Contribution-wise, Aristotle played an important role in developing both zoology and anatomy via various research methods. He gained recognition for his exceptional contributions to fields like zoology by creating an animal classification system that factored in both physical traits and habits.

In addition to receiving credit for having revolutionized military tactics at that moment in history, another tremendous feat achieved by Aristotle was passing on this knowledge to Alexander The Great . His contribution to military strategy has been commended through time, resulting in his recognition as a brilliant strategist.

Aristotle’s Writings & Works

Aristotle is highly esteemed for his significant contributions across a vast range of human knowledge fields. His numerous written works have profoundly impacted philosophy, science, mathematics, and more.

Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics is a significant work where he presents his theory on the appropriate way to live life. It explores the concept of virtues and their contribution to leading a satisfying life.

Another prominent example is Aristotle’s Politics . In this groundbreaking work, the author explains his political views, including the state’s role, what citizenship should be, and different types of government systems. He claims that the ideal state should be based on a constitution that respects the needs and desires of its citizens.

Another famous work by Aristotle is his Poetics . This piece is considered to be the first work on literary criticism, interpreting and analyzing the genre and structure of Greek literature. It has influenced the study of literature, film, and other art forms. Aristotle discussed the effects of plot, character, and tragedy on audiences to better understand how these devices can be used effectively.

Aristotle is also widely known for his works in the natural sciences. One of the most popular ones is the Metaphysics . This work deals with the fundamental issues of reality, including the study of existence, causality, and substance.

Relatedly, another one of his famous works is named Physics . It laid out his views on motion, time, space, and other important concepts later built upon in the scientific revolution.

Aristotle’s numerous works have made a lasting impact on history by providing valuable insights and knowledge to humanity. They have helped us gain a better understanding of our world, and continue to be discussed in academic and non-academic contexts alike.

Aristotle Was A Student Of Plato

One important fact already stated is that Aristotle was a student of Plato and is widely considered his most illustrious student.

Plato (c. 428 – c. 348 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who was one of the preeminent minds in Western philosophy, laying down foundations for many areas such as epistemology, metaphysics, and political theory through his numerous dialogues and other works.

While studying at the Academy based in ancient Athens, Aristotle grew intellectually under mentorship from its founder – Plato—hence cementing its status as one of antiquity’s foremost places of advanced studies.

Some of Aristotle’s most prominent works, like Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics , discussed various topics, including metaphysics, ethics, or morality, as well as communication through the spoken word—known as rhetoric .

The combination of Aristotle’s education under Plato and his own personal research made him a key figure in philosophy due to his logical yet creative approach to arguments and reasoning. His writing has been fundamental in the formation of traditional thought up until modern times, making him one of the most influential thinkers ever known.

Aristotle’s Style Of Teaching

Aristotle’s pedagogy emphasized using the Socratic method for stimulating dialogue, ideas generation, opinion sharing, and conclusion building. The method focused on dialogues between the teacher and student to generate new ideas, express opinions and reach conclusions.

This was done by starting with a given problem or premise and then questioning it, with each student considering alternate solutions or alternative interpretations.

For example, when teaching, Aristotle might ask his students: “If we assume that all men are mortal, what does this imply about our understanding of Socrates?” Then, through further questioning, he would lead his students to conclude that Socrates is mortal.

In this way, the Socratic method allowed for deeper learning through active participation and discourse from both the teacher and the students.

By prioritizing logic over traditional sources of information like doctrine or custom when arriving at conclusions, Aristotle effectively shaped subsequent philosophical movements.

This influence would even stretch centuries into the future, with figures like Cicero and Augustine citing his work, which is still taught in schools and universities today.

Teaching Alexander The Great

When Alexander the Great was a teenager, his father, Philip II, turned to the famous philosopher of the time, Aristotle, with a request to become his son’s teacher. Aristotle agreed to be Alexander’s teacher on one condition: if Philip restored his hometown of Stagira, which had been destroyed by the Macedonian king.

In that short time (343-340 BC), when the great thinker was Alexander’s teacher, he managed to instill in him a love for philosophy, art, and poetry, which acted as a catalyst in shaping the personality of a young man.

But the Homeric epic Iliad especially influenced Alexander. With the help of this work about the Trojan War, the philosopher found a good means for educating military prowess in his ward. This book accompanied Alexander throughout his short life.

Aristotle taught in the classroom about the duties of rulers and the art of government. He tried to develop the ability to perceive various factors, analyze them, and then make a decision. In addition, he enriched the young ruler with scientific knowledge in the lessons of physics, biology, mathematics, medicine, and geography.

The philosopher was preparing the future ruler so that he would become a full-fledged individual.

Aristotle Gave Us Scientific Reasoning

Aristotle was a pioneering figure in the development of scientific reasoning . By combining his deep knowledge of philosophy, biology, and physics—he laid out the foundations for modern science by advocating for empirical observation, testing, and experimentation to draw meaningful conclusions.

While other philosophers tended towards deriving explanations from religious beliefs or authoritative sources, he stood out due to the emphasis on his analytical abilities tempered with insights into causation.

For instance, Aristotle postulated about natural phenomena, including the behavior of falling objects and species distribution in nature, which later became foundational concepts of classical physics.

To document animal behavior and analyze anatomy, Aristotle produced a multitude of writings on biology for future generations to learn from.

By careful observation, he deduced that every living organism was made up of equivalent elemental constituents. This served as a prefatory notion behind present-day notions concerning evolution and genetics .

Aristotle’s methodical approach to understanding nature left an indelible mark on human thinking. Scientific reasoning has since revolutionized how we understand and interact with our environment; from advances in medicine to space exploration, but Aristotle’s approach to problem-solving has had a lasting legacy.

Aristotle Laid The Foundation For A System Of Logic

Aristotle’s most invaluable and lasting contribution to the world of knowledge was undoubtedly his development of syllogistic logic . He coined the term “ logic ,” emphasizing logical relations between terms in reasonable conclusions. His approach to understanding philosophy and our conception of reality endeavored to explain how we think and develop ideas.

Aristotle’s landmark work, Prior Analytics , put forth syllogism as his chief logical contribution. Syllogisms are modes of reasoning that involve specific assumptions or premises from which a conclusion can be drawn. This logic system marked the starting point for much of our current understanding of argumentation processes.

Moreover, Aristotle presented rules for appropriate reasoning, such as the law of non-contradiction, which expresses that two conflicting statements cannot simultaneously be true. This principle is still recognized as true today in many disciplines, including mathematics and science.

From its inception, Aristotle’s work on logic has been a driving force throughout the ages. Its pervasive impact can be seen in our modern-day understanding of philosophy and knowledge.

His contributions inform us about how we think and enable us to make more rational decisions concerning ourselves and our environment. Truly, his legacy will remain with us for generations to come!

Aristotle Established The Principle Of Inductive Reasoning

Establishing the principle of inductive reasoning is one of Aristotle’s credited accomplishments. Inductive reasoning involves drawing general conclusions from specific observations and experiences. Generalizing fetched evidence helps us draw closer-to-truth conclusions, even if they’re not completely certain.

Aristotle first proposed the concept of induction in his book Prior Analytics . Initially described by Aristotle, induction involves collecting factual data and formulating hypotheses accordingly before reconciling them with further empirical research. Modern logic and systematic research owe much to this groundbreaking theory.

Starting from concrete observations up to developing more theoretical concepts is how inductive logic works differently than deductive logic, which goes straight from theory to specifics. This approach has been incredibly valuable in advancing scientific inquiry by eliminating false premises from the discussion.

Aristotle was a pioneer in many aspects of philosophy. Still, his establishment of the principle of inductive reasoning stands as one of his most significant contributions to our understanding of how knowledge is best acquired and evaluated.

Aristotle Was A Biologist Even Before There Was Biology

Before the formal practice of biology existed, Aristotle showed a remarkable talent for observing and classifying living things. Combining keen observations with philosophy, Aristotle established himself as an early maker of modern-day biological knowledge before it became more established and formalized.

Aristotle is rightly considered the creator of biology as a science. Several of his works are devoted to the problems of biology: The History of Animals , On the Parts of Animals , On the Origin of Animals , On the Movement of Animals , and a small essay, On the Walking of Animals .

In addition to these special works, which treat questions of zoology, the first two books of On the Soul are also devoted to the problem of life and the living.

In works devoted to the study of wildlife, the “empirical component” is especially striking: the philosopher relies both on his observations and on the vast experience gleaned from the practice of contemporary agriculture, fishing, etc.

Judging by his writings, Aristotle collected information about animals primarily from fishermen, shepherds, beekeepers, pig breeders, and veterinarians.

It should be noted that the philosopher shared some of the prejudices of his time, believing, for example, that males are warmer than females and the right side of the body of animals is warmer than the left.

In humans, he believed, the left side of the body is colder than in other living beings, so the heart is shifted to the left to balance the temperature of both sides of the body.

Aristotle’s pioneering work in biology and his insistence on empirical observation exemplify the power of scientific inquiry. Thanks to his observatory approach toward life sciences, many biologists have—a couple of millennia later—decoded nature’s clandestine ways.

Aristotle “Invented” the Field of Economics

The economic views of Aristotle are not separated from his philosophical teachings. They are woven into the general theme of reasoning about the foundations of ethics and politics (and, more broadly, how people and the state should be managed).

In his treatises, one can see the desire to single out and understand certain categories and connections that later became the subject of political economy as a science.

For example, in Aristotle’s time, the basis of wealth and the main source of its increase were slaves. Aristotle called slaves “the first object of possession,” so he advised that care must be taken to acquire good slaves who can work long and hard.

Barter trade’s evolution into large-scale commerce through history was also a subject matter Aristotle examined extensively. He tried with great persistence to understand the laws of exchange.

Aristotle’s focus was on comprehending how barter trade transformed into large-scale operations through historical analysis. Large-scale trade facilitated and contributed to state formation.

Aristotle approved of the type of management that pursued the goal of acquiring goods for the home and the state, calling it “economy.” The economy is associated with the production of products necessary for life. The activities of commercial and usurious capital, aimed at enrichment, he characterized as unnatural, calling it “ chrematistics .”

Chrematistics is focused on making a profit and primarily aims at the accumulation of wealth. Aristotle argues that trading in commodities is not part of chrematistics because it only involves exchanging objects necessary for buyers and sellers.

Therefore, the original form of commodity profit was barter, but with its expansion, money necessarily arises. With the invention of money, barter must inevitably develop into commodity trade. The latter turned into chrematistics, the art of making money.

Arguing in this way, Aristotle concludes that chrematistics is built on money since money is the beginning and end of any exchange.

Therefore, Aristotle tried to determine the nature of these two phenomena (economics and chrematistics) to determine their historical place. On this path, he was the first to distinguish between money as a simple means of enrichment and money that has become capital.

Aristotle’s Views On Death And The Afterlife

Aristotle, who considered the ability to think about death an indispensable condition for active happiness and a wonderful life, did not try to embellish the bitter truth. On the contrary, he believed death was the worst thing because this was the limit.

The philosopher knew that many of his readers believed in an afterlife . We can find hints that his ethics were compatible with a belief in the so’s immortality in a dialogue designed to console those mourning the heroic death of a Cypriot named Evdem, who did not belong to philosophical circles.

But Aristotle, like most of today’s atheists and agnostics, certainly considered death final and irrevocable. Immortality can be desired, he says in Nicomachean Ethics , but it is not given to a person to consciously choose it.

Aristotle believed life and death are not opposites but two parts of a natural process. He theorized that when a person dies, their soul leaves their body and enters either the celestial realm or Hades —depending on whether they had lived virtuously or unvirtuously during their lifetime.

The souls in the celestial realm would enjoy an eternal existence full of happiness, wisdom, and moral fulfillment. At the same time, those who lived a more unvirtuous life would be doomed to an eternity of instability and suffering within Hades.

Aristotle also thought that certain spiritual objects, such as friendship, love , knowledge, and beauty, could exist beyond physical death. Furthermore, he believed that these non-physical forms were immutable and could, therefore, never perish.

Aristotle’s Views On Justice / Equality

Aristotle also expressed his views on justice in Nicomachean Ethics . For him, justice is the equalization of one’s own interest with the interests of others. The task of justice is to serve society, and if the law is violated, it is a crime.

According to the philosopher, actions consistent with justice and contrary to it can be of two types: they can affect one person or the whole society. A person who commits adultery and inflicts beatings is doing injustice to one particular person, and a person who evades military service is doing injustice to society.

For Aristotle, justice is a principle that regulates relations between people regarding the distribution of social values. The ancient Greek philosopher points out the differences between justice and injustice.

He believed that justice is retribution to everyone for his merits. Injustice is arbitrariness that violates human rights. Objective decisions are fair. It is unfair to transfer one’s own responsibilities to others and receive benefits at the expense of others.

Aristotle distinguishes two types of justice—comparative and distributive. Comparative justice implies a comparison of actions between people, and distributive justice focuses on the equitable distribution of social resources to all members of society.

Aristotle’s views on justice are not dissimilar from those of modern society, as he believed that law should be based on equality and applied to all people without discrimination. He also argued that justice should work for the benefit of all it affects.

Aristotle’s Views On Politics

Aristotle plunged into politics with the same passion with which he studied nature and ethics. Aristotle considered man a “political animal” ( zoon politikon ), which acquires its true essence only in community with other people. In his opinion, a person must live in a political society to be complete and happy.

According to Aristotle, the ideal state should be neither too big nor too small so that citizens can personally participate in political life and follow justice. Furthermore, Aristotle taught that the best way of life and government is the golden mean between extremes.

Thus, an ideal state is a place where the interests of different social strata are balanced, and no one group dominates the others.

Aristotle did a great job of studying the history and experience of different forms of government to understand what kind of government best promotes the common good. In his Politics , he analyzes over 150 city-states and their constitutions.

Aristotle argued that a good state should provide education for all its citizens since educated people can better serve their state and live in harmony with laws and morals. For the philosopher, politics was an art and science to secure a just common good.

Aristotle’s Views On Slavery

Aristotle’s singular approach toward envisaging enslavement as a crucial piece of historical community sets him apart. He viewed slavery as a necessary phenomenon in the social structure. That said, his viewpoint was detailed and layered, though unacceptable by today’s ethical standards.

According to the thinker, there exist segments of the human population that are predestined by nature towards servitude. In his opinion, slaves had physical abilities but could not manage their lives or make decisions. So, those born as slaves required leadership from the wise.

One of Aristotle’s beliefs was that slavery actually proved advantageous for both masters and slaves alike. He believed that slavery was advantageous for slave owners and slaves alike because, he argued, masters provided protection and provision to their slaves in exchange for their labor and services.

Aristotle also acknowledged that slaves could be “improved” through the upbringing they received from their masters. In his view, the masters are responsible for teaching the slaves virtues and discipline.

Part of a slave’s improvement process involved learning from their master how to live virtuously, leading them to become more independent individuals with greater responsibilities towards society.

Aristotle’s Views On Women

Aristotle’s views on women became influential in the further development of philosophy and thoughts of future thinkers until the end of the Middle Ages. In his treatise on state Politics , Aristotle defined women as the subordinate sex to men.

As stipulated by Aristotle, according to his beliefs expressed within Politics —when males maintained dominance over politics—females were considered higher class individuals when compared with slaves.

Among the notable features of women were: expansiveness, compassion, and naivety, which also hindered them in political life.

However, in writing Rhetoric , Aristotle put women’s happiness on the same level of importance as men’s because he believed it is impossible to achieve general happiness in society if some segments of the population remained dissatisfied.

Aristotle believed that men and women possess differing levels of intelligence and physiological distinctions. Some recent studies have shown that memory strength may vary between genders, though the reasons for this are unclear.

Besides, the thinker said that fair-skinned women, but not black-skinned women, can climax during sex. Aristotle believed women were more passionate than men despite having weaker intellects.

Overall, even though it might not seem that way, Aristotle’s views on women were somewhat progressive for his time. Aristotle’s outlook on female empowerment and rights was somewhat liberal for its period; nevertheless, it remained insufficiently evolved compared with present-day perspectives.

Aristotle’s Views On Homosexuality

With a discussion of homosexuality in the Nichomachean Ethics , Aristotle was one of the first early Ancient Philosophers who shared their thoughts on this topic.

He proposed that one’s ability and character should outweigh their sex when it comes to making friends. Aristotle asserted that a gentleman should not feel attracted to someone of the same sex if their relationship is solely based on physical pleasure, which would go against nature’s purpose for human sexuality.

Homosexual behavior might cause a man to act against his nature, thus leading him toward moral wickedness.

While generally expressing disapproval of such relationships, the author also recognized their potential benefits in boosting a person’s physical and emotional wellness whenever the relationship is based on genuine mutual affection.

Despite holding these relatively open attitudes towards homosexuality compared to other ancient thinkers, it’s clear that Aristotle still viewed it as primarily something harmful or unnatural. This reflects the prevailing attitudes towards LGBT+ people during his lifetime. Nevertheless, contemporary societal standards classify these views as obsolete and morally questionable.

So, Who Was The Great Philosopher Aristotle?

As a renowned philosopher and polymath from ancient Greece, Aristotle’s contributions have influenced fields including politics, logic, science, mathematics, and philosophy.

Aside from his groundbreaking contributions in these fields, he authored several works on various subjects like ethics, politics, morality, etc., which many scholars continue to study today.

Looking at reality and considering the philosophical disputes prevalent during his time formed Aristotle’s foundation for philosophy. Throughout the Middle Ages, Aristotle’s perspective towards topics such as homosexuality, slavery, and women has been considered influential for later scientific thought.

That being said, most people now regard Aristotle’s beliefs about slavery, homosexuality, and women as archaic.

The level of admiration directed towards Aristotle persists even today because of his extraordinary intelligence and the breadth of his work. He managed to organize and deepen the lessons of his ancestors and lay them out into a large number of works that, fortunately, remain available to us to this day.

Therefore, Aristotle made a far-reaching arrangement of theories, covering all areas of human thought and interest, from what would later become the topics of social sciences and governmental issues to physical science and rationality.

What Was Aristotle’s Opinion on Metaphysics?

By Viktoriya Sus MA Philosophy Viktoriya is a writer from L’viv, Ukraine. She has knowledge about the main thinkers. In her free time, she loves to read books on philosophy and analyze whether ancient philosophical thought is relevant today. Besides writing, she loves traveling, learning new languages, and visiting museums.

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At the very heart of Aristotle’s philosophy is the conviction that all things are teleologically ordered. There are two fundamentally different ways in which people explain events or things (understood in their broadest sense). Something is explained teleologically when its purpose or intention is made known. For example, a chair can be explained as an object made for sitting and a person’s raised hand as an attempt to attract the teacher’s attention. Alternately, something is explained causally when its physical antecedents are made known. For example, the crack in the brick wall can be explained as the result of a prior earthquake.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was a strong reaction against teleological explanations because it was believed that all real knowledge gives power and control over nature. Since teleological explanations of nature do not typically help to prevent or predict natural phenomena, they were deemed to be sterile, as was Aristotle’s philosophy as a whole. This period’s rejection of Aristotle, however, was based largely on a misreading of his works. Aristotle did not ignore physical causes. The majority of Aristotle’s work deals with topics and issues that today are considered scientific. Moreover, Aristotle’s scientific investigations reveal a great care and concern for thorough observations and the collection of empirical evidence before reaching any conclusions.

Though Aristotle himself never ignored or belittled the investigation of physical causes, his view of nature and the modern scientific view of nature are quite different. The tendency today is to follow the seventeenth century’s view of science as primarily an attempt to control nature. Aristotle, instead, emphasized science’s attempt to understand nature, and that, he steadfastly insisted, would include both kinds of explanations. In his work De anima (335-323 b.c.e. ; On the Soul , 1812), Aristotle notes that some of his predecessors have tried to explain anger in terms of physical causes, while others have tried to explain it in terms of a person’s intentions to seek retaliation. When asked whose explanation was better, Aristotle responded, “Is it not rather the one who combines both?”

