Reevaluation of Plato

Sciences

Logic - method of inquiry for all the others

Theoretical

mathematics, physics, biology, psychology and metaphysics

Practical

Ethics, Politics

Productive - Poetics - artistic creation

Slide two:

Four Causes

Material - that from which something is made

Formal - that into which something becomes

Efficient - that by which something is made

Final - that for which something is made

Reality is a plurality of individual substances,

each a fusion of form and matter,

ordered in a great chain of being from God on down

Highest Good is self realization - eudaimonia

Explanation: Aristotle begins the philosophical position known as "Realism." He was critical of Plato even though he loved him. He felt our knowledge of things came through our experience, not a previous existence in heaven. He examined language, logic, and everything he could, with an incredible appetite for knowledge. Yet moderation was his recommendation in everything else. His ethical theory focused living a life by aiming at the golden mean between extremes.

The highest good is being all you can be, especially with regard to those characteristics of man that makes him so different from the animals, rationality.

There were many values shared between Aristotle and the Platonists, and both theories aim at showing how a community can best enable the good for it's citizens, and how the citizens must be in harmony with their community for them to live the good life. But there were many significant differences between them as well.

Unfortunately, with the death of Alexander, Aristotle had to flee Athens. His work never gained the popularity that the Academy had and his work is mostly lost to the west, for a time, as the interest in Greek thought remains primarily with Idealism and other schools following Socrates ideas, but one philosopher that had impact on the Romans, that makes use of Aristotle's ideas was Epicurus.