A Companion to Aristotle

Georgios Anagnostopoulos, Georgios Anagnostopoulos

• Editorial: Wiley-Blackwell
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118610633
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Filosofía
• Categoría: Filosofía antigua y clásica

The Blackwell Companion to Aristotle provides in-depth studies of the main themes of Aristotle's thought, from art to zoology.

• The most comprehensive single volume survey of the life and work of Aristotle
• Comprised of 40 newly commissioned essays from leading experts
• Coves the full range of Aristotle's work, from his 'theoretical' inquiries into metaphysics, physics, psychology, and biology, to the practical and productive "sciences" such as ethics, politics, rhetoric, and art

Part I

Aristotle’s Life and Works

1

Aristotle’s Life

GEORGIOS ANAGNOSTOPOULOS

To many, Aristotle is the last great figure in the distinguished philosophical tradition of Greece that is thought to begin with Thales (ca. 600 BCE). Of course, Greek philosophy did not end with Aristotle; it continued for several centuries in the various schools – those of the Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics as well as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s own Peripatetic School – that flourished in Athens and elsewhere up to the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire. Yet there is considerable truth in the opinion of the many, if viewed as a claim about great individual figures in the Greek philosophical tradition. For Aristotle was the last great individual philosopher of ancient times, one of the three thinkers – the others being Socrates (470–399 BCE) and Plato (427–347 BCE) – that comprise what many consider to be the greatest philosophical trio of all time. Their philosophical careers span more than a hundred years, and all three were major figures in the lively philosophical scene of fifth- and fourth-century Athens. It was a unique moment in the history of philosophy, one that saw Socrates engaging in discussions with Plato – by far the most distinguished of his followers – and Plato instructing and debating with Aristotle – by far the most eminent student to graduate from and do research in his own school, the Academy.

While Socrates and Plato were born and spent their entire lives in Athens – indeed, Socrates took pride in the fact he left Athens only for military service (Plato, Crito 52b–c) – Aristotle was not born in Athens, never became a citizen of it and, according to some, never felt at home in it, despite his extended stays there. He spent most of his life and died away from his birthplace. Aristotle’s life may conveniently be divided into the following five periods, which correspond to his residency in certain parts of the Greek world and, according to some, to the main stages of his intellectual growth.

Early Years in Stageira

Aristotle spent the first seventeen years of his life in the ancient Greek city-state of Stageira, where he was born in 384 BCE. Stageira, colonized by Andros (an Aegean island) and Chalcis of Euboia, is located in the eastern-most finger of the Chalcidici Peninsula, a region of the ancient Greek world located about 500 km north of Athens. His father’s family had its origins in Messenia at the south-western tip of the Peloponnesos; the family of his mother, Phaistis, came from Chalcis of Euboia, an island on the Aegean Sea, a few kilometers west of Athens. While there is no evidence that Aristotle retained any contact with Messenia, he stayed connected to his mother’s family and estate in Chalcis; he spent the last year of his life and died there. Aristotle’s father, Nicomachos, belonged to the Asclepiadae medical guild and served as a court physician to the Macedonian King Amyntas II. Aristotle probably spent some of his childhood in the Macedonian palace in Pella, thus establishing connections with the Macedonian monarchy that were to last throughout his whole life. Both of Aristotle’s parents died when he was still a boy, and his upbringing was entrusted to a family relative named Proxenos, whose own son, Nicanor, was later adopted by Aristotle.