According to Aristotle, an explanation is complete only if it has a place in a systematic and unified explanation of the whole of reality. The incredible range of topics on which Aristotle wrote is not simply the result of his wide interests. Rather, it is also the result of his conviction that all complete explanations must have their place in a systematic whole.

The goal of the special sciences—biology, physics, or astronomy, for example—for both Aristotle and modern scientists is to deduce an explanation of as many observations as possible from the fewest number of principles and causes as possible. Yet Aristotle would add that the scientist’s work is not complete until those principles and causes are themselves explained. If the “first principles” of a discipline are simply assumed to be true, then the whole discipline is left hanging in midair.

Aristotle’s method of justifying first principles begins with the notion of dialectic. Aristotle’s principal works start with a discussion of what his predecessors have said on the topic being studied. While such a review would always include conflicting opinions, Aristotle believed that if conflicting opinions are forced to defend themselves against their opponent’s objections, the result is typically a distinction that allows the two partial truths to be unified into a larger and more complete truth.

Though Aristotle was always seeking to find some truth in conflicting opinions, he was neither a skeptic nor a relativist with regard to scientific or moral knowledge. He was never reticent to point out his predecessors’ mistakes, and he...

(This entire section contains 4512 words.)

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often was convinced that his arguments demonstrated where these predecessors made their mistakes in such a way that all rational people would agree. Aristotle’s Organon (335-323 b.c.e. ; English translation, 1812) contains the tools of such demonstrations and, as such, is the first systematic formulation of the principles of deductive and inductive logic. While contemporary logicians have increased the power and versatility of Aristotle’s logic, his analysis of fallacious reasoning has never been shown to be in error.

Metaphysics

First published: Ta meta ta physika , 335-323 b.c.e. (English translation, 1801)

Type of work: Philosophy

This work is an analysis of what it means to exist and a determination of the kinds of things that actually exist .

Twentieth century philosophers have distinguished between descriptive metaphysics and revisionist metaphysics. Aristotle’s metaphysics is clearly an attempt to describe, analyze, and justify the common beliefs about humanity and the world, not an attempt to persuade people to revise their prephilosophical views of the world in some radical fashion. Unless the revisionist metaphysics of Aristotle’s contemporaries is understood, however, it is impossible to understand Aristotle’s own accomplishment.

Previous philosophers, such as Heraclitus, argued that the only source of knowledge is that which is observed through one of the five senses, and since the testimony of the five senses reveals a continually changing world, it follows that absolutely nothing remains the same. A rock or a mountain may at first seem fairly stable, but close examination reveals that they, too, are continually being diminished by the winds and the rains. As Heraclitus said, it is impossible to step into the same river twice. Rocks and mountains may not change as quickly, but they change no less surely.

To be told that rivers, rocks, and mountains are continually changing appears to be relatively innocuous. Yet the logic of Heraclitus’s argument makes it impossible to stop there. If the only source of knowledge is through the senses, then absolutely everything must be in a continual state of flux. A person who robs a bank, for example, can never be caught because whoever is charged with the crime is necessarily a different person than the one who actually committed it. Heraclitus’s philosophical conclusions are clearly in radical opposition to the commonsense view of the world.

Other philosophers, such as Parmenides, argued for the exact opposite conclusion, namely, that all change is illusory. While Heraclitus appealed to empirical data, Parmenides appealed to reason. Consider everything that really exists in the entire universe precisely as it is at this particular instance, he believed. Whatever that “everything” is, it is by definition the Real, and anything else must therefore be unreal. Now if the Real were to change, it would become something that it is not, that is, it would become unreal. Yet the unreal does not exist. Thus, for anything to change is for it to become nonexistent. All change must therefore be unreal.

The radical opposition of Parmenides’ philosophical conclusions are obvious from the start. What is not so obvious is exactly where his reasoning is mistaken. While the common people will be able to continue their daily tasks without ever addressing either Heraclitus or Parmenides’ arguments, it would be inconsistent for Aristotle to insist that first principles must be dialectically justified and then simply ignore these revisionist arguments. Commonsense assumptions must be justified.

The three assumptions that Aristotle seeks to justify are, first, that things exist; second, that some things move and change; and finally, that the things in this universe that exist, move, and change are not totally unintelligible. The common element of all three beliefs is the notion of a “thing.” What is a thing? Aristotle says that things have being (existence) and that a metaphysician’s task is to make clear exactly what being is. In fact, he often defines the subject matter of metaphysics as the study of all things insofar as they exist.

Compare this definition with the definition of other disciplines. The subject matter of physics, says Aristotle, is things insofar as they are moving or changing objects. The subject matter of biology is things insofar as they are alive. The subject matter of ethics is things insofar as they are able to make rational choices between competing goods. One notices how the various subject matters of different disciplines constitute a hierarchical series from the particular to the general. Thus, a single person can be studied on at least three different levels. First, her or she can be studied by the moral philosopher as a “thing” capable of making rational choices. At a more general level, he or she can be studied by the biologist as a “thing” that is alive. At an even more general level, her or she can be studied by the physicist as a “thing” that moves.

The crucial metaphysical question for Aristotle thus becomes the following: Is there any more general level at which one can study things than at the level of the physicist? Aristotle thinks that there is, namely, at the level at which things are studied simply insofar as they exist. This way of defining the different disciplines ensures that no important questions are begged. In particular, it leaves open the question of whether anything exists apart from space and time. One of the important conclusions in the Metaphysics is that such a being, the unmoved mover or God, does exist. Yet before addressing such interesting and difficult theological questions, Aristotle wisely directs his attention to the more mundane, but almost as difficult, question, What is a thing?

Aristotle begins by cataloging the ordinary sorts of things that exist in this universe. There is this particular rock, that particular tree, and his friend Theaetetus. The point of any catalog is to organize different things into classes where all members of a class share something in common. People do this sort of thing all the time. The very act of speaking constitutes a kind of ordering of objects into classes. To say, “Theaetetus is snub-nosed,” is to place a particular individual into one class of things as opposed to a different class. This ability to speak, and hence, classify, is grounded in two basic facts.

First, there are two fundamentally different sorts of words—substantives and words that describe substantives. In Aristotle’s terms, there are subjects and predicates. Certain words or phrases are always subjects, and others are always predicates. For example, it makes sense to say, “This tree is tall,” but it makes no sense to say, “Tall is this tree” (unless this statement is understood simply as a poetic way of saying, “This tree is tall”). This fundamental fact of language leads to Aristotle’s distinction between form and matter. In the above sentence, “this tree” refers to some matter that one can see, touch, and perhaps even smell, and “is tall” refers to the shape or form of the matter. Pure matter, however, is inconceivable. No matter what one tries to picture, it always has some shape or form. Therefore, considered by itself, matter is mere potentiality as opposed to actuality.

Can one, then, conceive of pure form? That is difficult, though nonetheless possible according to Aristotle. It is possible, for example, to conceive of a particular song’s melody without actually hearing the song. In fact, Ludwig van Beethoven conceived and composed his ninth symphony after he became totally deaf. In Aristotelian terms, he knew its form without ever experiencing its matter. Though Beethoven’s is a special sort of case, it does help Aristotle make sense of God as pure form. In the vast majority of cases, though, Aristotle maintains that the matter and form of a thing always constitute a real unity and that they can only be separated conceptually.

People’s ability to conceptually separate a thing’s matter and form explains a second basic fact about language. A capacity with which all normal human beings are born is the ability to observe an incredible array of different sized, shaped, and colored objects and realize that they are all trees. Of course, the capacity to know that something is a tree presupposes much experience and instruction, but the fact remains—normal human beings are able to learn what makes an object a tree. Aristotle draws two conclusions from this fact. First, normal human beings are endowed with a capacity ( nous ) that enables them to abstract forms from matter. Second, nature is divided into natural kinds that humans discover and name when they abstract a thing’s substantial form.

This last point leads to one final distinction—the difference between a thing’s substantial form and what Aristotle calls its accidental form. A substantial form is that which makes a thing what it is. Change a thing’s substantial form, and the thing becomes something else. Cut down an actual tree, and the mass of matter is no longer a tree but is potentially a house, firewood, or compost, which will eventually turn to dirt. Yet a tree can undergo many changes and still remain a tree. Prune a limb from a tree or pick its fruit and the accidental form of the tree changes. Yet the tree remains a tree.

With these distinctions, Aristotle believes that he is able to justify commonsense beliefs about the world in the face of Heraclitus’s arguments. While it is true that the five senses reveal that the accidental forms of things are continually changing, it is not true that a thing’s substantial form is always changing. Thus, while there is a sense in which Heraclitus is correct, his failure to distinguish between matter and form, actuality and potentiality, and substantial forms and accidental forms invalidates his radical conclusion that everything is in a continual state of flux.

Having demonstrated that some things can remain the same, it remains for Aristotle to answer Parmenides and demonstrate how things can change. Aristotle begins by distinguishing two quite different uses of the verb “to be.” To say, “The table is” (that is, “the table exists”) says something quite different from saying, “The table is white.” The former “is” asserts the existence of a thing; the latter “is” does not. “Whiteness” does not name a substantial form that itself exists; it only names an accidental form that cannot exist apart from actual things. While a table is actually white, it is also potentially red. Furthermore, if someone paints the table, and it becomes actually red, the table itself does not cease to exist while another table suddenly begins to exist. Parmenides’ failure to distinguish between actuality and potentiality leads to his radical conclusion that nothing changes.

Aristotle is now in a position to analyze the commonsense notion of change by elucidating four ways that people use the word “cause.” Consider, for a moment, a bronze statue. There are four different replies to the question of what makes that thing a statue: because it is made of bronze (material cause); because it is in the shape of a man (formal cause); because an artist shaped the matter the way that he did (efficient cause); or because an artist wanted to make a beautiful object (final cause). All four statements are true, yet no single one gives a complete explanation of the statue. According to Aristotle, any complete explanation of what a thing is, or why a thing changes, must mention all four kinds of causes.

The need for a final cause in all complete explanations has been the topic for much controversy, though there is no controversy that final causes play a central role in all Aristotle’s thought. His ideas about causation are discussed in book 12 of the Metaphysics . Here, Aristotle repeatedly says that an infinite series of causes is impossible, but his words are somewhat misleading. He does not mean to assert that there is no infinite series of causes and effects. In fact, he believes that the universe itself must be infinite. What Aristotle means by his claim is that if such an infinite series of causes exists without a first cause, then the series as a whole is itself unintelligible. In any series of causes, until the stopping point can be ascertained, one cannot really determine who or what is responsible for any member of the series. Yet since Aristotle believes that the universe always existed in some form, its first cause cannot exist at some point of time prior to all others. Instead, the first cause must be conceptually first.

Not all answers to the question, Who or what is responsible for the some particular thing or movement?, refer to something that exists temporarily prior to the thing or movement being explained. A large bowl of food will cause a hungry dog to run toward it. In such a case, it is sufficient, says Aristotle, that the cause (the bowl of food) and the effect (the dog’s running) exist simultaneously; the cause does not have to exist before the effect. Similarly, Aristotle argues that God’s existence as the most perfect of beings is the final cause or end of all motion, even though both God and the universe have always existed.

Furthermore, the fact that God moves the universe as a final cause, rather than as an efficient cause, explains why God Himself does not require a cause. In Aristotle’s metaphysics, God is an unmoved mover. He is thus ultimately responsible for all movement and change in the universe without Himself moving. It makes no more sense to ask, “What moves God?” than it does to ask, “Why is a vacuum empty?”

Nicomachean Ethics

First published: Ethika Nikomacheia , 335-323 b.c.e. (English translation, 1797)

Aristotle argues that happiness is the result of distinctly human activities performed well .

Aristotle believed that ethics was more a matter of character than of following rules. He was more concerned with what a person was than what he did. He realized that to a large extent a person’s character is created by his actions. Yet making one’s actions conform to rules was not the goal of morality. A person can obey all the rules of chess without being a very good chess player. So too, a person can follow all the rules of morality—never lie, steal, murder, or commit adultery—without being an especially good person.

The goal of morality, according to Aristotle, is human happiness. One of the questions that has received much attention from modern moral philosophers—Why be moral?—never arose for Aristotle because he simply assumed that achieving a stable and lasting happiness was everyone’s goal.

Of course, Aristotle understood that there is a wide divergence of opinion among people as to what constitutes happiness—some say it is wealth, others say it is power or honor, still others say it is pleasure. People will only know which of these, or which mix of these, really leads to a life well lived, says Aristotle, by first determining the proper work or function of a person qua person.

The function of a carpenter is to build houses, and the function of an author is to write books. Given these distinct functions, it is not unreasonable to assume that a carpenter would feel frustrated if forced to write a book, and conversely, that an author would feel frustrated if forced to build a house. Each of these would rather be doing that which he or she is uniquely suited to do. Aristotle takes this argument one step further and argues that human beings are happiest when they are acting in accordance with their essential nature.

The essential nature of anything is the thing’s work or function, that is, that which it does better than anything else. Observation reveals that humans are superior to all other animals in two areas, reasoning and social organization. Aristotle does not say that only humans are capable of reasoning. A dog can infer from his master’s facial expression that he is about to be punished. Yet dogs cannot discover, or understand, what is common to all punishments because they cannot know ( nous ) the essence of punishment. Dogs may be able to communicate with a series of growls and barks, but they are not able to create a language that defines and categorizes things according to their essential natures.

Similarly, while dogs live in packs and exhibit a rudimentary social nature, that social structure is determined by instinct. This tendency is evident by the invariant nature of that organization within a single species. Human social organizations are voluntary, and thus, they exhibit a wide variety of political structures ranging from the monarchical to the democratic.

Aristotle now becomes more specific as to exactly how human beings flourish. Since they are by nature rational, humans have a need and desire for knowledge. Only when this natural desire is fulfilled can humans be truly happy. Second, the nature of a person as a social animal means that men and women have a natural need and desire for friends. The Nicomachean Ethics devotes a fifth of its chapters to the nature and value of friendship.

In Aristotle’s philosophy, a human being’s rational and social nature feed and nourish each other. Their rational capacities, for example, must be developed by good parents and teachers, and good parents and teachers are only found in well-ordered societies. Conversely, well-ordered societies presuppose knowledgeable citizens. Thus, knowledge and virtue go hand in hand.

Aristotle defines virtue as “the mean relative to us, a mean which is defined by a rational principle, such as a man of practical wisdom would use to determine it.” He explains himself with an example. Consider, he says, the different caloric needs of a heavyweight boxer in training and of a teacher during spring break. What may be too few calories for the boxer may very well be too many for the teacher. There is no set number of calories that all people ought to ingest. Similarly, consider the virtue of liberality. What may be a stingy contribution to charity by a rich man may be an overly generous contribution by a person of moderate means with a family to support.

Yet Aristotle is not a moral relativist. He is not saying that, since people in different cultures have different beliefs about what is right or wrong, there are therefore no moral absolutes. There is nothing in Aristotle’s ethic that makes mere difference of belief a morally relevant factor in the determination of the mean. A society that believes that wealth is largely the result of individual initiative might believe that contributing 2 percent of one’s income to charity is a worthy goal. A different society that believes that wealth is largely a gift of nature might believe that giving only 2 percent of one’s income to the less fortunate would be unthinkably tight. Though these two cultures have different beliefs, that in itself, Aristotle would say, is morally irrelevant in determining the morally proper mean.

While the caloric needs of different people vary, what those needs are is not determined by majority opinion, but by the nutritional expert. So too, the mean in moral matters is not determined by popular opinion. Rather, it is determined by a rational principle, and that rational principle is in turn determined by the man or woman of practical wisdom.

The healthy individual has a desire for exercise and proper food. Regardless of what others say, his judgment in these matters is correct because of the obvious effect of his wholesome practices on his own life. According to Aristotle, one ought to reason similarly in ethical matters. Just as people know a physically healthy person when they see one, they also know a happy person when they see one. Of course, when Aristotle says a person is happy, he is not referring to an emotional state of someone who wins the state lottery. Such a condition is the result of external conditions and not the result of voluntary action. Rather, when he speaks of the happy woman, he is speaking of the woman who is happy largely as a result of what she has herself done. Her happiness is stable because it “feeds on itself” in the same way that a winning college basketball team continues winning year after year because it is able to recruit the best high school players. Similarly, a happy person is one who succeeds in the worthy things that she sets out to do. When she does, she receives satisfaction, and this in turn encourages her to set out to accomplish other worthwhile goals. That causes the cycle to repeat. It is this sort of person that Aristotle says determines the “rational principle” in moral matters.

First published: Peri potiks , c. 334-323 b.c.e. (English translation, 1705)

Type of work: Literary criticism

This is a work of theoretical and practical literary criticism, especially with regard to tragic drama .

Aristotle’s Poetics , though short, has been widely influential outside philosophical circles. Yet it is doubtful that it can be fully appreciated outside Aristotle’s philosophical system as a whole.

Central to all Aristotle’s philosophy is the claim that nothing can be understood apart from its end or purpose (telos). Not surprisingly, the Poetics seeks to discover the end or purpose of all the poetic arts, and especially of tragic drama. Understood generally, the goal of poetry is to provide pleasure of a particular kind. The Metaphysics begins, “All men desire to know by nature,” and the Nicomachean Ethics repeatedly says that the satisfaction of natural desires is the greatest source of lasting pleasure. The Poetics combines these two with the idea of imitation. All people by nature enjoy a good imitation (that is, a picture or drama) because they enjoy learning, and imitations help them to learn.

Of particular interest to Aristotle is the pleasure derived from tragic drama, namely, the kind of pleasure that comes from the purging or cleansing (catharsis) of the emotions of fear and pity. Though the emotions of fear and pity are not to be completely eliminated, excessive amounts of these emotions are not characteristic of a flourishing individual. Vicariously experiencing fear and pity in a good tragedy cleanses the soul of ill humors.

Though there are many elements of a good tragedy, the most important, according to Aristotle, is the plot. The centrality of plot once again follows from central doctrines of the Metaphysics and the Nichomachean Ethics . In the former, Aristotle argues that all knowledge is knowledge of universals; in the latter, he states that it is through their own proper activity that humans discover fulfillment.

For a plot to work, it must be both complete and coherent. That means that it must constitute a whole with a beginning, middle, and end, and that the sequence of events must exhibit some sort of necessity. A good dramatic plot is unlike history. History has no beginning, middle, and end, and thus it lacks completeness. Furthermore, it lacks coherence because many events in history happen by accident. In a good dramatic plot, however, everything happens for a reason. This difference makes tragedy philosophically more interesting than history. Tragedy focuses on universal causes and effects and thus provides a kind of knowledge that history, which largely comprises accidental happenings, cannot.

Cite this page as follows:

"Aristotle - Analysis." Masterpieces of World Literature, Critical Edition, edited by Steven G. Kellman, eNotes.com, Inc., 2009, 9 July 2024 <https://www.enotes.com/topics/aristotle/critical-essays#critical-essays-analysis>

Essay on Aristotle

Students are often asked to write an essay on Aristotle in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Aristotle

Aristotle: the philosopher.

Aristotle was a famous Greek philosopher and scientist born in 384 BC. He studied under Plato and later taught Alexander the Great. His work covers many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, and government. Aristotle’s writings greatly influenced Western philosophy.

Contributions to Science

Aristotle made significant contributions to science, especially in the field of biology. He was one of the first to classify animals and study their behavior. His observations and methods laid the groundwork for modern scientific research.

Aristotle’s Ethics

In ethics, Aristotle proposed the concept of “virtue ethics”. He believed that moral virtue is about finding a moderate path between extremes. This idea continues to be influential in modern ethical thought.

250 Words Essay on Aristotle

Aristotle: the epitome of western philosophy.

Aristotle, a Greek philosopher born in 384 BC, is often hailed as the cornerstone of Western philosophy. A student of Plato, and tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle’s influence transcends time, permeating various spheres of human knowledge.

Contributions to Philosophy

Aristotle and science.

