You are on page 1of 10

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know

About Aristotle

Chelsea Petersen, Garrett Parrish, and Zeke Michel


EDU 1020
Aristotle Group Paper: What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community
College Should Know About Aristotle
December 11, 2014
Salt Lake Community College

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

Aristotle was an early Greek philosopher who studied under Plato. Aristotle was
born in 384 B.C. In Stagira, Greece. Aristotle had learned basic anatomy and dissection
from his father before He went off to school. At the age of 17 he enrolled in Platos
Academy and began tutoring Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was the son of
King Philip of Macedon, and was a thirteen year old who was wild and crude. Aristotle
had managed to turn him around and give him a respect for science and knowledge.
Aristotle sent Alexander and his soldiers to collect specimens of plant, marine, and
animal life from all of their conquests for him to study. He went on to open his own
school called the Lyceum in Athens, which was probably funded by Alexander. The
Lyceum was a school targeted for the middle class of society and easily became the
rival of Platos Academy.
Aristotle had a lot to say about physics and motion, he actually wrote a book
about his accounts on motion entitled Physics. Aristotle defines motion as the actuality
of potentiality. Although this seems like a logical contradiction, other philosophers such
as Thomas Aquinas say that this is the only way you can define motion. For Aristotle the
word actuality is close in meaning to what it means to be alive. An accurate rendering of
Aristotles definition includes A) that motion is rest, and (b) that a potentiality, which
must be, if anything, a privation of actuality, is at the same time that actuality of which it
is the lack (IEP)
Many people point to Aristotle and the Greeks as the first to employ the scientific
method. They are not wrong in thinking this, but they are not the only ones that
contribute to the fine tuning of the scientific method. Aristotles introduction of the
scientific method to the world is very necessary, and it shows how much the use of

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

measurement and observation can do to experimentation and make more defined


hypotheses and conclusions. This leads to more clear findings, stronger outcomes, and
stronger conclusions. The basic steps to the scientific method are: 1) ask a question, 2)
Do background research if possible, 3) Construct a hypothesis, 4) Test your hypothesis
by doing an experiment, 5) Analyze your data and draw a conclusion, 6) and finally
communicate your results. This format is very effective in experimentation because
without it all science would be too randomized and too many false conclusions would
exist.
Metaphysics is the philosophical term for the study of what it real. Aristotle wrote
about it in 350 B.C.E. saying that all humans naturally desire the knowledge of the
external worlds existence and everything in it. He says that we can determine what is
real by using our sense experience. The only problem with that is that we have to be
able to trust our sense experience from the external world. This is a circular argument,
you must trust that there is an external world to trust sense experience to give you
evidence that there is an external world. This is simply one example of the difficulty
philosophers faced with the idea of metaphysics. They couldnt determine how to figure
out what evidence they could and could not trust to be accurate. Aristotle believed that
wanting to know what is real and what is not is what makes us human. Having this
curiosity is what makes us human.
Aristotle was a student of Plato, but disagreed publicly with many of his ideas
about metaphysics. He didnt use Platos name in many of his 81 disagreements,
however like Plato, Aristotle wrote in dialogues between he and his students to record
his opinions and views versus theirs.

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

Aristotle is properly recognized as the originator of the scientific study of life. This
is true despite the fact that earlier Greek natural philosophers speculated on the origins
of living things and much Hippocratic medial corpus that was ether was written before or
during Aristotle's life. Even Plato has times devote a considerable part of his speech to
the human body and its function. Nevertheless, before Aristotle, only a few of the
Hippocratic treatises are both systematic and empirical, and their focus is exclusively on
human health and disease.
Aristotle considered the investigation of living things and animals. Constituting
roughly 25% of the extant corpus, his zoological writings provide a theoretical defense
of the proper method for biological investigation; and they provide a record of the first
systematic and comprehensive study of animals.
Aristotle wrote a number of treatises based around his study of Zoology:

The Parts of Animals


The History of Animals
The Movement of Animals
The Progression of Animals
On Sense and Sensible Objects
On Memory and Recollection
On Sleep and Waking
On Dreams
Of Prophecy in Sleep

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

On Length and Shortness of Life


On Youth and Old Age
On Life and Death
On Respiration
On Breath
On Plants

As an example of an early observational biology experiment, Aristotle took bird


eggs at various stages in their development, he was trying to figure out what order the
organs developed. He noticed that the heart was the first thing to grow and the other
organs would follow. This fueled his theory of epigenesist, when the organs grow in a
specific order.

But he was wrong. Without the use of a microscope, what he thought developing
was a heart was actually a spinal cord. He thought that the most important organ would
grow first, he believed that the heart was the seat of thought, logically this would be the
first organ to develop. However his theory of a strict order to development was correct
and wouldn't get established for centuries.