The paucity of information on Aristotle’s childhood has made it difficult to answer questions about influences on him during the early, formative years of his life, and it has provided ample ground for speculation. Some have wondered how one of the world’s greatest and most influential minds could have come from a rather remote part of the Greek world and far away from Athens. Such wondering seems unfounded. As G. E. R. Lloyd (1968: 3) observes, in the ancient Greek world, many great thinkers were born or flourished in places far away from Athens. Democritus, whose atomistic conception of matter has shaped the scientific account of the natural world for centuries, came from a place (Abdera) that is farther away from Athens than is Aristotle’s birthplace. It is perhaps more interesting to ask about the influence his early surroundings may have had on Aristotle’s attitudes or ideas. For example, one might puzzle about the personal basis of Aristotle’s views on the ideal size of a polis (city-state). At the time he was articulating these views, Alexander the Great was creating a political entity that extended eastward from the Greek mainland to India, something Aristotle would not identify as a polis on account of its size. Many of the Greek city-states that were most familiar to Aristotle, including those of Athens and Sparta, far exceeded in size his ideal polis which, according to him: (a) should be self sufficient (Pol VII.5 1326b26 and throughout this work); (b) should have a population “that is the largest number sufficient for the purposes of life and can be taken at a single view” (VII.4 1326b25); and (c) its territory must be able to be taken in at one view (VII.5 1327a3). Of course, Aristotle gives arguments in support of his views, and any assessment of the plausibility of the latter would solely depend on the soundness and validity of these arguments. Yet it is striking how well Aristotle’s birthplace met the requirements he sets for his ideal city. Its timber,¹ mining, and fishing industries probably provided enough for the sustenance of its citizens, and from the highest point of the site that is now identified with ancient Stageira one can see in one view what most likely was the whole city-state. Also, its proximity to the sea satisfied Aristotle’s defense and commercial requirements (VII.5, 6). Its relatively small number of citizens would also have made it possible for its residents to know each other and develop the kind of friendship among themselves that Aristotle considers desirable in a polis. It is not unreasonable to suppose that his childhood experiences of living in Stageira left lasting impressions in Aristotle’s mind and colored his attitudes toward and beliefs about aspects of the polis.

Scholarly opinion is almost unanimous in supposing Aristotle’s interest in biology and on the empirical approach to inquiry, both evident throughout his works, were due to his father’s influence during his childhood years. He and his associates compiled a vast body of facts and developed some far-reaching theories about nearly every biological phenomenon with which they were familiar. Indeed, Aristotle seems to be startled by the phenomena of living things, even ordinary ones (e.g., that trees have roots), and his desire to find explanations for them and, in turn, fit these into a comprehensive explanatory scheme is boundless. Members of the Asclepiadae guild were well-known in antiquity for carrying on empirical research that included dissections and, according to Galen (On Anatomical Procedures II.1), they also trained their sons in such research, suggesting that Aristotle’s strong interest in the study of living things, his strong reliance on observation in such studies, and the doing of dissections were learned from his father and instilled in him from his early childhood. In his biological works, he makes references to dissections and even to works titled Dissections, which appear on the ancient lists of his writings but have not survived. These same lists include lost works on medicine.² It is apparent from the frequent references to medicine throughout his extant corpus that he had well-defined views about medicine as a scientific inquiry and healing art (Sens 436a17, and throughout his ethical works and Met). In addition, the surroundings of Aristotle’s childhood were an ideal environment for the interest that was kindled by the family to flourish. The densely wooded area of his birthplace was teeming with animals as was the Aegean Sea with marine life, providing a large variety of specimens for observation and study, further exciting Aristotle’s inquisitive mind.

First Athenian Period

In 367 and at the age of seventeen/eighteen, Aristotle entered Plato’s Academy, where he stayed for the next nineteen years, until Plato’s death. The specific reasons that led Aristotle to join Plato’s school are not known and, once more, scholarly speculation tries to fill the void. Thus W. D. Ross (1995: 1) surmises that “We need not suppose that it was any attraction to the life of philosophy that drew him to the Academy; he was simply getting the best education that Greece could offer.” Given that in Plato’s/Aristotle’s time philosophy encompassed all disciplines – including mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, politics, ethics, etc. – it is difficult to make sense of the distinction between education and philosophy Ross wishes to draw. More importantly, given the fact that Aristotle lived the life of philosophy and in his ethics defends the view that the ideal life for a human is the contemplative life, it is quite likely that what attracted him to Plato’s Academy was precisely the life of philosophy.