In the realm of science, Aristotle’s impact is profound. His scientific method, involving observation and logical deduction, was a precursor to the modern scientific method. He made significant strides in biology, classifying organisms and dissecting animals to understand their anatomy.

Ethics, according to Aristotle, is the pursuit of “eudaimonia,” often translated as happiness or flourishing. He proposed the “Golden Mean,” a path of moderation between excess and deficiency, as the key to virtuous living.

Aristotle’s legacy is enduring. His philosophies have shaped Western thought, influencing fields as diverse as politics, rhetoric, and even drama. The Aristotelian tradition continues to be a vital part of contemporary philosophical discourse.

In conclusion, Aristotle’s life and work represent a monumental contribution to human knowledge. His ideas continue to influence our understanding of the world, making him a timeless figure in the annals of philosophy.

500 Words Essay on Aristotle

Introduction to aristotle.

Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, stands as one of the most influential figures in Western intellectual history. Born in 384 BC, Aristotle was a student of Plato and later became the tutor of Alexander the Great. His contributions span numerous fields, including logic, metaphysics, ethics, political theory, and the natural sciences.

Aristotle’s Metaphysics

Logic and epistemology.

Aristotle’s contributions to logic and epistemology were groundbreaking. He developed a system of logic known as syllogistic logic, which involves deducing conclusions from two related premises. This system became the foundation for Western logical thought until the 19th century. In terms of epistemology, Aristotle proposed that all knowledge begins with sensory experience, laying the groundwork for empirical science.

Ethics and Virtue

In ethics, Aristotle proposed the concept of eudaimonia, often translated as “flourishing” or “the good life.” He argued that the ultimate goal of human life is to achieve eudaimonia through virtuous action and rational activity. Virtue, for Aristotle, is a mean between extremes and is acquired through habituation.

Politics and Society

Impact and legacy.

Aristotle’s influence on Western thought is immeasurable. His works have shaped the course of philosophy, science, and political theory. His empirical approach laid the foundation for the scientific method, and his ethical and political theories continue to inform contemporary discourse. Despite the passage of centuries, Aristotle’s ideas remain relevant, providing profound insights into the nature of reality, knowledge, virtue, and the good life.

In conclusion, Aristotle is a monumental figure in Western intellectual history. His contributions to various fields continue to influence contemporary thought, testifying to the enduring power of his philosophy. His approach to understanding the world around us, grounded in empirical observation and logical reasoning, remains a cornerstone of Western intellectual tradition.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 13, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) made significant and lasting contributions to nearly every aspect of human knowledge, from logic to biology to ethics and aesthetics. Though overshadowed in classical times by the work of his teacher Plato , from late antiquity through the Enlightenment, Aristotle’s surviving writings were incredibly influential. In Arabic philosophy, he was known simply as “The First Teacher.” In the West, he was “The Philosopher.”

Aristotle's Early Life

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagira in northern Greece. Both of his parents were members of traditional medical families, and his father, Nicomachus, served as court physician to King Amyntus III of Macedonia . His parents died while he was young, and he was likely raised at his family’s home in Stagira. At age 17 he was sent to Athens to enroll in Plato's Academy . He spent 20 years as a student and teacher at the school, emerging with both a great respect and a good deal of criticism for his teacher’s theories. Plato’s own later writings, in which he softened some earlier positions, likely bear the mark of repeated discussions with his most gifted student.

Did you know? Aristotle's surviving works were likely meant as lecture notes rather than literature, and his now-lost writings were apparently of much better quality. The Roman philosopher Cicero said that "If Plato's prose was silver, Aristotle's was a flowing river of gold."

When Plato died in 347, control of the Academy passed to his nephew Speusippus. Aristotle left Athens soon after, though it is not clear whether frustrations at the Academy or political difficulties due to his family’s Macedonian connections hastened his exit. He spent five years on the coast of Asia Minor as a guest of former students at Assos and Lesbos. It was here that he undertook his pioneering research into marine biology and married his wife Pythias, with whom he had his only daughter, also named Pythias.

In 342 Aristotle was summoned to Macedonia by King Philip II to tutor his son, the future Alexander the Great —a meeting of great historical figures that, in the words of one modern commentator, “made remarkably little impact on either of them.”

Aristotle and the Lyceum

Aristotle returned to Athens in 335 B.C. As an alien, he couldn’t own property, so he rented space in the Lyceum, a former wrestling school outside the city. Like Plato’s Academy, the Lyceum attracted students from throughout the Greek world and developed a curriculum centered on its founder’s teachings. In accordance with Aristotle’s principle of surveying the writings of others as part of the philosophical process, the Lyceum assembled a collection of manuscripts that comprised one of the world’s first great libraries .

Aristotle's Works

It was at the Lyceum that Aristotle probably composed most of his approximately 200 works, of which only 31 survive. In style, his known works are dense and almost jumbled, suggesting that they were lecture notes for internal use at his school. The surviving works of Aristotle are grouped into four categories. 

The “Organon” is a set of writings that provide a logical toolkit for use in any philosophical or scientific investigation. Next come Aristotle’s theoretical works, most famously his treatises on animals (“Parts of Animals,” “Movement of Animals,” etc.), cosmology, the “Physics” (a basic inquiry about the nature of matter and change) and the “Metaphysics” (a quasi-theological investigation of existence itself).

Third are Aristotle’s so-called practical works, notably the “Nicomachean Ethics” and “Politics,” both deep investigations into the nature of human flourishing on the individual, familial and societal levels. Finally, his “Rhetoric” and “Poetics” examine the finished products of human productivity, including what makes for a convincing argument and how a well-wrought tragedy can instill cathartic fear and pity.

The Organon

“The Organon” (Latin for “instrument”) is a series of Aristotle’s works on logic (what he himself would call analytics) put together around 40 B.C. by Andronicus of Rhodes and his followers. The set of six books includes “Categories,” “On Interpretation,” “Prior Analytics,” “Posterior Analytics,” “Topics,” and “On Sophistical Refutations.” The Organon contains Aristotle’s worth on syllogisms (from the Greek syllogismos , or “conclusions”), a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two assumed premises. For example, all men are mortal, all Greeks are men, therefore all Greeks are mortal.

Metaphysics

Aristotle’s “Metaphysics,” written quite literally after his “Physics,” studies the nature of existence. He called metaphysics the “first philosophy,” or “wisdom.” His primary area of focus was “being qua being,” which examined what can be said about being based on what it is, not because of any particular qualities it may have. In “Metaphysics,” Aristotle also muses on causation, form, matter and even a logic-based argument for the existence of God.

To Aristotle, rhetoric is “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” He identified three main methods of rhetoric: ethos (ethics), pathos (emotional) and logos (logic). He also broke rhetoric into types of speeches: epideictic (ceremonial), forensic (judicial) and deliberative (where the audience is required to reach a verdict). His groundbreaking work in this field earned him the nickname “the father of rhetoric.”

Aristotle’s “Poetics” was composed around 330 B.C. and is the earliest extant work of dramatic theory. It is often interpreted as a rebuttal to his teacher Plato’s argument that poetry is morally suspect and should therefore be expunged from a perfect society. Aristotle takes a different approach, analyzing the purpose of poetry. He argues that creative endeavors like poetry and theater provides catharsis, or the beneficial purging of emotions through art. 

Aristotle's Death and Legacy

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., anti-Macedonian sentiment again forced Aristotle to flee Athens. He died a little north of the city in 322, of a digestive complaint. He asked to be buried next to his wife, who had died some years before. In his last years he had a relationship with his slave Herpyllis, who bore him Nicomachus, the son for whom his great ethical treatise is named.

Aristotle’s favored students took over the Lyceum, but within a few decades the school’s influence had faded in comparison to the rival Academy. For several generations Aristotle’s works were all but forgotten. The historian Strabo says they were stored for centuries in a moldy cellar in Asia Minor before their rediscovery in the first century B.C., though it is unlikely that these were the only copies.

In 30 B.C. Andronicus of Rhodes grouped and edited Aristotle’s remaining works in what became the basis for all later editions. After the fall of Rome, Aristotle was still read in Byzantium and became well-known in the Islamic world, where thinkers like Avicenna (970-1037), Averroes (1126-1204) and the Jewish scholar Maimonodes (1134-1204) revitalized Aritotle’s logical and scientific precepts.

Aristotle in the Middle Ages and Beyond

In the 13th century, Aristotle was reintroduced to the West through the work of Albertus Magnus and especially Thomas Aquinas, whose brilliant synthesis of Aristotelian and Christian thought provided a bedrock for late medieval Catholic philosophy, theology and science.

Aristotle’s universal influence waned somewhat during the Renaissance and Reformation , as religious and scientific reformers questioned the way the Catholic Church had subsumed his precepts. Scientists like Galileo and Copernicus disproved his geocentric model of the solar system, while anatomists such as William Harvey dismantled many of his biological theories. However, even today, Aristotle’s work remains a significant starting point for any argument in the fields of logic, aesthetics, political theory and ethics.

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Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Aristotle’s Rhetoric has had an unparalleled influence on the development of the art of rhetoric. In addition to Aristotle’s disciples and followers, the so-called Peripatetic philosophers (see Fortenbaugh/Mirhady 1994), famous Roman teachers of rhetoric, such as Cicero and Quintilian, frequently used elements stemming from Aristotle’s rhetorical theory. These latter authors, however, were not primarily interested in a meticulous interpretation of Aristotle’s writings, but were rather looking for a conceptual framework for their own manuals of rhetoric. This is one of the reasons why for two millennia the interpretation of Aristotelian rhetoric has been pursued by those concerned primarily with the history of rhetoric rather than philosophy. This association with the rhetorical rather than with the philosophical tradition is also mirrored in the fact that in the most influential manuscripts and editions, the text of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (for its transmission see Kassel 1971) was surrounded by rhetorical works and speeches written by other Greek and Latin authors, and was thus seldom interpreted in the context of Aristotle’s philosophical works. It was not until the last few decades that the philosophically salient features of the Aristotelian rhetoric have been acknowledged (e.g. in the collections Furley/Nehamas 1994 and Rorty 1996; for a more general survey of scholarship in the 20th century see Natali 1994). Most notably, scholars became aware of the fact that Aristotle’s rhetorical analysis of persuasion draws on many concepts and ideas that are also treated in his logical, ethical, political and psychological writings, so that the Rhetoric became increasingly perceived as well-integrated part of the Aristotelian oeuvre. For example, Aristotle’s Rhetoric is inextricably connected with the history of ancient logic (see Allen 2008 and, more generally, ancient logic ) and is often taken as an important inspiration for modern argumentation theory (see van Eemeren 2013 and, more generally, dialogical logic ). Some authors have stressed the Rhetoric ’s affinity to Aristotle’s ethical theory (see e.g. Woerner 1990), while others were attracted by Aristotle’s rhetorical account of metaphor (see e.g. Ricoeur 1996 and, more generally, metaphor ). Most significantly, philosophers and scholars began to turn their attention to the Rhetoric ’s account of the passions or emotions, which is not only richer than in any other Aristotelian treatise, but was also seen as manifesting an early example of cognitive, judgement-based accounts of emotions (see e.g. Nussbaum 1996, Konstan 2006 and, more generally, §5 of emotion ).

1. Aristotle’s Works on Rhetoric

2. the structure of the rhetoric, 3. rhetoric as a counterpart to dialectic, 4.1 the definition of rhetoric, 4.2 what rhetoric is useful for, 4.3 can aristotle’s rhetoric be misused, 4.4 is aristotle’s conception of rhetoric normative, 5.1 persuasion through the character of the speaker, 5.2 persuasion through the emotions of the hearer, 5.3 persuasion through the argument itself, 5.4 is there an inconsistency in aristotle’s rhetorical theory, 6.1 the concept of enthymeme, 6.2 formal requirements, 6.3 enthymemes as dialectical arguments, 6.4 the brevity of the enthymeme, 6.5 different types of enthymemes, 7.1 the (lacking) definition of ‘ topos ’, 7.2 the word ‘ topos ’ and the technique of places, 7.3 the ingredients and the function of topoi, 7.4 rhetorical topoi, 8.1 the virtue of style, 8.2 aristotelian metaphors, glossary of selected terms, translations, editions and commentaries, collections, monographs and articles, other internet resources, related entries.

• Judgemental and Non-Judgemental Accounts of Aristotelian Emotions
• The Thesis that Enthymemes are Relaxed Inferences
• The Brevity of the Enthymeme
• The Variety of Topoi in the Rhetoric

The work that has come down to us as Aristotle’s Rhetoric or Art of Rhetoric consists of three books, while the ancient catalogue of the Aristotelian works, reported e.g. by Diogenes Laertius, mentions only two books on rhetoric (probably our Rhetoric I & II), plus two further books on style (perhaps our Rhetoric III?). Whereas most modern authors agree that at least the core of Rhetoric I & II presents a coherent rhetorical theory, the two themes of Rhetoric III (style/diction and the partition of speeches) are not mentioned in the original agenda of Rhetoric I & II. The conceptual link between Rhetoric I & II and Rhetoric III is not given until the very last sentence of the second book, so the authenticity of this seeming ad hoc connection is slightly suspicious; we cannot rule out the possibility that these two parts of the Rhetoric were not put together until the first complete edition of Aristotle’s works was accomplished by Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century. In Aristotle’s Poetics (1456a33) we find a cross-reference to a work called ‘ Rhetoric ’ which obviously refers only to Rhetoric I & II, but does not seem to include the agenda of Rhetoric III, suggesting that Aristotle at this time regards Rhetoric I & II as the complete work. Regardless of such doubts, the systematic idea that links the two heterogeneous parts of the Rhetoric — Rhetoric I & II on the one hand and Rhetoric III on the other— does make good sense: it is not enough, or so the linking passage says, to have a supply of things to say (the so-called ‘thought’); one should also know how to express or formulate those things (the so-called ‘style’), so that the project of Rhetoric I & II concerning what we say (or the ‘thought’) needs to be complemented by the peculiar project of Rhetoric III (i.e. a treatise on ‘style’).

The chronological fixing of the Rhetoric has turned out to be a delicate and controversial matter. At least the core of Rhetoric I & II seems to be an early work (see e.g. Düring 1966, 118–125, Rist 1989, 85–86, Rapp 2002 I, 178–184), written during Aristotle’s first stay in Athens (it is unclear, however, which chapters belong to that core; regularly mentioned are the chapters I.4–15 and II.1–17). It is true that the Rhetoric also refers to historical events that fall in the time of Aristotle’s exile and his second stay in Athens (see § 1 of Aristotle ), but most of them can be found in just two chapters, namely chapters II.23–24, and moreover such examples could have been updated, which is especially plausible if we assume that the Rhetoric formed the basis of a lecture course held several times. However, what is most striking are its affinities to the early work Topics (for the idea that the Topics is early see e.g. Solmsen 1929, 191–195; for a discussion of Solmsen’s theses in English see Stocks 1933); if, as is widely agreed nowadays, the Topics represents a pre-syllogistic stage of Aristotelian logic, the same is likely to be true of the Rhetoric , as we actually find only few or even no hints to syllogistic inventory in it. (Indeed, the Rhetoric includes two short passages that explicitly refer to the Analytics , which presents Aristotle’s syllogistic theory: I.2, 1357a22–1358a2, II.25, 1402b13–1403a16. Some authors — e.g. Solmsen 1929, 13–31, Burnyeat 1994, 31, Allen 2001, 20–40 — take this as evidence that at least in these two passages the Rhetoric makes use of the syllogistic theory, while others — e.g. Rapp 2002, II 202–204 — object to this inference.)

It seems that Aristotle was the author not only of the Rhetoric as we know it today, but of several treatises dealing with rhetoric. According to ancient testimonies, Aristotle wrote an early dialogue on rhetoric entitled ‘ Grullos ’, in which he put forward arguments for why rhetoric cannot be an art ( technê ); and since this is precisely the position of Plato’s Gorgias (see §4 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ), the lost dialogue Grullos has traditionally been regarded as a sign of Aristotle’s (alleged) early Platonism (see Solmsen 1929, 196–208). But the evidence for the position defended in this dialogue is too tenuous to support such strong conclusions: it also could have been a ‘dialectical’ dialogue, simply listing the pros and cons of the thesis that rhetoric is an art (see Lossau 1974). We are in a similar situation concerning another lost work on rhetoric, the so-called ‘ Technê Sunagogê ’, a collection of previous theories of rhetoric that is also ascribed to Aristotle. Cicero seems to use this collection, or at least a secondary source relying on it, as his main historical source when he gives a short survey of the history of pre-Aristotelian rhetoric in his Brutus 46–48. Finally, Aristotle once mentions a work called ‘ Theodecteia ’ which has also been supposed to be Aristotelian; but more probably he refers to the rhetorical handbook of his follower Theodectes, who was also a former pupil of Isocrates. From these lost works on rhetoric we only have a meagre collection of scattered fragments (frg. 68–69 R 3 , 114 R 3 , 125–141 R 3 : see Rose 1886).

The structure of Rhetoric I & II is determined by two tripartite divisions. The first division consists in the distinction between the three pisteis , i.e. ‘persuaders’ or ‘means of persuasion’, that are technical in the sense that they are based on the rhetorical method and are provided by the speech alone. And speech can produce persuasion either through the character ( êthos ) of the speaker, the emotional state ( pathos ) of the listener, or the argument ( logos ) itself (see below § 5 ). The second tripartite division concerns the three species or genres of public speech (see de Brauw 2008 and Pepe 2013). A speech that takes place in the assembly is defined as a deliberative speech . In this rhetorical genre, the speaker either advises the audience to do something or warns against doing something. Accordingly, the audience has to judge things that are going to happen in the future, and they have to decide whether these future events are good or bad for the city or city-state ( polis ), whether they will cause advantage or harm. A speech that takes place before a court is defined as a judicial speech . The speaker either accuses somebody or defends herself or someone else. Naturally, this kind of speech treats things that happened in the past. The audience, or rather the jury, has to judge whether a past event actually happened or not and whether it was just or unjust, i.e., whether it was in accordance with the law or contrary to the law. While the deliberative and judicial genres have their context in controversial situations in which the listener has to decide in favour of one of two opposing parties, the third genre does not aim at such a decision: an epideictic speech (e.g. funeral speeches, celebratory speeches) praises or blames somebody, and tries to describe the affairs or deeds of its subject as honourable or shameful.

The first book of the Rhetoric treats these three genres in succession. Rhetoric I.4–8 deals with the deliberative, I.9 with the epideictic, I.10–14 with the judicial genre. These chapters are understood as contributing to the argumentative mode of persuasion ( logos ) or — more precisely — to that part of argumentative persuasion that is specific to the respective genre of speech. The second part of the treatment of argumentative persuasion ( logos ) that is common to all three genres of rhetorical speech is treated in chapters II.19–26. The second means of persuasion, the one that works by evoking the emotions of the audience ( pathos ), is described in chapters II.2–11. Although the following chapters II.12–17 treat different types of character ( êthos ), these chapters do not, as one might infer, develop the first means of persuasion, i.e. the one that depends on the character of the speaker. The underlying theory of this means of persuasion is rather unfolded in a few lines of chapter II.1. The aforementioned chapters II.12–17 rather account for different types of character and their disposition to emotional response, which can be useful for speakers who want to arouse the emotions of the audience. Why the chapters on the specific (in the first book) and the common (in the second book) argumentative means of persuasion ( logos ) are separated by the treatment of emotions and character (in II.2–17) remains a riddle, especially since the chapter II.18 tries to give a link between the specific and the common aspects of argumentative persuasion — as though this chapter follows directly upon the end of Rhetoric I. Rhetoric III.1–12 discusses several questions of style (see below § 8.1 ) while Rhetoric III.13–19 is dedicated to the various parts of a speech and their arrangement.