The subject being Poetry, I propose to speak not only of the art in general but
also of its species and their respective capacities; of the structure of plot required for a
good poem; of the number and nature of the constituent parts of a poem; and likewise

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

of any other matters in the same line of inquiry. Let us follow the natural order and begin
with the primary facts.
Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and most fluteplaying and lyre-playing, are all, viewed as a whole, modes of imitation. But at the same
time they differ from one another in three ways, either by a difference of kind in their
means, or by differences in the objects, or in the manner of their imitations.
Here is a poem from Aristotle
Virtue, to men thou bringest care and toil;
Yet art thou life's best, fairest spoil!
O virgin goddess, for thy beauty's sake
To die is delicate in this our Greece,
Or to endure of pain the stern strong ache.
Such fruit for our soul's ease
Of joys undying, dearer far than gold
Or home or soft-eyed sleep, dost thou unfold!
It was for thee the seed of Zeus,
Stout Herakles, and Leda's twins, did choose
Strength-draining deeds, to spread abroad thy name:
Smit with the love of thee
Aias and Achilleus went smilingly
Down to Death's portal, crowned with deathless fame.
Now, since thou art so fair,
Leaving the lightsome air.

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

Atarneus' hero hath died gloriously.


Wherefore immortal praise shall be his guerdon:
His goodness and his deeds are made the burden
Of songs divine
Sung by Memory's daughters nine,
Hymning of hospitable Zeus the might
And friendship firm as fate in fate's despite. -Aristotle

Aristotle saw Language as a system that helps us express the world around us.
By using language to describe what we experience, other human beings can
understand what pictures and ideas we have in our minds. He studied grammar,
language development, conjugates, and much more. He also studied root words in Latin
and Greek, and found many common grounds in most languages. Sounds that things
make generally help to determine names of them. Today, many language majors follow
in the footsteps of Aristotle.

Aesthetics includes architecture, paintings, music, poetry, and much more. These
things were all thought of as beautiful art forms. Aristotle didnt believe in a scale
determining how beautiful things were, but instead that there either was beauty or there
was not. Aristotle set out to find the difference between good and beauty because the
saw them as the same thing. Once he found that good is simply a concept of positivity
and beauty was more of a visual thing, he rejected the idea of beauty all together.
Aristotle was a man that didnt care what things looked like as long as they functioned to

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

their highest potential. He didnt spend much time on aesthetics because he started to
see it as unimportant to the functioning society.

Aristotle had a lot of significant effects on politics in Greece. Aristotle believes


that democracy is the way to go and the monarchy should be mixed into it as well. He
strongly disagreed with Platos Republic. Aristotle believed that political science was the
most important of all the sciences. He believed that military science, household
management, and rhetoric all fell under this science. Since this governs all other
sciences its ends serve as means to its ends. Aristotles political science surrounds the
two fields which are classified as ethics and political philosophy by modern
philosophers.

Every new freshman at Salt Lake Community College should know about
Aristotle. Aristotle has given us many, many contributions that have led us to the society
that we live in. Perhaps the most Impressive and most useful is his use of the scientific
method. Without the scientific method our science today would be next to nothing. The
scientific method follows a very simple pattern 1) ask a question, 2) Do background
research if possible, 3) Construct a hypothesis, 4) Test your hypothesis by doing an
experiment, 5) Analyze your data and draw a conclusion, 6) and finally communicate
your results. This very simple pattern is still the most effective way to find answers and
communicate them to the world. Without it we would be going backwards. Aristotle has
also given us many other contributions that have led us to great success in our lives and
without his contributions we would not be nearly as advanced as we are. He has many

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

contributions to the fields of physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, politics and


government, linguistics, and so on. Without him we wouldnt have come so far in all of
these subjects. This is why he is so important and why every freshman at Salt Lake
Community College should know the name Aristotle and all of his teachings.

Bibliography

Aristotles footprints in the linguist's garden. (n.d.). doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2003.05.001


Aristotles Zoology. (n.d.). Retrieved 29 November 2014, from
https://explorable.com/aristotles-zoology
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.-a). Retrieved 29 November 2014, from
http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-mot/
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.-b). Retrieved 29 November 2014, from
http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-met/
James, L. (2006, February 15). Aristotles Biology. In Plato Stanford. Lennox, James.
Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-biology/
Not Found. (n.d.). Retrieved 29 November 2014, from
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.htm
Robin, S. (2000, March 18). Aristotles Logic. In Plato Stanford. Smith, Robin. Retrieved
from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know
About Aristotle

10

(n.d.). Retrieved 29 November 2014, from http://edoc.mpg.de/301110


Aristotle on Aesthetics. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2014, from
http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/A/AES/aesthetics-09.html
Miller, F. (1998, July 1). Aristotle's Political Theory. Retrieved December 11, 2014, from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/
Scruton, R. (n.d.). The development of Western aesthetics. Retrieved December 11,
2014, from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7484/aesthetics/11681/The-development-ofWestern-aesthetics

You might also like