Whatever Aristotle’s reasons for entering the Academy, his long stay makes it abundantly clear that he found the aims, intellectual approaches, and research endeavors of the school to his liking. It seems that Aristotle did not have personal contact with or come under the direct influence of Plato in the first two years in the Academy, since the latter was absent in Sicily. But there is no doubt that those responsible for his instruction while he was a student were following the instructional guidelines of the Academy, which reflected Plato’s own approach to education and the main tenets of his philosophical thinking. Aristotle, as was probably the case with the other prominent members of the Academy, shared some of the main tenets of Platonism, first as a student and then as an associate in the school, when he participated in teaching and engaged in research. According to Diogenes Laertius (third century CE) – one of our important sources of information on Aristotle’s life – he was “the most genuine student of Plato” (V.1). Years after his sojourn in Plato’s school, he continues to speak with affection toward those sharing the Platonist outlook, some of whom had been his associates in the Academy, considers them friends, and appears to include himself among the followers of Plato (NE I.6 1096a11).

What survives from his early writings during his stay in the Academy clearly reflects his general, but not necessarily complete, adherence to Platonism with respect to the topics he discussed, the views he articulated, and even the genre of writing he chose for expressing these views. Like the master of the Academy, he chose the dialogue as the vehicle of philosophical inquiry, writing a number of dialogues, some having titles identical to dialogues of his teacher. While only fragments of these early writings survive, it appears that he was quite successful in the use of Socrates’ and Plato’s favorite way of philosophizing. The praise he received in antiquity from Cicero and Quintilian for his graceful style is probably for his dialogues. But the issues examined in his early writings are also within that set of questions that were Plato’s main concern during his middle years – education, immortality of the soul, the nature of philosophy – and his own positions on them do not stray far from those of his teacher. But even in these early writings one can see that Aristotle does not hesitate to pursue lines that deviate from those of Plato. And if the works included in the Aristotelian Organon belong, as is commonly thought, to Aristotle’s period in the Academy, Plato’s student did not hesitate at all to challenge the teacher – indeed, to question some of the pillars of the edifice of Platonism. The relation of Aristotle’s thought to that of his teacher is a rather complicated matter, and it will be touched on in the next chapter. What I wish to stress here is that, while we may all agree that Platonism left an indelible mark on Aristotle’s thinking, it would be simplistic to suppose that we can identify a stage in his life, or that his stay in the Academy was precisely that stage, during which he was a blind follower of his teacher. Conversely, while Aristotle struck out in many new directions that are different from those taken by Plato and advanced competing theories that challenge fundamental Platonic tenets, it would also be equally simplistic to suppose that we can identify a stage in Aristotle’s life when he cleanly and irrevocably broke away from Platonism, thereafter writing works that bear no connection to any of the views or approaches of his teacher.

Scholarly controversies also abound about Aristotle’s departure from the Academy, both about the time it happened and his reasons. While Diogenes Laertius reports that Aristotle left the Academy while Plato was still alive, most scholars today believe that he departed soon after Plato died in 347. But what led Aristotle to leave the most prestigious and intellectually stimulating institution of learning of his time? Various reasons have been proposed. I. Düring (1957: 459), for example, has suggested that Aristotle’s departure was in response to the rising anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens after the sacking of Olynthus by Philip in 348. Most likely, this was a factor in Aristotle’s decision. But many scholars believe that Aristotle’s reasons primarily had to do with the choice of Plato’s successor as head of the Academy, the changes that occurred in Plato’s school following his death, and Aristotle’s deteriorating relationship with him. There might be some truth to the last claim, which is echoed in Plato’s alleged remark that “Aristotle spurns me, as colts kick the mother who bore them” (Diogenes Laertius V.1.2). But the most important reason, supposedly, was that he, like Xenocrates (another prominent member of the Academy), was not chosen to succeed Plato as director of the Academy on account of “doctrinal unorthodoxy” (G. E. R. Lloyd 1968: 4–5), with the position going instead to Plato’s nephew, Speusippus.

We hardly have any direct evidence as to why Aristotle was bypassed for the directorship of the Academy. But it is unlikely that the decision in favor of Speusippus and against both Aristotle and Xenocrates had much to do with doctrinal orthodoxy/unorthodoxy. Speusippus was no more doctrinally orthodox than the other two, having been openly critical of the canonical theory of Forms.³ W. Jaeger, one of th...