Owing to ambiguities like these, the structuring of the Rhetoric has always been somewhat controversial, since different attempts to structure the work manifest different interpretative decisions. By and large, though, the following structure seems to capture its main topics and divisions:

• Ch. 1: Rhetoric as a counterpart to dialectic — dialectically conceived rhetoric is centred on proofs — rhetorical proofs are ‘enthymemes’ — this is neglected by previous manuals of rhetoric that focus instead on emotions, slandering and on other techniques for speaking outside the subject — “speaking outside the subject” is forbidden in states with good legislation — the benefits of rhetoric.
• Through the speaker: credibility of the speaker ( êthos )
• Through the hearer: the emotional state of the audience ( pathos )
• Through the argument: proving or seemingly proving what is true ( logos )
• Judicial (or forensic) speech deals with accusation and defence about past events — aiming at the just/unjust.
• Deliberative (or political) speech deals with exhortation and dissuasion about future events — aiming at the advantageous/harmful.
• Epideictic speech deals with praise and blame primarily with regard to the present time — aiming at the honourable/shameful.
• Ch. 4–8: Premises or topoi specific to the deliberative speech: Types of advantageous/harmful things the speaker should be familiar with (Ch. 4) — Happiness ( eudaimonia ) (Ch. 5) — what is good/advantageous (Ch. 6) — what is better/more advantageous (Ch. 7) — the various constitutions (Ch. 8).
• Ch. 9: Premises or topoi specific to the epideictic speech: virtue and vice — the honourable and the blameworthy.
• Ch. 10–14: Premises or topoi specific to the judicial speech: wrong-doing and motives for wrong-doing (Ch. 10) — pleasure (Ch. 11) — the state of mind of the wrong-doers and characteristics of their victims (Ch. 12) — kinds of just and unjust deeds, unwritten laws (Ch. 13) — degrees of wrong-doing (Ch. 14).
• Ch. 15: Artless means of persuasion (i.e. means that cannot be invented by the art, but are just given — such as contracts, laws, witnesses, oaths, torture — and need to be used in one way or the other), mostly connected with judicial speech.

Rhetoric II

• Ch. 1: Why persuasion through logos is insufficient — how persuasion through êthos and pathos is supposed to work.
• Ch. 2–11: Particular types of emotions ( pathê ) and their counterparts: anger (Ch. 2) — mildness (Ch. 3) — loving/friendly affection ( philia ) and hating (Ch. 4) — fear and confidence (Ch. 5) — shame and lack of shame (Ch. 6) — gratefulness and lack of gratefulness (Ch. 7) — pity (Ch. 8) — indignation plus two nameless emotions (Ch. 9) — envy (Ch. 10) — emulation or ambition (Ch.11).
• Ch. 12–17: Different types of character ( êthos ): the character of young people (Ch. 12), of elderly people (Ch. 13), of people in the prime of their life (Ch. 14), of people of noble birth (Ch. 15), of wealthy people (Ch. 16) and of powerful people (Ch. 18).
• Ch. 18: Transition to generally applicable aspects of persuasion through logos :
• Ch. 19–25: Generally applicable aspects of persuasion through logos : topoi about the possible/impossible, past and future facts, significance and insignificance (Ch. 19) — examples: factual (report) and fictitious (the parable and the fable) (Ch. 20) — maxims (Ch. 21) — the enthymeme (Ch. 22) — topoi for the construction of enthymemes (Ch. 23) — topoi for the construction of merely apparent (i.e. fallacious) enthymemes (Ch. 24) — refutation (Ch. 25).
• Ch. 26: Amplification — transition to Rhetoric III.

Rhetoric III , Ch. 1–12: Style ( lexis ):

• Ch. 1: Delivery of a speech and why style/diction should be considered.
• Ch. 2–3: The virtue and the vices of prose style: the excellent prose style is neither too banal nor above the due dignity, but appropriate — the choice of words — the role of metaphors (Ch. 2) — Four deterrent factors (or vices) of style (Ch. 3).
• Ch. 4–11: Particular ingredients of prose style: the simile (Ch. 4) — linguistic correctness (Ch. 5) — stylistic voluminousness and its contrary (Ch. 6) — appropriateness in style (Ch. 7) — periodic style (Ch. 8) — rhythm (Ch. 9) — urbanity, bringing before the eyes, metaphors (Ch. 10–11).
• Ch. 12: Written and oral style.

Rhetoric III , Ch. 13–19: Arrangement ( taxis ):

• Ch. 13: Only two parts of the speech are necessary, namely the statement and the proof of the main claim — contemporary authors of rhetorical manuals make futile subdivisions of the parts of speech — introduction of a quadripartite scheme of the speech: (1) proem, (2) statement of the main claim, (3) proof of the stated claim ( pistis ), (4) epilogue.
• Ch. 14–19: Particular parts of the speech: the proem in the three genres of speech (Ch. 14) — topoi for slandering (Ch. 15) — narration (Ch. 16) — proof ( pistis ) (Ch. 17) — interrogation (Ch. 18) — epilogue/conclusion (Ch. 19).

Aristotle stresses right from the beginning of his Rhetoric that rhetoric is closely related to dialectic. He offers several formulations to describe the affinity between these two disciplines: in the first line of the book Rhetoric rhetoric is said to be a ‘counterpart’ ( antistrophos ) to dialectic ( Rhet. I.1, 1354a1); in the second chapter of the first book it is also called an ‘outgrowth’ or ‘offshoot’ ( paraphues ti ) of dialectic and the study of character ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a25f.); finally, Aristotle says that rhetoric is part of dialectic and resembles it ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a30f.).

In saying that rhetoric is a counterpart to dialectic, Aristotle obviously wants to allude to Plato’s Gorgias (464bff.), where rhetoric is ironically defined as a counterpart to cookery in the soul. Since, in this passage, Plato uses the word ‘ antistrophos ’ to indicate an analogy, it is likely that Aristotle wants to express a kind of analogy too: what dialectic is for the (private or academic) practice of attacking and maintaining an argument, rhetoric is for the (public) practice of defending oneself or accusing an opponent.

The notion of ‘dialectic’ is prominent in the work of Aristotle’s teacher, Plato; Plato often labels his philosophical method, or certain parts of it, as dialectic. In his dialogue Gorgias (see §4 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ), dialectic seems to be strictly opposed to rhetoric, the former aiming at the disclosure of truth, the latter allegedly aiming at ‘persuasion without knowledge’. In his Phaedrus Plato pictures the relation between dialectic and rhetoric in a different way (see §5.1 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ); here he entertains the idea of a new philosophical rhetoric, quite different from the then contemporary style of speech writing, which rests upon dialectic, the genuine philosophical method, for acquiring genuine knowledge both of the subject matter of a speech and of the soul of the audience. When Aristotle speaks of dialectic, he certainly has his book Topics in mind, where he develops at some length an argumentative method for attacking and defending theses of any content (see §8 of Aristotle: logic ). Clearly, Aristotle’s dialectical method was inspired by Plato and by the debates in Plato’s Academy; however, while Plato often presents dialectic as a method for discovering and conveying truth, Aristotelian dialectic is strictly confined to examining particular claims or testing the consistency of a set of propositions (which in his view is different from establishing or proving the truth of a proposition). This is, in a nutshell, the context that must be kept in mind, when Aristotle presents — quite allusively — a new art of rhetoric by stressing its affinity to dialectic; obviously he plays upon his readers’ expectations concerning the meaning of dialectic and the relation between dialectic and rhetoric, as described by Plato. Those students of Plato’s Academy who were still suspicious about any engagement with rhetoric and public speech possibly received the opening of Aristotle’s Rhetoric with its postulated affinity between rhetoric and dialectic either as a provoction or as some sort of joke.

This purported analogy between rhetoric and dialectic (as conceived by Aristotle) can be substantiated by several common features of both disciplines:

• Both rhetoric and dialectic are concerned with things that do not belong to a definite genus or are not the object of a specific science.
• Both rhetoric and dialectic are not dependent on the established principles of specific sciences.
• Both rhetoric and dialectic have the function of providing arguments.
• Both rhetorical and dialectical arguments rely on assumptions or premises that are not established as true, but are only reputable or accepted by one group or the other ( endoxa ).
• Both rhetoric and dialectic are concerned with both sides of an opposition, dialectic by constructing arguments for and against any thesis, rhetoric by considering what is possibly persuasive in any given case.

This analogy to dialectic has extremely significant ramifications for the status of Aristotle’s supposedly new art of rhetoric. Plato argued in his Gorgias that rhetoric could not be an art ( technê ), since it is not related to a definite subject, while real arts are defined by their specific subjects, as e.g. medicine or shoemaking are defined by their products (health and shoes). By claiming that rhetoric and dialectic are similar or analogous, Aristotle suggests a quite different picture. The analogy is even meant to flesh out the thought that neither rhetoric nor dialectic are like ordinary arts ( technai ) or sciences with a limited, well-defined subject matter. However, this should not be seen as a drawback, or so the analogy suggests, since the alleged shortcoming, i.e. that they do not have such a definite subject matter, can be turned into a virtue, by entrusting to dialectic and rhetoric the practices that are common to all fields of rationality, namely the various practices of argumentation. For even though dialectic has no definite subject, it is easy to see that it nevertheless employs a consistent method (both in Plato’s and Aristotle’s understanding of dialectic), because dialectic has to grasp the ultimate reason why some arguments are valid and others are not. Now, if rhetoric is nothing but the counterpart to dialectic within the domain of public speech, it must be similarly grounded in an investigation of what is persuasive and what is not, and this, in turn, qualifies rhetoric as an art or, after all, as a discipline that is methodologically not inferior to dialectic.

As already indicated, it is crucial for both disciplines, dialectic and rhetoric, that they deal with arguments from accepted premises ( endoxa ). Dialecticians do not argue on the basis of established, scientific principles, but on the basis of only reputable assumptions, i.e. of what is accepted either by all or the many or the few experts. In a similar vein, rhetoricians or orators try to hit assumptions that are already accepted by their audience, because they want to persuade the addressees on the basis of their own convictions. Of course, owing to the different fields of application — philosophical–academic debates in the case of dialectic, mostly public speeches in the case of rhetoric — the situation is not quite the same. While e.g. the dialectician tries to test the consistency of a set of propositions, the rhetorician tries to achieve the persuasion of a given audience, and while dialectic proceeds by questioning and answering, rhetoric for the most part proceeds in continuous–monologic form. Still, and in spite of these differences, the method of both dialectic and rhetoric share the same core idea that they have to hit certain, accepted assumptions of their addressees — the dialectical disputant in order to get the explicit assent of the dialectical opponent, the rhetorician in order to base the rhetorical proofs on views the audience already finds convincing. Furthermore, just as the dialectician is interested in deductions and inductions for refuting the opponent’s claims, the rhetorician is interested in deductions and inductions that logically connect (or seem to connect) the audience’s existing convictions with certain other views that the rhetorician wishes to establish (see below § 6 ). For, indeed, Aristotle seems to think that arguments or proofs are central to any process of persuasion, for people are most or most easily persuaded, he says ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a3f.), when they suppose something to have been proven.

Hence the rhetorician who is willing to give a central place to arguments or (rhetorical) proofs — and this seems to be the peculiar approach to rhetoric that Aristotle suggests at the beginning of his Rhetoric — can base his or her method of persuasion to a significant extent on the method of dialectical argumentation, as expounded in Aristotle’s Topics (see Rapp 2016 and 2018). And since the notion of ‘dialectic’ is inextricably linked with a genuinely philosophical method, the implied message of this dialectical turn of rhetoric seems to be that philosophers, properly understood, have access to a method that is superior not only for internal academic discussions between philosophers, but also for the so-called ‘encounter with the many’ ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a29, Topics I.2, 101a35), i.e. for the purpose of addressing a mass audience with little or no education. As already indicated, Aristotle does not seem to have been the first to come up with the idea that ‘true’ rhetoric should become dialectical; however, while in Plato’s Phaedrus the dialectical turn of rhetoric remains a mere sketch, Aristotle’s Rhetoric does not hesitate to set this idea into operation, most notably by adapting most of the dialectical equipment developed elsewhere, especially in his Topics . In many particular instances he just imports technical vocabulary from his dialectic (e.g. protasis , sullogismos , topos , endoxon ); in many other instances he redefines traditional rhetorical notions by his dialectical inventory, e.g. the enthymeme is redefined as a deduction, the example is redefined as an induction, etc. Above all, the Rhetoric introduces the use of the so-called topoi (see below § 7 ) that is typical for the dialectical method and is otherwise only treated in Aristotle’s works on dialectic, i.e. in Topics and Sophistical Refutations .

4. The Nature and Purpose of Rhetoric

There are widely divergent views on the purpose of Aristotle’s Rhetoric . Ultimately, it is certainly meant to support those who are going to address a public audience in court, at assemblies of the people, or at certain festive events and who, to that end, have to compose speeches. But does this in itself render the Rhetoric a mere ‘manual’ or ‘handbook’ aiming at the persuasion of a given audience? Or does it rather aim at a specifically qualified type of persuasion (bringing about, e.g., conviction based on the best available grounds and without misunderstanding)? Influenced by the debate in the 20th century about ‘old and new rhetoric’ and by the work of authors such as I.A. Richards, Kenneth Burke and Wayne C. Booth on the one hand and Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur on the other, Aristotle scholars began to wonder whether his Rhetoric is an instruction manual offering guidance about how to change other people’s minds or has, rather, a philosophically more ambitious scope, such as e.g. human communication and discourse in general. This second approach is reflected in the statements of those contending that the “object of Aristotle’s treatise on rhetoric is ultimately an analysis of the nature of human discourse in all areas of knowledge.” (Grimaldi 1972, 1) or of those suggesting that it can be read as “a piece of philosophic inquiry, and judged by philosophic standards” (Garver 1994, 3). Others have diagnosed a most notable ambivalence in the Rhetoric (see Oates 1963, 335), as between its role as a practical handbook on the one hand and Aristotle’s attempt to connect it to his logic, ethics and politics on the other. Likewise, interpreters are divided on the questions of whether Aristotle’s Rhetoric is meant to be used for good and bad purposes alike or whether it is specifically tailored to implementing the good and virtuous goals delineated in Aristotle’s ethical and political writings; and whether, to that latter end, the speaker is entitled to deploy the whole range of persuasive devices, even manipulative and deceptive ones. In many instances, the text of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is open to several interpretations; however, it seems possible to restrict the range of plausible readings, e.g. by considering Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric and what he says about the internal and external ends of rhetoric.

Assuming that Aristotle’s Poetics gives instructions for how to compose good tragedies, shouldn’t we expect, then, that Aristotle’s Rhetoric is similarly meant to give instructions for how to compose good speeches? And does this, by the same token, render the art of rhetoric a sort of productive knowledge aiming at the fabrication of a speech (similar to the way the art of shoemaking aims at the fabrication of shoes)? This sounds plausible, as far as it goes (for a discussion of this issue see Leff 1993), and in a few passages (especially in Rhet. III: e.g. 1415b35, 1417a2, 1417a34f. and 36, 1418a10 and 12 and 39, 1420b1) Aristotle actually seems to directly address and instruct a speechwriter in the second person. However, these are rather exceptions to a broader tendency and it is striking that Aristotle never defines the art of rhetoric through the supposed product, the speech, nor the full command of the art of rhetoric through the perfection of the product, i.e. the excellent speech. Instead, Aristotle defines the rhetorician as someone who is always able to see what is persuasive ( Topics VI.12, 149b25); correspondingly, rhetoric is defined as the ability to see what is possibly persuasive in every given case ( Rhet. I.2, 1355b26f.). Indeed there are passages ( Rhet. I.1, 1355b15–17) in which the persuasive plays the same role in rhetoric as the conclusive plays in dialectic or logic. This is not to say that it is the defining function ( ergon ) of rhetoric to persuade, for the rhetoricians (the ones who possess the art of rhetoric) will not be able to convince people under all circumstances ( Rhet. I.1, 1355b10–14). Rather they are in a situation similar to that of physicians: the latter have a complete grasp of their art if and only if they neglect nothing that might heal their patients, although they are not expected to heal each and every patient. Similarly, rhetoricians have a complete grasp of their method, if and only if they are capable of seeing the available means of persuasion, although they are certainly not able to convince each and every audience — owing to factors that the art of rhetoric cannot alter (e.g. biases, partisanship, stubbornness or corruption of the audience). In light of this definition, it seems that the art ( technê ) of rhetoric is primarily concerned with the nature and the ingredients of persuasiveness and that the book Rhetoric is primarily concerned with elaborating the various ingredients of this art. It goes without saying that possessing such an art is useful for the composition of speeches, but might also be useful for other purposes, e.g. for assessing other people’s speeches, for analysing the persuasive potential of competing cases, etc.

For Aristotle, who defines rhetoric in terms of considering what is persuasive (see above § 4.1 ) and sees it as a branch of dialectic (see above § 3 ), rhetoric is clearly not a matter of finding or conveying knowledge. For Plato (see §4 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ), by contrast, this would have been reason enough to become suspicious about the intentions of those who use rhetorical techniques. Isn’t any technique of persuasion that is negligent of knowledge useful only for those who want to outwit their audience and conceal their real aims? For, after all, someone who just wants to communicate the naked truth could be straightforward and would not need to employ rhetorical gimmicks. This, however, is not Aristotle’s point of view: Even those who are simply trying to establish what is just and true need the help of rhetoric when they are faced with a public audience. Aristotle points out that it is impossible to teach such an audience, even if the speaker has the most exact knowledge of the subject ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a24–29). Perhaps he is thinking of ordinary people attending a public speech who are not able to follow the kind of argument that, according to Aristotle’s theory of knowledge (see §6 of Aristotle: logic ), is apt to establish genuine knowledge. Moreover, he seems to doubt that the controversial, sometimes partisan and hostile, setting of political or judicial speeches is suitable for teaching and learning at all, since whoever wishes to learn has to presuppose that he or she won’t be cheated or deceived by the teacher. But why should one trust the intentions of the opposing party? This is why rhetorical arguments addressing public audiences should be taken from premises that are likely to be accepted by the given audience, from assumptions the audience is already convinced of, and not from the kind of principles (accepted mostly or only by the experts) through which one conveys and establishes knowledge.

More than that, one might wonder whether the typical subject of public speeches really allows of genuine knowledge. In court for example, the judges have to form a reasoned view about whether the accused person is guilty or not and whether the crime committed is minor or major; in political speeches the parties might contend about whether it is advantageous or not to invade the neighbour’s territory or to build a border wall (Aristotle’s examples), but none of these questions allow of precise knowledge. Aristotle says that in some questions treated in public speeches there is only amphidoxein , i.e. room for doubt and only divided opinions ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a8). From this perspective, rhetoric seems useful especially for controversies about contingent matters that cannot be fixed by appealing to what we unmistakably know, but only by appealing to widely shared convictions, to what happens (not necessarily, but) only for the most part and to what is likely to be the case (but not necessarily so). For all those reasons, affecting the decisions of juries and assemblies is a matter of persuasiveness, not of knowledge. It is true that some people manage to be persuasive either at random or by habit, but it is rhetoric that gives us a method to systematically disclose all available means of persuasion on any topic whatsoever.

When Aristotle speaks about the benefits of the art of rhetoric he also mentions that it is not only disgraceful when one is unable to defend oneself physically, but also when one is unable to defend oneself through rational speech, for rationality and speech are more peculiar to human beings than physical strength ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a38–b2). A certain familiarity with rhetoric is therefore required for sheer self-defence — in general and, perhaps, especially under the conditions of the extreme Athenian form of democracy with its huge courts of lay assessors (one of which sentenced Socrates to death) and with demagogues who would abuse the democratic rules for a coup d’état. Perhaps Aristotle is addressing fellow philosophers who find it beneath their dignity to engage with rhetoric: it is not sublime but naive and embarrassing if they do not gear up for political and legal battles. For those who are defeated in court when they try to defend what is true and just (due to the failure to speak persuasively) are to be blamed ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a20–24).

Possessing the art of rhetoric is useful then even for those whose sole intent is to defend what they take to be true and just. Still, can’t the same art of rhetoric be misused, e.g. when practised by people with malicious intentions? The short answer is: Yes, of course. Rhetoric in general and even Aristotle’s dialectic-based rhetoric can be misused depending on what people use it for what purposes. (And Aristotle himself is actually aware of the fact that demagogues of his time use a certain style of rhetoric for overthrowing the democratic order: Politics V.5, 1304b21–1305a15). The more elaborate answer that he gives is this. The art of rhetoric (if based on dialectic: see above § 3 ) is useful partly because it facilitates persuasive argument for the opposites, i.e. on either side of a question. This is first of all seen as an advantage in competence, for people who have full command of this art won’t miss any persuasive aspect of a given question, and this is also seen as a practical advantage, for it helps to detect what goes wrong in the opponent’s arguments (1355a29–38), especially if those opponents use it for objectionable purposes. That this peculiar feature of dialectic-based rhetoric opens the door for misuse is true, but this cannot be held against the art of rhetoric, since the same ambivalence (that something can be used for the better or for the worse) applies to most goods (e.g. wealth, beauty — the only non-ambivalent good is, on Aristotle’s view, virtue). Also, Aristotle downplays the risk of misuse by stressing that it is easier to convince someone of the just and good than of their opposites (especially when using the Aristotelian style of rhetoric).

Still, for many interpreters of Aristotle, from the times of the great Roman rhetoricians on, it is hard to embrace the thought that Aristotle — the famous author of the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics — who in his ethical work praises the life in accordance with human virtue, could ever endorse a rhetorical project that is not meant to promote virtue and happiness in the city-state ( polis ). Is it, in other words, possible or likely that Aristotle, whose name in the history of moral philosophy stands for an ethics based on the sustainable development of moral virtues, endorses a technique of rhetoric that does not serve the purpose of promoting virtuous goals? This is a legitimate worry. It can be addressed by distinguishing internal from external ends of rhetoric (which is, to be sure, not Aristotle’s distinction; however, he uses a similar distinction between a thing’s proper function, corresponding to the internal end, and the question what something is useful for, corresponding to the external end). The internal end, i.e. the function that defines the art of rhetoric, is to consider what is persuasive (see above § 4.1 ), and since there might be persuasive aspects on both sides of a question, the art of rhetoric as such — i.e. according to its internal end — is neutral with regard to true and false, just and unjust, noble and wicked points of view. It can be equally used for promoting good or bad positions (even though, as Aristotle says, it is easier to promote the good ones). All this follows from the dialectical character of Aristotle’s art of rhetoric (see above § 3 ). If we are interested, by contrast, in the external ends of rhetoric, i.e. the question of what it is useful for (see above § 4.2 ) or the question of how Aristotle himself wants this art to be used, then it is easy to contrive a plausible story either based on Aristotle’s ethico-political writings or on hints given in the Rhetoric itself (see e.g. Dow 2015, 64–75, for such an attempt) about the morally desirable uses of a style of rhetoric that is based on arguments (sanctioning convicted offenders, defending innocent culprits, averting political decisions that are likely to do harm to the city-state, voicing the point of view of the decent citizens, defending the rule of law, standing up to insurrectionists and demagogues, etc.).

Obviously, Aristotle’s rhetoric is not thought to be normative in the moral sense that it would only provide the means for persuading people of what is true, just and noble (but not of their opposites; see section § 4.3 above). There is however the widespread intuition that Aristotle’s rhetoric crucially differs from manuals of rhetoric that recommend doing whatever it takes to win a case. This becomes clear already in the beginning of Rhet. I.1, where Aristotle criticizes his predecessors among other things for presenting techniques that are not derived from any art ( technê ), such as slander and the arousal of pity and anger. He accuses them of dwelling on methods that instruct how to speak “outside the subject” and to distract the attention of the hearers from the subject, while good legislation, he says, requires not speaking outside the subject at all (indeed, “speaking outside the subject” was a legal term in Athenian law of Aristotle’s time). This immediately suggests two senses in which Aristotle’s rhetoric is normative and does not advocate an ‘anything goes’-approach to persuasion: first, the rhetorical devices are required to flow from the art or method of rhetoric and, second, they must not be “outside the subject”. As for the first criterion, Aristotle requires that art-based means of persuasion must be provided by the speech alone and must rely on the systematic analysis of what is persuasive in a given case (see the definition of rhetoric in § 4.1 above). As for the second criterion, it is striking that Aristotle refers to judges or jurors who just “surrender to one of the litigants without really judging” ( Rhet. I.1, 1354b34–1355a1), which might be taken to mean that those people cast their votes in favour of the party they side with, but that their votes are not based on a judgement that really considers the case at hand. This formulates a minimally normative criterion for what the rhetorical art aims at, namely the formation of a judgement in the audience that deserves to be called a ‘judgement’, i.e. that it judges something , namely what the judges or jurors are asked to judge. And it seems that in rhetorical persuasion the use of rhetorical devices that are based on the art and are related to the case at hand are more apt to bring about judgements in this genuine sense of the word.

By all appearances, it seems then that Aristotle’s rhetoric is not indifferent with regard to the persuasive means deployed. The effect that speakers using the Aristotelian style of rhetoric can bring about in the audience is thus qualified by the limited range of techniques (based on the art of rhetoric) they use, which means that they do not try to bring the audience over to their side at any cost, but only on the basis of an argumentation that actually addresses the point at issue. In this sense one might say that Aristotle’s rhetorical method aims at something like ‘persuasion based on arguments’, ‘reasonable persuasion’ or a ‘reasoned judgment’ on the audience’s part.

Even if this much is agreed upon, there remains a lot of room for scholarly disagreement on what exactly this normative approach to rhetoric is meant to imply. Is this normativity grounded in the requirements of the art ( technê ) alone, e.g. what can and what cannot be achieved in a methodical way, or does it hinge on an envisaged effect, e.g. the best possible judgement on the hearer’s part? And which methods are approved by this normative approach and which definitely excluded? Does Aristotle’s art of rhetoric require, above all, that persuasion be centred on arguments and proofs (that are related to the thing at issue and are, thus, pertinent), while other art-based means of persuasion (see below § 5 ) are mostly thought to offer support to get one’s arguments through (see e.g. Rapp 2012)? Or does the art aim at enhancing only “well-founded” judgements or judgements that are “formed on the basis of good grounds for conviction”, requiring that each particular means of persuasion provide such a good ground for conviction (see Dow 2014 and Dow 2015)?

5. The Three Means of Persuasion

The methodical core of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is the theorem that there are three ‘technical’ pisteis , i.e. ‘persuaders’ or ‘means of persuasion’. Persuasion comes about either through the character ( êthos ) of the speaker, the emotional state ( pathos ) of the hearer, or the argument ( logos ) itself. The structure of Rhetoric I & II & is determined by this tripartition (see § 2 above). The attribute ‘technical’ seems to imply several things: (i) Technical persuasion must rest on a method or art ( technê ), and this, in turn, is to say that we must know the reason why some things are persuasive and some are not. (ii) Further, technical persuasion must rest on a complete analysis of what is possibly persuasive (see above § 4.1 ), and not on the random use of scattered persuasive factors. (iii) Technical means of persuasion must be provided by the speakers themselves and through the speech, whereas pre-existing facts, such as oaths, witnesses, testimonies, etc. are non-technical, since they cannot be brought about by the speaker. (iv) Given that Aristotle criticizes his predecessors, because they deal with non-technical persuasive devices instructing how to speak “outside the subject” (see section § 4.4 above), one might speculate whether the technical means of persuasion are required, vice versa, to actually address the things at issue .

Why just these three? And why only these three? Aristotle does not give an elaborate defence of this tripartition. However, he says in a different context that a speech consists of three things: the speaker, the subject that is treated in the speech, and the listener to whom the speech is addressed ( Rhet. I.3, 1358a37ff.). Probably, he thinks that each of these three ingredients of a speech contributes to persuasion in a specific way, in that persuasion either flows from the person of speaker, namely that he or she comes across as credible, or from the condition of the hearer, i.e. whether they are in an emotional state and which emotional state they are in or from the subject that is treated in the speech, i.e. from the arguments or proofs that are meant to support a suggested point of view. Summarizing the account of the three pisteis in a later section of the book, Aristotle actually insists that there can be no other technical means of persuasion:

It has already been spoken about the means of persuasion ( pisteis ), from how many things they are, namely that they are from three things, and what kind of things these are, and why there are only these three; for all people who are casting judgements are persuaded either because they themselves are affected, or because they assume that the speakers are a certain kind of person or because something has been proven. ( Rhet. III.1, 1403b10–13)

With regard to the speaker, persuasion is accomplished whenever the speech is held in such a way as to render the speaker worthy of credence. How is it exactly that the credibility of the speaker contributes to persuasion? Aristotle is not overly explicit on this issue. However, he says that people follow the trustworthy speaker more easily and more quickly on almost all subjects and completely so in affairs in which there are not exact criteria (to decide the case), but only wavering opinions ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a6–8). This might be taken to mean that in the absence of other criteria to decide a case, the audience will form the second-order judgment that suggestions put forward by a credible speaker are themselves received as trustworthy and acceptable. Also, according to this remark, the impact of what seems to be the speaker’s character comes in degrees; it is most important, if the point of issue is such that it leaves room for doubt and cannot be decided by conclusive proofs.

But how does the speaker manage to appear a credible person? Even though Aristotle says that the speaker’s character can have the greatest impact on the hearers’ judgement (especially in deliberative speeches that are about future states of affairs), he dedicates only fifteen lines to this question. ( Rhet. II.1, 1378a6–20). Speakers, he says, must display (i) practical intelligence, prudence or competence ( phronêsis ), (ii) a virtuous character, and (iii) good will; for, if they displayed none of them, the audience would doubt that they are able to give good advice at all. Again, if they displayed (i) without (ii) and (iii), the audience could doubt whether their aims or intentions are good. Finally, if he displayed (i) and (ii) without (iii), the audience could still doubt whether they are giving the best suggestion or whether they keep the best available suggestion for themselves due to their lack of benevolence. However, if they display all of them, Aristotle concludes, it cannot rationally be doubted that their suggestions are trustworthy. It should be stressed that the speakers must accomplish these effects by what they say in the speech; it is not necessary that they are actually virtuous persons: on the contrary, a pre-existing good character cannot be part of the technical means of persuasion. Also, even a person with outstandingly virtuous character would have to present herself as virtuous by what she says in the speech.

With regard to the hearer, persuasion comes about whenever the hearers are led by the speech to feel a certain emotion or passion that, in turn, has an impact on the judgement they are going to make. The underlying assumption of this persuasive technique is that people’s emotional states broadly conceived — i.e. whether they actually undergo an episode of emotion or not and what kind of emotion they feel — makes a difference for the formation of the judgement they are about to pass. Indeed, Aristotle even introduces the emotions or passions ( pathê ) in an important passage ( Rhet. II.1, 1378a20–30) by saying that they are “those things due to which people, by undergoing a change, differ in their judgements ...”. He illustrates this general assumption by pointing out that we do not judge in the same way when we grieve and rejoice or when we are friendly and hostile. It therefore seems that the speaker has to arouse emotions exactly because emotions have the power to modify our judgments: e.g. to a juror or judge who is in a friendly mood, the person about whom he or she is going to judge seems not to do wrong or only in a small way; but to the juror or judge who is in an angry mood, the same person will seem to do the opposite (see Rhet. II.1, 1378a1ff.). Since rhetoric aims at steering the hearers’ judgement and since emotions, thus, have a significant impact on the formation of judgements (on the various ways how emotions, according to Aristotle, can alter our judgements see Leighton 1982), the rhetorical method requires to address the emotional states of the hearers, if only in order to calm down adverse feelings or emotions that are likely to prevent the jurors or judges from forming their judgement in accordance with the presented evidence and arguments.

Some scholars writing on the rhetorical use of emotions take it to be significant that emotions also play a crucial role in Aristotle’s moral philosophy, for Aristotle defines the virtuous person not only by performing the right actions, but also by having and by being motivated through the appropriate sort of emotions. Applying this to the rhetorical situation, one might wonder whether in Aristotle’s art of rhetoric the speaker tries to arouse emotions, in order (i) to motivate the audience (e.g. motivate them to act in accordance with the judgement they pass) or (ii) to turn them into better persons (e.g. by providing and making them familiar with the appropriate emotions that are definitory of the virtuous persons). However, both options are not backed by the evidence given in the text of the Rhetoric . With regard to (i), it seems crucial to note that the aim of rhetorical persuasion is a certain judgement ( krisis ), not an action or practical decision ( prohairesis ), which would intrinsically involve a specific sort of desire and motivation (see e.g. Kontos 2021, 20–31). While the practical decision that Aristotle discusses in his ethical writings is always about things the agents themselves are able to do, the judgements of the hearers of a public speech are often about things to be done by other agents or about actions that took place in the past. With regard to (ii), one might be reluctant to accept that moral education might be the direct purpose of the kind of public speeches Aristotle has in mind. At least, no such moral purpose is mentioned when Aristotle addresses the purpose and use of rhetoric (see above § 4 ). It is also significant that the appropriateness of the aroused emotions (in accordance with Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean) is nowhere discussed in the Rhetoric . More than that, Aristotle seems to think that moral education requires individual habituation and habituation is a matter of gradually adjusting a person’s attitudes and hedonic responses, while the uneducated ones are not really responsive to disciplinary allocutions. For all these reasons, he is not too optimistic with regard to the pedagogical effect of public speeches: “Now if speeches were in themselves enough to make men good, they would justly, as Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and such rewards should have been provided; but as things are … they are not able to encourage the many to nobility and goodness” ( EN X.9, 1179b4–10).

But how is it possible for the orator, in the first place, to lead the audience to feel a certain emotion? After all, the technical means of persuasion are restricted to what the speakers say in a speech. It is remarkable that Aristotle’s treatment of several types of emotions in Chapters 2–11 of Rhet. II is based on the definition of each type of emotion. Even though Aristotle mostly leaves it to the reader to infer how these definitions are useful for arousing a particular type of emotion, it seems safe to conclude that these definitions are meant to offer the key to the methodical arousal of emotions in the audience. Let, for example, anger be defined as “desire, accompanied with pain, for conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight that was directed against oneself or those near to one, when such a slight is undeserved.” ( Rhet . II.2 1378a31–33). According to such a definition, someone who takes it to be the case that he or she has suffered a slight from a person who is not entitled to do so, etc., will, all other things being equal, become angry. Obviously, this presupposes an account of emotions according to which emotions are closely related to what people think or take to be the case. Unfortunately and owing to the overall nature of Aristotle’s Rhetoric , this underlying account of emotion is nowhere explicitly unfolded and defended. What we can infer though is that Aristotle assumes at least a covariance between someone’s thought or opinion that she has been slighted undeservedly and her feeling of anger. If that much is granted and if the speakers have access to such definitions of each type of emotions, it is possible to deduce conditions under which a person is likely to feel this particular type of emotion. And if the speakers manage to make the hearers think — by what they say — that these conditions are given, it is likely, as far as this method goes, that the hearers will feel the corresponding emotion. Aristotle himself suggests the following example. If we take the above-mentioned definition of anger for granted, it is possible to deduce circumstances in which a person will become angry; most notably, we can deduce (i) in what state of mind people are angry and (ii) against whom they are angry and (iii) for what sorts of reason. If we want to make an audience angry, we have to address all three factors, making the hearers think (ii) that there are people who deserve their anger, (iii) that there is a reason for being angry (a slight, an insult, a belittlement, etc.) and (i) by bringing them into a state of mind in which they are prone to anger. Aristotle himself shows how to deduce these three factors for each particular type of emotion throughout chapters II.2–11. With this equipment, the speaker will be able, for example, to highlight such characteristics of a case as are likely to provoke anger in the audience. In comparison with the tricks of former rhetoricians (which, Aristotle thinks, are bound to speak “outside the subject”), this method of arousing emotions has a striking advantage: The speaker who wants to arouse emotions need not even speak “outside the subject” or distract from the thing at issue; it is sufficient to detect aspects of a given subject that are connected with the intended emotion and to make the addressee think that certain emotion-provoking aspects, in accordance with the three factors mentioned above, are given.

Supplement on Judgemental and Non-Judgemental Accounts of Aristotelian Emotions

With regard to the subject the speech is about, persuasion comes about through arguments, i.e. by proving (or seemingly proving) that something is the case. Most probably, this is meant to take up the idea mentioned above, i.e. that people are most or most easily persuaded, when they suppose something to have been proven ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a3f.). This third means of persuasion ( pistis ) is distinguished from the other two means of persuasion through being the only probative ( apodeiktikos ) device of persuasion; due to its argument-like structure, involving premises and a conclusion, it can directly argue for the point of view that the speaker wishes to establish. It does so by inferentially connecting the suggested conclusion with facts that are evident or with convictions already held by the audience. Probative persuasion is essential, since, at the end of the day, each speech necessarily involves a claim (i.e. the point of view the speaker suggests) plus the proofs that are given in support of this claim ( Rhet. III.13, 1414a30–36). For Aristotle, there are two species of arguments: inductions and deductions ( Posterior Analytics I.1, 71a5ff.). Induction ( epagôgê ) is defined as the proceeding from particulars up to a universal ( Topics I.12, 105a13ff.). A deduction ( sullogismos ) is an argument in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from the suppositions results of necessity through them ( Topics I.1, 100a25ff.) or because of their being true ( Prior Analytics I.2, 24b18–20). The inductive argument in rhetoric is the example ( paradeigma ); unlike other inductive arguments, it does not proceed from many particular cases to one universal case, but from one particular to a similar particular if both particulars fall under the same genus ( Rhet. I.2, 1357b25ff.). The deductive argument in rhetoric is the enthymeme (see below § 6 ). Indeed, most of Rhet. I & II is dedicated to the treatment of this third probative means of persuasion: After the second part of the long chapter Rhet. I.2 has introduced basic distinctions within the probative mode of persuasion, chapters Rhet. I.4–15 unfold argumentative devices that are specific to the three genres of speech, while chapters Rhet. II.4–26 discuss generally applicable aspects of proofs or arguments (see above § 2 ).

Aristotle repeatedly says that these rhetorical arguments persuade people either by proving or by (merely) seeming to prove ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a3–4 and I.2, 1356a19–20); accordingly, he lists topoi for real ( Rhet. II.23) and merely apparent enthymemes ( Rhet. II.24) (see below § 7 ). Obviously, Aristotle refers here to fallacious or deceptive arguments, for these arguments have a similar persuasive effect, if the fallacy or deception goes unnoticed by the audience (for people will think , i.e. take it to be the case, that something has been proven). One might wonder whether the inclusion of only seemingly probative arguments is compatible with Aristotle’s general tendency to base rhetorical persuasion on (real) proofs. However, the treatment of fallacious rhetorical arguments is strictly parallel to what happens in the case of dialectic. For dialectic too, includes a part dealing with sound or valid arguments (namely in Topics II–VII) and a part that analyses fallacious arguments (namely in the Sophistical Refutations ). It is part of the rhetorician’s competence also to know about fallacious arguments, if only in order to detect them, when they are used by opponents.

One of the most notorious debates about Aristotle’s Rhetoric concerns the second means of persuasion ( pistis ) that is said to proceed through the emotions of the hearer (see above § 5.2 ), for it seems to involve a major inconsistency in Aristotle’s approach to rhetorical persuasion: While in Rhetoric I.2 Aristotle is happy to accept emotions or the arousal of emotions as one of the three ‘technical’ pisteis , it seems that he has a much more reserved or even repudiating attitude to the rhetorical use of emotions in Rhetoric I.1. There, in the very first chapter of the book, Aristotle claims that the previous authors of rhetorical manuals have only covered a small part of the art of persuasion, for while only the proofs or means of persuasion ( pisteis ), such as the enthymeme, are a matter of technê , those authors mostly dealt with rhetorical devices that are merely supplementary and involve “speaking outside the subject”. Aristotle exemplifies this alleged tendency of his predecessors by adding that “slander, pity, anger and suchlike passions of the soul” are not about the things at issue, but are directed at the person of the juror or judge (1354a11–18). Briefly afterwards he adds that one “should not distort the juror or judge by arousing anger, fear or pity in him”, which, he says, would be like making the standard or yardstick crooked before using it (1354a24–26). Apart from the fact that Rhetoric I.2 endorses the rhetorical use of emotions, while Rhetoric I.1 seems to dismiss them, the remarks in Rhetoric I.1 seems to imply that the arousal of emotions is not or cannot be ‘technical’, while Rhetoric I.2 unequivocally introduces persuasion through the emotions of the hearer as one of three ‘technical’ means of persuasion.

Various strategies have been contrived to deal with this seeming inconsistency. In the early 20th century there was the tendency to think that the two chapters are simply incompatible and that either one of these two chapters was written by a different author (Marx 1900) or that the two chapters were put together by an inept editor (Kantelhardt 1911; in a similar vein, Barnes (1995, 262) argues that the two chapters are doublets, one of them originally written to supplant the other) or that the two chapters represent different stages in Aristotle’s philosophical development (Solmsen 1929). Even though Solmen’s developmental account has gone out of fashion, there are more recent authors who emphasize the alleged ‘Platonic’ character of Rhetoric I.1 (see e.g. Fortenbaugh 1986, 248 and Schuetrumpf 1994, 106f.), thus implying that Aristotle, when writing this chapter, was still under the influence of Plato, from which he gradually emancipated himself. However, one might wonder whether some of the strategies mentioned tend to exaggerate the alleged inconsistency of the two chapters, since, after all, it is obvious that the two chapters have different agendas (see above § 2 ) and that some of the differences might be due to these different agendas. Also, in the later chapter Aristotle is happy to refer back to the treatment of emotions in the previous chapter (1356a16–17), which indicates (provided that this back-reference is authentic) that he himself was not aware of any inconsistency. It has hence been suggested e.g. that the seeming inconsistency can be fixed just by identifying different meanings of the word pistis for the two chapters (Grimaldi 1957), which would solve the problem that in one chapter emotions are said to be a pistis in the ‘technical’ sense, while in the other chapter they are opposed to ‘technical’ pisteis . Sprute 1994 and, similarly, Schuetrumpf 1994 argue that the chapters are not inconsistent, but envisage different settings, in that Rhetoric I.1 considers the kind of rhetoric that is apt for a well-ordered city, while Rhetoric I.2 moves on to the style of rhetoric that is required and practiced under less ideal political circumstances. Rapp 2002 (I 364, II 32f., 109, 112) proposes that what Aristotle primarily criticizes in Rhetoric I.1 is not that those predecessors deal with emotions at all, but that they mostly deal with emotions and the like, which are merely supplementary, instead of dealing with the main point, i.e. the enthymeme, and that they use pre-fabricated formulae for the arousal of emotions, by which they are bound to speak outside the things at issue. Dow 2007 uses a similar idea of set-piece rhetorical devices, going however beyond the previous suggestion by saying that the critique of Rhetoric I.1 does not, as it may seem, refer to emotions strictly speaking, but only to such set-piece rhetorical devices aimed at manipulating emotions. On these accounts it is possible, at least, to reconcile the claims that there is a ‘technical’ and innocent (or, perhaps, even beneficial) use of emotions within the art-based process of persuasion, as maintained in Rhetoric I.2, and that there are non-‘technical’ uses of emotions in rhetoric with the potential to distort the judgement, as emphasized in Rhetoric I.1.

6. The Enthymeme

For Aristotle, an enthymeme is what has the function of a proof or demonstration in the domain of public speech. Since a demonstration is a kind of sullogismos , the enthymeme is said to be a sullogismos too (on the enthymeme and its relation to syllogistic theory see also Raphael 1974). The word ‘ enthymeme ’ (from ‘ enthumeisthai —to consider’) had already been coined by Aristotle’s predecessors and originally designated clever sayings, bon mots, and short arguments involving a paradox or contradiction. The concepts ‘proof’ ( apodeixis ) and ‘ sullogismos ’ play a crucial role in Aristotle’s logical-dialectical theory. In applying them to a term of conventional rhetoric, Aristotle appeals to a well-known rhetorical technique, but, at the same time, codifies and redefines the original meaning of ‘enthymeme’: properly understood, what people call ‘enthymeme’ should have the form of a sullogismos , i.e., a deductive argument.

A major scholarly debate concerns the question of whether the enthymeme is actually meant to be a genuine sullogismos , i.e. a deductive argument, or whether it is only a ‘ sullogismos of a kind’, i.e. a sullogismos in an attenuated sense, which would amount to saying that Aristotelian enthymemes, even though they are introduced as sullogismoi , are or include ‘relaxed inferences’, i.e. inferences that are not logically valid (see Burnyeat 1994, 1996). This suggestion has been widely accepted, presumably because it helps to solve the alleged paradox that, although Aristotle defines the enthymeme as a sullogismos , the logical form of the enthymemes that are actually given as examples in the Rhetoric does not seem to conform to that of the categorical syllogisms that we know from his Prior Analytics (a problem that, by the way, might also be addressed by assuming that the enthymeme corresponds to the form of deductive arguments we find in the Topics , not to the ones familiar from the Prior Analytics ). Others accepted this suggestion primarily in order to accommodate the non-necessary sign arguments from Rhetoric I.2 (see § 6.5 ), which are treated as a type of enthymeme (without being flagged as merely ‘seeming enthymeme’), but are said not to yield a sullogismos (see e.g. Allen 2001).

Supplement on the Thesis that Enthymemes are Relaxed Inferences

In general, Aristotle regards deductive arguments as a set of propositions in which some sentences are premises and one is the conclusion, and the inference from the premises to the conclusion is guaranteed by the premises alone. Since enthymemes in the proper sense are expected to be deductive arguments, the minimal requirement for the formulation of enthymemes is that they have to display the premise-conclusion structure of deductive arguments. This is why enthymemes have to include a statement as well as a kind of reason for the given statement. Typically this reason is given in a conditional ‘if’-clause or a causal ‘since’- or ‘for’-clause. Examples of the former, conditional type are: “If not even the gods know everything, human beings can hardly do so.” “If the war is the cause of present evils, things should be set right by making peace.” Examples of the latter, causal type are: “One should not be educated, for one ought not be envied (and educated people are usually envied).” “She has given birth, for she has milk.” Aristotle stresses that the proposition “There is no man among us who is free” taken by itself is a maxim, but becomes an enthymeme as soon as it is used together with a reason such as “for all are slaves of money or of chance (and no slave of money or chance is free).” Sometimes the required reason may even be implicit, as e.g. in the proposition “As a mortal, do not cherish immortal anger” the reason why one should not cherish mortal anger is implicitly given in the term “immortal,” which alludes to the rule that it is not appropriate for mortal beings to have such an attitude.

Aristotle calls the enthymeme the “body of persuasion”, implying that everything else is only an addition or accident to the core of the persuasive process. The reason why the enthymeme, as the rhetorical kind of proof or demonstration, should be regarded as central to the rhetorical process of persuasion is that we are most easily persuaded when we think that something has been demonstrated. Hence, the basic idea of a rhetorical demonstration seems to be this: In order to make a target group believe that q , the orator must first select a proposition p or some propositions p 1 … p n that are already accepted by the target group; secondly he has to show that q can be derived from p or p 1 … p n , using p or p 1 … p n as premises. Given that the target persons form their beliefs in accordance with rational standards, they will accept q as soon as they understand that q can be demonstrated on the basis of their own opinions.

Consequently, the construction of enthymemes is primarily a matter of deducing from accepted opinions ( endoxa ). Of course, it is also possible to use premises that are not commonly accepted by themselves, but can be derived from commonly accepted opinions; other premises are only accepted since the speaker is held to be credible; still other enthymemes are built from signs: see § 6.5 . That a deduction is made from accepted opinions—as opposed to deductions from first and true sentences or principles—is the defining feature of dialectical argumentation in the Aristotelian sense. Thus, the formulation of enthymemes is a matter of dialectic, and the dialectician has the competence that is needed for the construction of enthymemes. If enthymemes are a subclass of dialectical arguments, then it is natural to expect a specific difference by which one can tell enthymemes apart from all other kinds of dialectical arguments (traditionally, commentators regarded logical incompleteness as such a difference; for some objections against the traditional view, see § 6.4 ). Nevertheless, this expectation is somehow misguided: The enthymeme is different from other kinds of dialectical arguments insofar as it is used in the rhetorical context of public speech (and rhetorical arguments are called ‘enthymemes’); thus, no further formal or qualitative differences are needed.

However, in the rhetorical context there are two factors that the dialectician has to keep in mind if she wants to become a rhetorician too, and if the dialectical argument is to become a successful enthymeme. First, the typical subjects of public speech do not—like the subjects of dialectic and theoretical philosophy—belong to the things that are necessarily the case, but are among those things that are the goal of practical deliberation and can also be otherwise. Second, as opposed to well-trained dialecticians, the audience of a public speech is characterized by an intellectual insufficiency; above all, the members of a jury or assembly are not accustomed to following a longer chain of inferences. Therefore, enthymemes must not be as precise as a scientific demonstration and should be shorter than ordinary dialectical arguments. This, however, is not to say that the enthymeme is defined by incompleteness and brevity. Rather, it is a sign of a well-executed enthymeme that the content and the number of its premises are adjusted to the intellectual capacities of the public audience; but even an enthymeme that failed to incorporate these qualities would still be an enthymeme.

In a well-known passage ( Rhet. I.2, 1357a7–18; similar: Rhet. II.22, 1395b24–26), Aristotle says that the enthymeme often has few or even fewer premises than some other deductions ( sullogismoi) . Since most interpreters refer the word ‘ sullogismos ’ to the syllogistic theory (see the entry on Aristotle: logic ), according to which a proper deduction has exactly two premises, those lines have led to the widespread understanding that Aristotle defines the enthymeme as a sullogismos in which one of two premises has been suppressed, i.e., as an abbreviated, incomplete syllogism. But certainly the passages mentioned do not attempt to give a definition of the enthymeme, nor does the word ‘ sullogismos ’ necessarily refer to deductions with exactly two premises. Properly understood, both passages are about the selection of appropriate premises, not about logical incompleteness. The remark that enthymemes often have few or fewer premises concludes the discussion of two possible mistakes the orator could make ( Rhet . I.2, 1357a7–10): One can draw conclusions from things that have previously been deduced or from things that have not been deduced yet. The latter method is unpersuasive, for the premises are not accepted, nor have they been introduced. The former method is problematic, too: if the orator has to introduce the needed premises by another deduction, and the premises of this pre-deduction too, etc., one will end up with a long chain of deductions. Arguments with several deductive steps are common in dialectical practice, but one cannot expect the audience of a public speech to follow such long arguments. This is why Aristotle says that the enthymeme is and should be from fewer premises.

Supplement on The Brevity of the Enthymeme

Just as there is a difference between real and apparent or fallacious deductions in dialectic, we have to distinguish between real and apparent or fallacious enthymemes in rhetoric. The topoi for real enthymemes are given in chapter II.23, for fallacious enthymemes in chapter II.24. The fallacious enthymeme pretends to include a valid deduction, while it actually rests on a fallacious inference.

Further, Aristotle distinguishes between enthymemes taken from probable ( eikos ) premises and enthymemes taken from signs ( sêmeia ). ( Rhet . I.2, 1357a32–33). In a different context, he says that enthymemes are based on probabilities, examples, tekmêria (i.e., proofs, evidences), and signs ( Rhet . II.25, 1402b12–14). Since the so-called tekmêria are a subclass of signs and the examples are used to establish general premises, this is only an extension of the former classification. (Note that neither classification interferes with the idea that premises have to be accepted opinions: with respect to the signs, the audience must believe that they exist and accept that they indicate the existence of something else, and with respect to the probabilities, people must accept that something is likely to happen.) However, it is not clear whether this is meant to be an exhaustive typology. That most of the rhetorical arguments are taken from probable premises (“For the most part it is true that …” “It is likely that …”) is due to the typical subjects of public speech, which are rarely necessary. When using a sign-argument or sign-enthymeme we do not try to explain a given fact; we just indicate that something exists or is the case: “… anything such that when it is another thing is, or when it has come into being, the other has come into being before or after, is a sign of the other’s being or having come into being.” ( Prior Analytics II.27, 70a7ff.). But there are several types of sign-arguments too; Aristotle offers the following examples:

Sign-arguments of type (i) and (iii) can always be refuted, even if the premises are true; that is to say that they do not include a valid deduction ( sullogismos ); Aristotle calls them asullogistos (non-deductive). Sign-arguments of type (ii) can never be refuted if the premise is true, since, for example, it is not possible that someone has fever without being ill, or that someone has milk without having given birth, etc. This latter type of sign-enthymemes is necessary and is also called tekmêrion (proof, evidence). Now, if some sign-enthymemes are valid deductions and some are not, it is tempting to ask whether Aristotle regarded the non-necessary sign-enthymemes as apparent or fallacious arguments. However, there seems to be a more attractive reading: We accept a fallacious argument only if we are deceived about its logical form. But we could regard, for example, the inference “She is pregnant, since she is pale” as a good and informative argument, even if we know that it does not include a logically necessary inference. So it seems as if Aristotle didn’t regard all non-necessary sign-arguments as fallacious or deceptive; but even if this is true, it is difficult for Aristotle to determine the sense in which non-necessary sign-enthymemes are valid arguments, since he is bound to the alternatives of deduction and induction, and neither class seems appropriate for non-necessary sign-arguments.

7. The Topoi

Generally speaking, an Aristotelian topos (‘place’, ‘location’) is an argumentative scheme that enables a dialectician or rhetorician to construe an argument for a given conclusion. The first comprehensive and systematic collection of topoi is given in Aristotle’s treatise Topics . Still, the use of so-called topoi or ‘ loci communes ’ can be traced back to early rhetoricians such as Protagoras, Gorgias (cp. Cicero, Brutus , 46–48) and Isocrates. But while in earlier rhetoric a topos was mostly understood as a complete, pre-fabricated pattern or formula that can be mentioned at a certain stage of the speech to produce a certain effect, most of the Aristotelian topoi , in particular most of the dialectical topoi of the Topics , are general instructions saying that a conclusion of a certain form can be derived from premises of a certain form; and because of this ‘formal’, ‘semi-formal’ or, at least topic-neutral character of Aristotle’s dialectical topoi , one topos can be used to construe several different arguments or arguments about different contents. Aristotle’s treatise Topics lists some hundred topoi for the construction of dialectical arguments. These lists of topoi form the core of the method by which the dialectician should be able to formulate deductions on any problem that could be proposed. Most of the instructions that the Rhetoric gives for the composition of enthymemes are also organized as lists of topoi ; especially the first book of the Rhetoric essentially consists of topoi concerning the subjects of the three genres of public speech (See Rhet. I.5–14), while chapters 23–24 of the second book of the Rhetoric provide lists of generally applicable topoi .

It is striking that the work that is almost exclusively dedicated to the collection of topoi , the book Topics , does not even make an attempt to define the concept of topos . At any rate the Rhetoric gives a sort of defining characterization: “I call the same thing element and topos ; for an element or a topos is a heading under which many enthymemes fall” ( Rhet. 1403a18–19). By ‘element’ Aristotle does not mean a proper part of the enthymeme, but rather a general scheme under which many concrete enthymemes of the same type can be subsumed. According to this definition, the topos is a general argumentative scheme or pattern, and the concrete arguments are instantiations of the general topos . That the topos is a general instruction from which several arguments can be derived is crucial for Aristotle’s understanding of an artful method of argumentation; for a teacher of rhetoric who makes his pupils learn ready samples of arguments would not be imparting the art itself to them, but only the products of this art, just as if someone pretending to teach the art of shoe-making only gave samples of already made shoes to his pupils (see Sophistical Refutations 183b36ff.).

The word ‘ topos ’ (place, location) most probably is derived from an ancient method of memorizing a great number of items on a list by associating them with successive places one is acquainted with, say the houses along a street. By recalling the houses along the street we can also remember the associated items (on this mnemonic technique see Sorabji 2004, 22–34). Full descriptions of this technique from antiquity can be found in Cicero, De Oratore II 86–88, 351–360, Auctor ad Herennium III 16–24, 29–40 and in Quintilian, Institutio XI 2, 11–33. In Topics 163b28–32, Aristotle seems to allude to this technique: “For just as in the art of remembering, the mere mention of the places instantly makes us recall the things, so these will make us more apt at deductions through looking to these defined premises in order of enumeration.” Aristotle also alludes to this technique in On the soul 427b18–20, On Memory 452a12–16, and On Dreams 458b20–22.

But although the name ‘ topos ’ may be derived from this mnemotechnical context, Aristotle’s use of topoi does not rely on the technique of places. At least within the system of the book Topics , every given problem must be analyzed in terms of certain linguistic, semantic or logical criteria: Does the predicate of the sentence in question ascribe a genus or a definition or peculiar or accidental properties to the subject? Does the sentence express a sort of opposition, either contradiction or contrariety, etc.? Does the sentence express that something is more or less the case? Does it maintain identity or diversity? Are the words used linguistically derived from words that are part of an accepted premise? Depending on such criteria of the analyzed sentence one has to refer to a fitting topos . For this reason, the succession of topoi in the book Topics is organized in accordance with their salient linguistic, semantic or logical criteria; above all topoi presented in Books II–VII of this treatise are structured in accordance with the four so-called ‘predicables’, i.e. whether a predicate signifies the genus, an accident, a proprium (peculiar attribute) or the definition of the subject. This structure suggests that no additional mnemotechnique is essentially involved. Besides all this, there is at least one passage in which the use of the word ‘ topos ’ can be explained without referring to the previously mentioned mnemotechnique: In Topics VIII.1, 155b4–5 Aristotle says: “we must find the location ( topos ) from which to attack”, where the word ‘ topos ’ is obviously used to mean a starting point for attacking the theses of the opponents.

More or less the same might apply to the Rhetoric —except that most of its lists of topoi are structured by certain contents and not by linguistic, semantic or logical criteria; moreover, the system of the four ‘predicables’ that structured the topoi in the Topics is absent from the Rhetoric (see below § 7.4 ).

A typical topos in Aristotle’s dialectic runs as follows: “Again, if the accident of a thing has a contrary, see whether it belongs to the subject to which the accident in question has been declared to belong: for if the latter belongs, the former could not belong; for it is impossible that contrary predicates should belong at the same time to the same thing” ( Topics 113a20–24). Like most topoi , it includes (i) a sort of general instruction (“see, whether …”); further it mentions (ii) an argumentative scheme—in the given example, the scheme ‘if the accidental predicate p belongs to the subject s , then the opposed P * cannot belong to s too’. Finally, the topos refers to (iii) a general rule or principle (“for it is impossible, …”) which justifies the given scheme. Other topoi often include the discussion of (iv) examples; still other topoi suggest (v) how to apply the given schemes.—Though these are elements that regularly occur in Aristotelian topoi , there is nothing like a standard form with which all topoi conform. Often Aristotle is very brief and leaves it to the reader to add the missing elements.

In a nutshell, the function of a topos can be explained as follows. First of all, one has to select an apt topos for a given conclusion. The conclusion is either a thesis of the opponent that someone wishes to refute, or it is the assertion someone wishes to establish or defend. Accordingly, there are two uses of topoi : they can either prove or disprove a given sentence; some can be used for both purposes, others for only one of them. In Aristotle’s dialectic, most topoi are topic-neutral and need hence be selected by certain linguistic, semantic or logical features of the given conclusion; if, for example, the conclusion maintains a definition, one has to select a topos from a list of topoi pertaining to definitions, etc. Once the dialectician or rhetorician has selected a topos that is appropriate for a given conclusion, the topos can be used to construe a premise from which the given conclusion can be derived. If for example the argumentative scheme is ‘If a predicate is generally true of a genus, then the predicate is also true of any species of that genus’, we can derive the conclusion ‘the capacity of nutrition belongs to plants’ using the premise ‘the capacity of nutrition belongs to all living things’, since ‘living thing’ is the genus of the species ‘plants’. If the construed premise is accepted, either by the opponent in a dialectical debate or by the audience of a public speech, we can draw the intended conclusion. In the Rhetoric though the situation is slightly different (see below § 7.4 ), because here the topic-neutral type of topoi that was prevalent in the Topics seems to play a secondary role. Many topoi of the Rhetoric seem to be rather ‘material’ in the sense that they are only useful for establishing conclusions of a certain content; this is why the appropriate topos here cannot be selected by formal criteria, but must be chosen in accordance with the content of the envisaged conclusion—whether, for example, something is said to be useful or honourable or just, etc.

It has been disputed whether the topos (or, more precisely, the ‘if …, then …’ scheme that is included in a topos ) that we use to construe an argument must itself be regarded as a further premise of the argument. It could be either, as some say, the premise of a propositional scheme such as the modus ponens, or, as others assume, as the conditional premise of a hypothetical syllogism. Aristotle himself does not favour one of these interpretations explicitly. But even if he regarded the topoi as additional premises in a dialectical or rhetorical argument, it is beyond any doubt that he did not use them as premises that must be explicitly mentioned or even approved by the opponent or audience.

Even though there are good reasons for thinking that the nature and use of topoi in Aristotle’s Rhetoric are based on his elaborate account of dialectical topoi in the Topics (see above § 7.2 and § 7.3 ), commentators are faced with the difficulty that the use of the word ‘ topos ’ in Aristotle’s Rhetoric is much more heterogeneous than in the Topics . Beside topoi which do perfectly comply with the description given in the Topics , there is an important group of topoi in the Rhetoric that are not topic-neutral and hence do not contain instructions for arguments of a certain logical form, but rather with a certain predicate (for example, that something is good, or honourable, or just, or contributes to happiness, etc.). While those latter ‘material’ topoi so to speak are, after all, used to construe arguments, there are also mentions of so-called ‘ topoi ’ in the context of the non-argumentative means of persuasion, which might be taken as procedural instructions, but no longer seem to be concerned with the construction of arguments, which was the one and only function of dialectical topoi .

Supplement on the Variety of Topoi in the Rhetoric

In addition to the more heterogenous use of the word ‘ topos ’ in the Rhetoric (which might originate from Aristotle’s attempt to combine his own dialectical use of the term with more traditional rhetorical uses), there is the problem of the controversial distinction in Rhet. I.2, 1358a2–35 between topoi (which are understood to be general/common) on the one hand and certain specific devices ( idia ) on the other. While Aristotle seems inclined to call the general or common topoi simply ‘ topoi ’, he uses several names for the opposing, specific items (e.g. idiai protaseis , idia , eidê ). This distinction has a major impact on the structure of the Rhetoric as a whole (see above § 2 ), in that it is responsible for the occurence of ‘specific’ instructions, premises, ‘ topoi ’ or whatever in the bulk of the first book and the occurence of ‘common’ topoi in the second part of the second book. Traditionally, this distinction has been understood as a division between general/common topoi on the one hand and specific topoi on the other (the traditional view has been defended among others by Cope 1877 and Rapp 2002). However, it is unclear (i) what the opposition between general/common and specific refers to, (ii) where in the Rhetoric the common topoi can be found and (iii) whether the distinction is meant to be a distinction between topoi in the first place, since even though Aristotle distinguishes topoi that are common from specific ( idia ) rhetorical devices, he never explicitly uses the phrase ‘specific topoi ’, as one might expect on the traditional reading.

As for (i), Aristotle points out in Rhet. I.2 that some things are specific to physics, others to ethics, etc. This seems to suggest a distinction between topoi (or other building blocks of arguments) that are peculiar to the different sciences on the one hand and other topoi that are not, but are instead applicable to all sciences and fields of knowledge alike—just as (most of) the dialectical topoi of the Topics are. However, from Rhet. I.3 on, Aristotle makes the readers think, by contrast, that ‘specific’ refers to the different genres of rhetoric, so that some topoi are specific to deliberative, others to epideictic, and still others to juridical speech. Correspondingly, this would require a sense of being‘common’ that boils down to saying that they are not specific to one single species of speech, but that does not amount to the topic-neutrality of the dialectical topoi .

With regard to (ii), it is generally agreed that the specific topoi can be found in the first book of the Rhetoric and the common topoi in the second. Most commentators assume that all common topoi are listed in chapters II.23–24 (real enthymemes in II.23, fallacious enthymemes in II.24). However, it is less common to count the items listed in II.19 (about the possible/impossible, past and future facts, significance and insignificance) as common topoi , which might be due to the controversy mentioned in (i) about the required sense of being ‘common’, for the topoi in II.19 are applicable to all genres of speech, but are most probably not common in the way the dialectical topoi are. In addition, it is important to notice that even chapter II.23, which is undisputedly dedicated to common topoi , is a mixed bag, for it includes some topoi , especially in the first third of the chapter, that, being topic-neutral, thoroughly correspond to dialectical topoi and even might be generally applicable as the dialectical topoi are, while some other topoi mentioned in II.23 are quite different in style, as they are taken from extant historical speeches.

The most difficult debates are posed by (iii), as the traditional interpretation is based on some fragile assumptions. Not only does Aristotle never call the specific items ‘ topoi ’ by name, it is also significant that the specific items that are listed in Rhet. I.5-15 often have the form of mere propositions or premises rather than of topoi as we know them from the Topics (see above § 7.3 ). This is why several authors insist that the distinction between topoi , which are thought to be common, and idia is not a distinction between different types of topoi , but between topoi and something else, most notably premises, commonly accepted premises or premises established by the arts. This objection comes in several versions. (a) Several authors subscribed to the view of Solmsen 1929 that there are two types of enthymemes, respresenting different stages in the development of Aristotle’s logical thinking insofar as some are taken from topoi (deriving from Aristotle’s early- pre-syllogistic logic) and some are built from premises through the figures of the syllogism (thus presupposing syllogistic logic), not from topoi . According to this view, the specific topoi given in the first book of the Rhetoric are the premises of the latter type of enthymemes, and the enthymemes of the former type are taken only from common topoi . From this point of view, only common topoi would be topoi in the proper sense, while specific topoi would be, strictly speaking, nothing but premises. Accordingly, one would expect to find propositions of the form “All F are just/noble/good” in the first book of the Rhetoric ; with such propositions one could construe syllogisms like “All F are just/noble/good—This particular x is F —This particular x is just/noble/good.” Against Solmsen it has been objected that what one actually gets in the first book hardly fits Solmsen’s model. In some sense one finds more than the required premises in that Aristotle gives here not only isolated propositions, but also certain propositions together with a reason or a justification. Furthermore, chapters I.6–7 of the Rhetoric offer topoi which can also be found in the third book of Topics ; in the Topics they are clearly called ‘ topoi ’, so that there is less pressure to think that they are premises rather than topoi . (b) Grimaldi 1958 requires that in order to build a rhetorical argument one needs the logical form of an argument provided by the topoi plus the material (content) provided by the specific premises or idia . A more refined version of this ‘complementarity’-view has been suggested by Rubinelli 2009, who, however, also allows of the possibility that some enthymemes are taken only from the topoi , while others are only taken from the idia . Against Grimaldi’s view it is has been objected that many of the common topoi listed in chapters II.23–24 are not based on linguistic, semantic or logical categories as the topic-neutral topoi of the Topics are. Some of them only offer strategic advice, for example, to turn what has been said against oneself upon the one who said it. For this reason, it would be misleading to interpret the common topoi of the Rhetoric as providing logical schemes of inference. (c) Havrda 2019 has attacked the presuppositions of the traditional view, but does not settle for the alternatives suggested by Solmsen, Grimaldi or Rubinelli either. According to him, Aristotle never distinguishes between common and specific topoi . Rather, he distinguishes between two different sources of rhetorical deductions; one source, the dialectical one, uses topoi , while the other, which is based on definitions provided by arts and sciences, does not.

8. Style: How to Say Things with Words

Rhet. III.1–12 introduces the topic of lexis , usually translated as ‘style’. This topic was not announced until the final passage of Rhetoric II, so that most scholars have come to think of this section as a more or less self-contained treatise. The insertion of this treatise into the Rhetoric is motivated by the claim that, while Rhetoric I & II dealt with thought (dianoia), i.e., about what the orator should say, it remains to inquire into the various ways of saying or formulating one and the same thing. In the course of Rhetoric III.1–12 it turns out that Aristotle tackles this task by using some quite heterogeneous approaches. After an initial exploration of the field of delivery and style (III.1) Aristotle tries to determine what good prose style consists in; for this purpose he has to go into the differentiation and the selection of various kinds of nouns, one of which is defined as metaphor (III.2). The following chapters III.3–6 feature topics that are at best loosely connected with the theme of good prose style; among these topics is the opposite of good style, namely frigid or deterring style ( psuchron ) (III.3), the simile, which turns out to be connected with the metaphor (III.4), the issue of correct Greek (III.5), the appropriateness (III.7) and the means by which one’s style becomes long-winded and dignified (III.6). Chapters III.8–9 introduce two new approaches to the issue of style, which seem to be unrelated to everything that has been said so far: These are the topics of the rhythmical shaping of prose style and of periodic and non-periodic flow of speech. Chapters III.10–11 are dedicated to how the orator can ‘bring things before one’s eyes’, which amounts to something like making the style more vivid. Again metaphors are shown to play a crucial role for that purpose, so that the topic of metaphor is taken up again and deepened by extended lists of examples. Chapter III.12 seems to make a new start by distinguishing between oral and written style and assessing their suitability for the three genres of speech (see above §2 ). The philosophical core of Aristotle’s treatise on style in Rhetoric III.1–12 seems to be included in the discussion of the good prose style (see below §8.1 ), however it is the topic of metaphor (see below §8.2 ) that has attracted the most attention in the later reception up to the present day.

Originally the discussion of style belongs to the art of poetry rather than to rhetoric; the poets were the first, as Aristotle observes, to give an impulse for the study of style. Nevertheless he admits that questions of style or, more precisely, of different ways to formulate the same subject, may have an impact on the degree of clarity: “What concerns the topic of lexis , however, has some small necessary place in all teaching; for to speak in one way rather than another makes some difference in regard to clarity; although not a great difference…” ( Rhet. III.1, 1404a8–10). Clarity again matters for comprehension and comprehensibility contributes to persuasiveness. Indeed Aristotle even claims that the virtue or excellence ( aretê ) of prose style ultimately depends on clarity, because it is the genuine purpose of a speech is to make something clear. In prose speeches, the good formulation of a state of affairs must therefore be a clear one. However, saying this is not yet enough to account for the best or excellent prose style, since clear linguistic expressions tend to be banal or flat, while good style should avoid such banality. If the language becomes too banal it will not be able to attract the attention of the audience. The orator can avoid this tendency of banality by the use of dignified or elevated expressions and in general by all formulations that deviate from common usage. On the one hand, uncommon vocabulary has the advantage of evoking the curiosity of an audience. On the other hand the use of such elevated vocabulary bears a serious risk: Whenever the orator makes excessive use of it, the speech might become unclear, thus failing to meet the default requirement of prose speech, namely clarity. Moreover, if the vocabulary becomes too sublime or dignified in relation to prose’s subject matter (Aristotle assumes it is mostly everyday affairs), the audience will notice that the orator uses his words with a certain intention and will become suspicious about the orator and his intentions. Hitting upon the right wording is therefore a matter of being clear, but not too banal; In trying not to be too banal, one must use uncommon, dignified words and phrases, but one must be careful not to use them excessively or inappropriately in relation to prose style and the typical subject matter of prose speeches.

Bringing all these considerations together, Aristotle defines the good prose style, i.e. the virtue of prose style, as follows: “Let the virtue of linguistic form be defined as being clear, for since the logos is a (linguistic, sc.) sign, it would fail to bring about its proper function, whenever it does not make clear (whatever it is the sign of, sc.)—and neither banal/mean/flat ( tapeinên ) nor above the deserved dignity, but appropriate ( prepon )” ( Rhet. III.2, 1404b1–4; similar at III.12, 1414a22–26). According to this definition, the virtue of prose style has to avoid two opposed tendencies, both of which are excessive and therefore fallacious: The good style is clear in a way that is neither too banal nor too dignified, but appropriate (in proportion to the subject matter of prose speech). In this respect the definition of stylistic virtue follows the same scheme as the definition of ethical virtues in Aristotle’s ethical writings, insofar as both the stylistic virtue and the virtue of character are defined in terms of a mean that lies between two opposed excesses. If the virtue of style is defined as a mean between the banality involving form of clarity and overly dignified (and hence inappropriate) speech, it is with good reason that Aristotle speaks of only one virtue of prose style, and not of clarity, ornament (by dignified expressions) and appropriateness as three distinct virtues of style. However, from the times of Cicero and Quintilianus on, these three, along with the correctness of Greek or Latin, became the canonical four virtues of speech ( virtutes dicendi ). Reading Aristotle through the spectacles of the Roman art of rhetoric, scholars often try to identify two, three or four virtues of style in his Rhetoric .

Finally, if the virtue of style is about finding a balance between banal clarity, which is dull, and attractive dignity, which is inappropriate in public speeches, how can the orator manage to control the different degrees of clarity and dignity? For this purpose Aristotle equips the orator with a classification of words (more or less the same classification can also be found in Poetics chapter 21): First of all Aristotle distinguishes between the kuria onamata , the standard expressions, and the glôtta , the borrowed words, idioms or vernacular expressions. Most examples that Aristotle gives of this latter class are taken from the different Greek dialects, and most examples of this type are in turn taken from the language of the Homeric epos. Further classes are defined by metaphors and by several expressions that are somehow altered or modified, e.g., newly coined expressions ( pepoiêmena ), composite expressions (especially new or unusual compositions ( ta dipla )), and lengthened, shortened or otherwise altered expressions. Sometimes Aristotle also uses the term kosmos under which he collects all epithets and otherwise ornamental expressions. These different types of words differ in accordance with their familiarity. Most familiar are the usual or current words, the least familiar words are the glôtta or words that are newly coined. The metaphors are also unknown and unusual, because a usual, well-known word is used to designate something other than its usual designation (see below §8.2 ). The best established words, the kuria , make their subject clear, but do not excite the audience’s curiosity, whereas all other types of words are not established, and hence have the sort of attraction that alien or foreign things used to have. Since remote things are admirable ( thaumaston ) and the admirable is pleasant, Aristotle says, one should make the speech admirable and pleasant by the use of such unfamiliar words. However one has to be careful not to use inappropriately dignified or poetic words in prose speech. Thus the virtue of style is accomplished by the selection and balanced use of these various types of words: Fundamental for prose speech is the use of usual and therefore clear words. In order to make the speech pleasant and dignified and in order to avoid banality the orator must make moderate use of non-familiar elements. Metaphor plays an important role for prose style, since metaphors contribute, as Aristotle says, clarity as well as the unfamiliar, surprising effect that avoids banality and tediousness.

According to Aristotle Poetics 21, 1457b9–16 and 20–22, a metaphor is “the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion”. These four types are exemplified as follows:

Most of the examples Aristotle offers for types (i) to (iii) would not be regarded as metaphors in the modern sense; rather they would fall under the headings of metonomy or synecdoche. The examples offered for type (iv) are more like modern metaphors. Aristotle himself regards the metaphors of group (iv), which are built from analogy, as the most important type of enthymemes. An analogy is given if the second term is to the first as the fourth to the third. Correspondingly, an analogous metaphor uses the fourth term for the second or the second for the fourth. This principle can be illustrated by the following Aristotelian examples:

Examples (a) and (b) obey the optional instruction that metaphors can be qualified by adding the term to which the proper word is relative (cp. “the shield of Ares ,” “the evening of life ”). In example (c), there is no proper name for the thing that the metaphor refers to. In example (d) the relation of analogy is not, as in the other cases, indicated by the domain to which an item is referred to, but by a certain negation (for example “without name”); the negations make clear that the term is not used in its usual sense.

Metaphors are closely related to similes; but as opposed to the later tradition, Aristotle does not define the metaphor as an abbreviated simile, but, the other way around, the simile as a metaphor. The simile differs from the metaphor in the form of expression: while in the metaphor something is identified or substituted, the simile compares two things with each other, using words as “like,” “as”, etc. For example, “He rushed as a lion” is, according to Aristotle, a simile, but “The lion rushed” is a metaphor.

While in the later tradition the use of metaphors has been seen as a matter of mere decoration, which has to delight the hearer, Aristotle stresses the cognitive function of metaphors. Metaphors, he says, bring about learning ( Rhet. III.10, 1410b14f.). In order to understand a metaphor, the hearer has to find something common between the metaphor and the thing the metaphor refers to. For example, if someone calls the old age “stubble”, we have to find a common genus to which old age and stubble belong; we do not grasp the very sense of the metaphor until we find that both, old age and stubble, have lost their bloom. Thus, a metaphor not only refers to a thing, but simultaneously describes the thing in a certain respect. This is why Aristotle says that the metaphor brings about learning: as soon as we understand why someone uses the metaphor “stubble” to refer to old age, we have learned at least one characteristic of old age.

• Accepted opinions: endoxa
• Argument: logos
• Art: technê
• Character: êthos
• Counterpart: antistrophos
• Credible: axiopistos
• Decision (practical): prohairesis
• Deduction: sullogismos
• Emotions: pathê
• Enthymeme: enthumêma
• Example: paradeigma
• For the most part: hôs epi to polu
• Induction ( epagôgê )
• Judgement: krisis
• Location: topos (an argumentative scheme)
• Maxim: gnômê
• Means of persuasion: pistis (in pre-Aristotelian use this word also designates a certain part of the speech)
• Metaphor: metaphora
• Persuasive: pithanon
• Place: topos (an argumentative scheme)
• Practical intelligence: phronêsis
• Premise: protasis (can also mean ‘sentence’, statement’)
• Probable: eikos
• Proof: apodeixis (in the sense of ‘demonstrative argument, demonstration’)
• Proof: tekmêrion (i.e. a necessary sign or sign argument)
• Sign: sêmeion (can also mean ‘sign argument’)
• Style: lexis
• Specific topoi : idioi topoi (Aristotle refers to them also by ‘ idiai protaseis ’ or ‘ eidê ’)
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Aristotle’s Contributions to Logic: Foundations and Influence

This essay is about Aristotle’s contributions to logic and their lasting impact on philosophy and science. It explains how Aristotle’s work especially through his treatises known as the “Organon” established the foundations of syllogistic reasoning and categorized logical arguments. The essay also highlights Aristotle’s analysis of language his exploration of modal logic and his influence on scientific methodology. Despite the rise of symbolic logic in later centuries Aristotle’s principles continue to underpin modern logical theory and remain a significant subject of study. The essay underscores the enduring relevance of Aristotle’s rigorous approach to reasoning in various fields of knowledge.

How it works

Aristotle often called the “Father of Logic” made huge contributions that laid the groundwork for much of Western philosophy and science. His systematic way of thinking and arguing has deeply shaped how we analyze and make sense of the world. Aristotle’s writings on logic especially in his “Organon” series are still a crucial part of studying philosophy today and are important in current debates.

Aristotle’s approach to logic is all about breaking down syllogisms—those logical arguments made up of statements that lead to a conclusion.

In his “Prior Analytics” he carefully looks at different kinds of these arguments sorting them into ones that make sense and ones that don’t. An example of a syllogism is: “All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. So Socrates is mortal.” This kind of reasoning where the conclusion is guaranteed by the statements before it became a big part of what Aristotle taught. By figuring out and classifying all sorts of syllogisms he gave us a way to tell if an argument holds water which is super important for talking about philosophy and science.

But Aristotle didn’t stop there. In his works like “Categories” and “De Interpretatione” he dives deep into how words and their meanings work. He explores how different kinds of statements and the things they talk about like subjects and what they say about them (called predicates) connect to each other and the real world. Aristotle introduces terms and statements setting up the basics for understanding how language makes sense. His breakdown of different kinds of statements—like talking about what things are how much there is how good or bad they are how they relate to each other in space and time what they’re doing and how they feel—gives us a better idea of how language shows what’s out there. This study of language and how it’s put together has influenced a lot of other ideas in fields like how we talk what we say and what we mean.

Aristotle also gets into something called modal logic which is about figuring out what has to be true what could be true and what might be true. In “Modal Logic” he looks at how some statements are always true some could be true and some might be true depending on things. By going deep into modal logic Aristotle opens up more ways to think about what’s true and what that means. His ideas about modal logic set up more ways to look at how things fit together logically helping out thinkers like Avicenna Thomas Aquinas and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

One big thing about Aristotle’s logic is how it’s used in science. In his “Posterior Analytics” Aristotle lays out a plan for how we get real knowledge from logic. He says real solid knowledge comes from reasoning out what must be true from things everyone can see. This focus on making sure all the dots connect and checking things out with our own eyes became a huge part of how science works. By pulling together logic and checking things out for real Aristotle gives us a way to see how science can figure things out that’s stuck around through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This has made a big impact on thinkers like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton.

Even with all the ways Aristotle’s logic has changed things it’s not been without its problems. When symbolic logic started to take off in the 1800s and 1900s with people like George Boole Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell it brought new more formal ways of doing things that added on to—and sometimes even replaced—Aristotle’s old syllogisms. Symbolic logic with its careful math-like notes and ways to handle big tricky ideas gave us a better tool for working out arguments. But even with these new ideas Aristotle’s first thoughts are still a big deal in how we get why things make sense.

In today’s world of thinking and logic Aristotle’s still got a lot to teach us. His careful way of working out arguments his dive into how words and ideas fit together and his way of using logic for science make him a big deal in how people think and work. As we keep going out to know more and grow what we think is true Aristotle’s ideas in logic are still a good guide showing us how to think things through and make things clear and smart.

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Aristotle Essays (Examples)

807+ documents containing “aristotle” .

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Aristotle and tragedy to aristotle tragedy had.

Aristotle and Tragedy To Aristotle, tragedy had to follow certain characteristics. These included certain rendering of protagonist, the style of the writing, the direction of the plot, the diction, the reflection, the context, and the melody. Each and everything had its own nuances and meaning and the ideal Tragedy would be written in such a way that the reader or spectator would find the protagonist similar to himself and pity him all the more. eeing the protagonist as a naive person whose misfortune came about through error rather than through vice, the reader may identify with himself and see the same situation occurring to him. This purging of fear will cause a catharsis that will balance the emotions and leave the person with a greater emotional well-being than he had before. It is in this manner, that Aristotle considered Tragedy to be a greater tool than history since it dramatizes the cause-and-effect….

Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S.H. Butcher . The Internet Classics Archive.

 http://classics.mit.edu /Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html#200

McManus, BF. CLS 267 Outline of Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy-in the POETICS

http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html

Aristotle and Relationships at Work

Aristotle and a Great Workplace (APA Citation) Aristotle and a Great Workplace From the beginning of its evolution, human beings have been searching for the meaning of happiness. While many may seem this to be an inconsequential questions, others have devoted entire lives to the search for happiness. One such person who devoted a great deal of thought to the question of man's happiness was the famous ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle. His views on ethics, virtue, and happiness not only can be applied to the individual life, or the actions of the state, but in the modern world can be also applied to the workplace. Civic relationships and civic friendships can be the basis of the creation of a great workplace where managers maintain personal relationships with their employees, the employees then feel valued and increase their productivity, and the business as a whole can prosper and flourish. In his book The Nicomachean….

Aristotle. (n.d.) The Nichomachean Ethics. Retrieved from  http://www.constitution.org/ari/ethic_00.htm 

Buzachero, Vic. (2013). "Transforming into a Great Workplace." Great Place to Work

Institute. Retrieved from  http://www.greatplacetowork.com/storage/documents/Publications_Documents/ 

Scripps_Business_Case.pdf

Aristotle's Poetics in the Context

hile the judges can be considered responsible for hamartia, Socrates himself is also accountable for hamartia when considering that he plays an important role in influencing the judges in wanting to put him to death. He actually has a choice, but he is reluctant to adopt an attitude that would induce feelings related to mercy. Ethos is also a dominant concept across Socrates' discourse, as he apparently believed that by influencing the audience to think about how they perceive goodness he would open people's eyes and influence them in seeing that he was actually innocent. Socrates basically felt that people needed to think about themselves and on how they understand the difference between right and wrong in order to be able to learn more about his personality. He practically believed that by adopting this attitude he would influence the masses in feeling that it would be extremely wrong for them to….

Works cited:

Aristotle, "The Poetics," (Kessinger Publishing, 2004)

Plato, "Apology," (United Holdings Group

Aristotle to Answer the Question

It is therefore important to understand first off Aristotle's thoughts on human nature in order to understand his opinions on ethics and virtue. That human beings are social beings is something familiar to us nowadays as it was in Aristotle's time. Consequently, ethics and virtue were part of human nature and so every living being was supposed to live by what is righteous. This is another characteristic separating us from animals. Thus, humans being sociable persons and living within a society, politics also had to implement rules and regulations that would help people. But it didn't necessarily mean that a man who did right things and lived by the rules was essentially virtuous because he was in fact constraint to do so. Therefore, to Aristotle, someone who did right things because of the wrong reasons was not at all virtuous. The virtuousness only applied if that person acted because of his….

Aristotle thought happiness was longer in coming, it was the manner of being actualized and fulfilling one's true potential using their own individual gifts: Again, if the virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure and pain, for this reason also virtue will be concerned with pleasures and pains. This is indicated also by the fact that punishment is indicated by these means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the nature of cures to be effected by contraries (Aristotle, III). Humans, therefore, also exist in the macro sense as being agents of morality through their individual actions. but, human behavior being what it is, morality is only one of the facets of human's evolution towards happiness. The wider notion of human agency presumably includes, besides actions and choices, emotional dispositions, non-moral or 'prudential' forms of practical reasons, imagination, the….

What is a Great Workplace? (2012). Greatplacetowork.com. Retrieved from:  http://www.greatplacetowork.com/our-approach/what-is-a-great-workplace 

Workplace Flexibility in the 21st Century. (2009). Society for Human Resource Management. Retrieved from:  http://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Articles/Documents/09-0425%20Workplace%20Flexibility%20Survey%20Report-Executive%20Summary.pdf 

Akril, J. (2010). Essays on Plato and Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press.

Aristotle. (2007). Nicomachean Ethics. New York: NuVision.

Aristotle was one of the philosophers who spent a great deal of their time in defining and explaining ethics since he believed that ethics was a science whose practicality was crucial to mankind. In this paper, we shall discuss the ideas of Aristotle pertaining to the civic relationships including the virtues, happiness, justice, deliberation and friendship. In the second part of the paper, we shall also discuss how these ideas are being applied to the workplaces that are considered to be among the best ones. Civic Friendship and Justice -- ideas and arguments of Aristotle The framework of friendship that was drawn out by Aristotle demonstrates a relationship between personal and civic friendship. Aristotle claimed that in order to have a good life, it is not only important for a person to have intimate relationships at the personal level, but it is also important for that person to have civic friendship (Cooper,….

Bibliography:

Cooper, J (1977). "Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship." Review of Metaphysics.

Ferguson, John (1972). Aristotle. New York: Twayne Publishers.

Frede, Michael. (1987). Essays in Ancient Philosophy.

Galston, Miriam (1994). "Taking Aristotle Seriously: Republican-Oriented Legal Theory and the Moral Foundation of Deliberative Democracy." California Law Review.

Aristotle vs Aquinas

Aristotle and Aquinas Law and Justice Aristotle and Aquinas disagreed on law and justice as Aristotle held that justice was inherent to the individual in terms of a sense of reasoning or inner knowing of that, which was right and wrong. Aristotle had the belief that law should be grounded in a natural divine order of some type and that this cosmic order is that which vested law with a binding authority. Aristotle additionally believed as did Plato that law's function at its core was to provide compensation for the judgment of men, which is at best erratic and differentiated from one man or culture to another man or culture. In one example provided by Aristotle in which he drew upon Plato's 'Socrates' Aristotle noted the passions of people and their randomness which however, can be, by reason, brought together and focused toward a higher purpose. Aristotle's view of political systems or proper….

Aristotle's Poetics Elements of Tragedy According to

Aristotle's Poetics Elements of Tragedy According to Aristotle, tragedy needs to be an imitation of life according to the law of probability or necessity. Tragedy is serious, complete, and has magnitude. It must have a beginning, middle, and end and be spoken in language that is fit for noble characters. Furthermore it must be acted, as opposed to epic poetry, which is narrated. Tragedy shows rather than tells. Finally it must result in the purging of pity and fear, or a catharsis. Tragedy is based in the fundamental order of the universe, it creates a cause-and-effect chain that clearly reveals what may happen at any time or place because that is the way the world operates. Tragedy arouses not only pity but also fear, because the audience can envision themselves within this cause-and-effect chain. Tragedy as a whole is composed of six elements: plot, character, language, thought, spectacle and melody. Melody and language….

Works Cited

Euripides. "Medea." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Vol. A, 2nd edition. Eds. Satah Lawall and Maynard Mack. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2002. p. 695- 724.

Sophocles. "Antigone." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Vol. A, 2nd edition. Eds. Satah Lawall and Maynard Mack. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2002. p. 617-657.

Sophocles. "Oedipus the King." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Vol. A, 2nd edition. Eds. Satah Lawall and Maynard Mack. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2002. p. 658-692.

Aristotle Dante Goodness According to

Aristotle is inclined to view human interaction as something which incites one to desire the happiness of his relational partner as the chief end of the relationship. This is a point which is absolutely essential to the conception of goodness which Aristotle holds as most valuable. He identifies a self-love, as it were, as one of the most important elements in forging a meaningful and positive relationship to the world. An individual thus inclined, and prone there to by his own virtue, goodness, self-sufficiency and constancy, will desire no gain for himself from the lot of another man. Defining his own virtues as those by which he may further his own ends, he is then free to pursue life and relationships unencumbered by the vulnerability to develop envy, to harbor resentment or to harvest exploitation. The mutuality of these qualities, rather than an imbalance which can be particularly injurious….

Alighieri, Dante. (etext, 1997). Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy. Gutenberg. Online at  http://www.bralyn.net/etext/literature/dante.alighieri/1ddcl10.txt 

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, translated by W.D. Ross. The Internet Classics Archive.

Online at  

Aristotle in the First Line

In conclusion, in Aristotle's account, some ends may be worth choosing for their own sakes and for the sake of happiness. Friends, honor, pleasure, and moral virtue may be worth choosing for two reasons: for their intrinsic value and for their contribution to happiness. Aristotle's ethics is eudaimonistic, meaning that every action is ultimately to be justified by reference to the person's own happiness. For Aristotle, anything that fulfills its essential function is one that performs well. He believes that the nature of a thing is the measure in terms of which we judge whether or not it is functioning well. In Aristotle's opinion, things are good when they achieve their specific ends. According to Aristotle, there is an end of all of the actions that we perform which we desire for the sake of itself. This is what he refers to as eudaimonia, which is desired for its own sake with….

Bibliography

Johnston, Ian. (November 18, 1997). Lecture on Aristotle's Nicomachaean Ethics. Public Domain.

Lear, Gabriel. (2004). Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton University Press.

Wikipedia. (2005). Eudaimonia. Retrieved from the Internet at  http://www.wikipedia.com .

Aristotle's Ideas and Thoughts on

oth of these are thus translated through Aristotle's health component in his enumeration of elements that could make a person happy. One's health will be affected if the toilets at work are dirty, as well as if the working conditions do not ensure the physical security of the individual. This means that when applying for a job, the individual will look first of all at these elements before deciding whether the respective position may have some of the other elements Aristotle mentions in order for him to be a happy employee. Many of the other components of Aristotle's enumeration of what happiness is about belong to the fourth and fifth levels in Maslow's pyramid of needs. Most notably, these are related to the capacity of the respective office or workplace to offer the individual the ability to exercise his intellectual and moral skills and to be recognized by his fellow workers,….

1. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W.D. Ross. On the Internet at  http://virtuescience.com/nicomachean-ethics.html . Last retrieved on October 5, 2009

Aristotle the Politics

Aristotle's Politics According to Aristotle, the basic principle of democracy freedom. Democracy is a political system where in there is an establishment of a partnership amid the demos or the common people which in turn makes out how would the power be distributed and authority be delegated within a city. Thus, democracy, by Aristotle, is a type of freedom. This freedom has two aspects according to Aristotle, the first "being ruled and ruling in turn," while the other aspect involves the freedom of the citizens to live as they please. The first aspect is regarded as "law." Nevertheless, both these aspects of freedom, or the essentiality of democracy are essential for a true democracy to operate and function smoothly ensuring freedom. In this paper, we are going to argue that both these types of freedom or liberties as explained by Aristotle are essential for a true democracy and that without any….

Aristotle Hobbes

Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes and the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence It has been said that authors such as Aristotle, Locke and Hobbes greatly influenced the "Founding Fathers" of the United States Constitution. The purpose of this paper is to explore the writings of these authors as well as review the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and to form an opinion as to whether or not it is believable that the above statement is correct. Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have long been considered as Political Science writers. Aristotle's works were recorded as being around 350 .C.E., John Locke, in 1619 and Thomas Hobbes in the year of 1689 to 1690. The insight which they show evidence of gives a clear picture that long has man contemplated freedom and written eloquently of liberty. Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776. This was a declaration….

The Declaration of Independence (1776) (Retrieved from the Internet 14 Aug 2004: (www.constitutionsociety.org)

Aristotle "Politics" (Book One 350 B.C.E,.(Retrieved from the Internet 14 Aug 2004: ( 

Aristotle's Category Theory Briefly Describe

3. Aristotle's Theory of Change In his Theory of Change, Aristotle attempts to explore the nature of how ad why things evolve, or change in form from one object or concept to another. One of the greatest wonders of man, which is still even debates today, is he process of how things evolve to be. Well, Aristotle presented his Theory of Change to account for how and why objects develop into varying forms. This theory then posits the idea that matter is the main fundamental component of change. In many cases, when an object changes, it is the matter that changes, and not the more abstract form hat embodies that matter. In this idea, objects evolve from what was previously non-existent. The objects themselves do not appear from nowhere, but rather that they are morphed in their physical form from another form. For example, a pencil comes non-pencilness, which is typical from….

Aristotle The Relationship Between Slavery and Political

Aristotle: The Relationship etween Slavery and Political Government and Constitution Aristotle (384-322 C) was a Greek philosopher as well as a scientist and social thinker. He is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the ancient world and his views on political theory still have influence today. Central to all his philosophical thinking is the idea of reason and rationality. Aristotle's view that reason was the primary and most important aspect of human nature has important implications for his theory of the political constitution of society, and particularly for his justification of slavery. His thinking was based on the belief that the constitution and ordering of society as a political body should be based on the principle of reason and order that was to be found in nature. Aristotle conducts his philosophical inquiries based on the presuppositions that the universe is a rational and ordered whole in which each part has a….

Aristotle: Politics. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed November 6, 2004.  http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aris-pol.htm#Slavery 

Bullen, P. The Epitome of Aristotle's Political Theory. 1997. Accessed November 6, 2004.  http://paul.bullen.com/BullenEpitome.html 

ClassicNote on Aristotle's Politics. Accessed November 5, 2004.  http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/politics/summ1.html

Can you discuss realism in education?

There are four different philosophical approaches in education: idealism, realism, pragmatism, and existentialism.  While each of these four philosophical approaches can be seen in parts of modern-day education, realism is probably the most pervasive current philosophical influence.

Realism developed from the teachings of Aristotle and can be thought of as concerning objective facts.  While different people may perceive things in various ways, the objective truth of an event does not change.  This emphasis on rational thought means that realism underpins much of what we think of as truth. 

Realism is reflected in educational approaches that teach critical thinking skills....

What are some topics one can write about in a research paper about Thomas Aquinas?

Thomas Aquinas was an Italian philosopher who was eventually canonized and made into a saint.  Because of his sainthood, there are myths surrounding Thomas Aquinas that may be difficult to distinguish from the factual information surrounding his life.  As a result, you may want to be wary when looking at religious sources of information about his life, if you are supposed to be focusing on fact-based biographical-type information.  However, investing the mythology of his life would also be a worthwhile topic of pursuit, such as his proof of the existence of God .....

What is the difference between Plato, Aristotle, and Alfarabi\'s ideal leader and ideal city?

It can be difficult to distinguish between the different approaches taken by various philosophers.  Plato and Aristotle were directly linked to each other and to Socrates in a student-teacher relationship. Socrates taught Plato, who taught Aristotle.  However, Alfarabi was not part of this relationship.  While he was very influenced by Plato’s philosophy, in many ways he took a very different approach to philosophy, particularly the understanding of the relationship between the body and the soul.  The difference in philosophical approaches is very noticeable in how each of the three philosophers viewed the....

Writing a 3000 word essay on human condition and need help with an essay outline.

I. Introduction A. Definition of the Human Condition B. Importance of Studying the Human Condition C. Thesis Statement: Exploring key aspects of the human condition and their significance in shaping human existence.

II. Historical Perspectives on the Human Condition A. Ancient Philosophical Views (e.g., Aristotle, Plato) B. Medieval and Renaissance Perspectives (e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli) C. Enlightenment Thinkers (e.g., Rousseau, Hobbes)

III. Psychological Dimensions of the Human Condition A. Human Emotions and Behavior B. Cognitive Processes and Perceptions C. Impact of Social and Environmental Factors

IV. Existential and Philosophical Views A. Existentialism: Meaning and Purpose B. Absurdity and Anxiety in Human Existence C.....

Black Studies - Philosophy

Aristotle and Tragedy To Aristotle, tragedy had to follow certain characteristics. These included certain rendering of protagonist, the style of the writing, the direction of the plot, the diction, the…

Aristotle and a Great Workplace (APA Citation) Aristotle and a Great Workplace From the beginning of its evolution, human beings have been searching for the meaning of happiness. While many may…

hile the judges can be considered responsible for hamartia, Socrates himself is also accountable for hamartia when considering that he plays an important role in influencing the judges in…

Business - Ethics

It is therefore important to understand first off Aristotle's thoughts on human nature in order to understand his opinions on ethics and virtue. That human beings are social beings…

Aristotle thought happiness was longer in coming, it was the manner of being actualized and fulfilling one's true potential using their own individual gifts: Again, if the virtues are…

Aristotle was one of the philosophers who spent a great deal of their time in defining and explaining ethics since he believed that ethics was a science whose practicality…

Business - Law

Aristotle and Aquinas Law and Justice Aristotle and Aquinas disagreed on law and justice as Aristotle held that justice was inherent to the individual in terms of a sense of reasoning…

Aristotle's Poetics Elements of Tragedy According to Aristotle, tragedy needs to be an imitation of life according to the law of probability or necessity. Tragedy is serious, complete, and has magnitude.…

Research Proposal

Aristotle is inclined to view human interaction as something which incites one to desire the happiness of his relational partner as the chief end of the relationship. This…

In conclusion, in Aristotle's account, some ends may be worth choosing for their own sakes and for the sake of happiness. Friends, honor, pleasure, and moral virtue may be…

oth of these are thus translated through Aristotle's health component in his enumeration of elements that could make a person happy. One's health will be affected if the toilets…

Aristotle's Politics According to Aristotle, the basic principle of democracy freedom. Democracy is a political system where in there is an establishment of a partnership amid the demos or the…

Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes and the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence It has been said that authors such as Aristotle, Locke and Hobbes greatly influenced the "Founding Fathers"…

3. Aristotle's Theory of Change In his Theory of Change, Aristotle attempts to explore the nature of how ad why things evolve, or change in form from one object or…

Aristotle: The Relationship etween Slavery and Political Government and Constitution Aristotle (384-322 C) was a Greek philosopher as well as a scientist and social thinker. He is considered one of…

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