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Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the , philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelianism tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science.
Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At around eighteen years old, he joined Plato's Platonic Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty seven (). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored his son Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum, which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrus scrolls.
Though Aristotle wrote many treatises and dialogues for publication, only around a third of his original output has survived, none of it intended for publication. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. His teachings and methods of inquiry have had a significant impact across the world, and remain a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.
Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. The influence of his physical science extended from late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and was not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. He influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the Scholasticism tradition of the Catholic Church.
Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as "The First Teacher", and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply "The Philosopher", while the poet Dante called him "the master of those who know". He has been referred to as the first scientist. His works contain the earliest known systematic study of logic, and were studied by medieval scholars such as Peter Abelard and Jean Buridan. His influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, although always influential, has gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.
At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Classical Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy.; He became distinguished as a researcher and lecturer, earning for himself the nickname "mind of the school" by his tutor Plato. In Athens, he probably experienced the Eleusinian Mysteries as he wrote when describing the sights one viewed at the Mysteries, "to experience is to learn" (παθεĩν μαθεĩν). Aristotle remained in Athens for nearly twenty years before leaving in 348/47 BC after Plato's death.; The traditional story about his departure records that he was disappointed with the academy's direction after control passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus, although it is possible that the anti-Macedonian sentiments in Athens could have also influenced his decision. Aristotle left with Xenocrates to Assos in Asia Minor, where he was invited by his former fellow student Hermias of Atarneus; he stayed there for a few years and left around the time of Hermias' death. While at Assos, Aristotle and his colleague Theophrastus did extensive research in botany and marine biology, which they later continued at the near-by island of Lesbos.; ; During this time, Aristotle married Pythias, Hermias's adoptive daughter and niece, and had a daughter whom they also named Pythias.
In 343/42 BC, Aristotle was invited to Pella by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his thirteen-year-old son Alexander;; ; ; ; ; a choice perhaps influenced by the relationship of Aristotle's family with the Macedonian dynasty.; ; ; Aristotle taught Alexander at the private school of Mieza, in the gardens of the , the royal estate near Pella.; ; ; Alexander's education probably included a number of subjects, such as ethics and politics,; as well as standard literary texts, like Euripides and Homer.; It is likely that during Aristotle's time in the Macedonian court, other prominent nobles, like Ptolemy and Cassander, would have occasionally attended his lectures.; ; Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest, and his own attitude towards Persia was strongly ethnocentric. In one famous example, he counsels Alexander to be "a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians".; Alexander's education under the guardianship of Aristotle likely lasted for only a few years, as at around the age of sixteen he returned to Pella and was appointed regent of Macedon by his father Philip.; During this time, Aristotle gifted Alexander an annotated copy of the Iliad, which is said to have become one of Alexander's most prized possessions.; ; Scholars speculate that two of Aristotle's now lost works, On kingship and On behalf of the Colonies, were composed by the philosopher for the young prince.; provides the alternative translations On Monarchy and Colonists Aristotle returned to Athens for the second and final time a year after Philip II's assassination in 336 BC.
As a metic, Aristotle could not own property in Athens and thus rented a building known as the Lyceum (named after the sacred grove of Apollo Lykeios), in which he established his own school.; ; The building included a gymnasium and a colonnade (), from which the school acquired the name Peripatetic.; Aristotle conducted courses and research at the school for the next twelve years. He often lectured small groups of distinguished students and, along with some of them, such as Theophrastus, Eudemus, and Aristoxenus, Aristotle built a large library which included manuscripts, maps, and museum objects.; ; While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stagira. They had a son whom Aristotle named after his father, Nicomachus.; This period in Athens, between 335 and 323 BC, is when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his philosophical works.; He wrote many dialogues, of which only fragments have survived. Those works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the most part, intended for widespread publication; they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. His most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, On the Soul and Poetics. Aristotle studied and made significant contributions to "logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance, and theatre."
While Alexander deeply admired Aristotle, near the end of his life, the two men became estranged having diverging opinions over issues, like the optimal administration of city-states, the treatment of conquered populations, such as the Persians, and philosophical questions, like the definition of braveness. A widespread speculation in antiquity suggested that Aristotle played a role in Alexander's death, but the only evidence of this is an Hagnothemis made some six years after the death. Following Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens was rekindled. In 322 BC, Demophilus and Eurymedon the Hierophant reportedly denounced Aristotle for impiety, prompting him to flee to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, Euboea, at which occasion he was said to have stated "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy"; ; – a reference to Athens's trial and execution of Socrates. He died in Chalcis, Euboea of natural causes later that same year, having named his student Antipater as his chief executor and leaving a will in which he asked to be buried next to his wife. Aristotle left his works to Theophrastus, his successor as the head of the Lyceum, who in turn passed them down to Neleus of Scepsis in Asia Minor. There, the papers remained hidden for protection until they were purchased by the collector Apellicon. In the meantime, many copies of Aristotle's major works had already begun to circulate and be used in the Lyceum of Athens, Alexandria, and later in Rome.;
The order of the books (or the teachings from which they are composed) is not certain, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. It goes from the basics, the analysis of simple terms in the Categories, the analysis of propositions and their elementary relations in On Interpretation, to the study of more complex forms, namely, syllogisms and demonstration (in the Analytics) and dialectics (in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations). The first three treatises form the core of the logical theory stricto sensu: the grammar of the language of logic and the correct rules of reasoning. The Rhetoric is not conventionally included, but it states that it relies on the Topics.
| + One of Aristotle's types of syllogism
! In words !! In terms !! In equations |
What is today called Aristotelian logic with its types of syllogism (methods of logical argument), Aristotle himself would have labelled "analytics". The term "logic" he reserved to mean dialectics.
In addition, Aristotle disagreed with Plato about the location of universals. Where Plato spoke of the forms as existing separately from the things that participate in them, Aristotle maintained that universals are multiply located. So, according to Aristotle, the form of apple exists within each apple, rather than in the world of the forms.
Coming-to-be is a change where the substrate of the thing that has undergone the change has itself changed. In that particular change he introduces the concept of potentiality ( Dunamis) and actuality ( entelecheia) in association with the matter and the form. Referring to potentiality, this is what a thing is capable of doing or being acted upon if the conditions are right and it is not prevented by something else. For example, the seed of a plant in the soil is potentially ( dynamei) a plant, and if it is not prevented by something, it will become a plant. Potentially, beings can either 'act' ( poiein) or 'be acted upon' ( paschein), which can be either innate or learned. For example, the eyes possess the potentiality of sight (innate – being acted upon), while the capability of playing the flute can be possessed by learning (exercise – acting). Actuality is the fulfilment of the end of the potentiality. Because the end ( telos) is the principle of every change, and potentiality exists for the sake of the end, actuality, accordingly, is the end. Referring then to the previous example, it can be said that an actuality is when a plant does one of the activities that plants do.
In summary, the matter used to make a house has potentiality to be a house and both the activity of building and the form of the final house are actualities, which is also a final cause or end. Then Aristotle proceeds and concludes that the actuality is prior to potentiality in formula, in time and in substantiality. With this definition of the particular substance (i.e., matter and form), Aristotle tries to solve the problem of the unity of the beings, for example, "what is it that makes a man one"? Since, according to Plato there are two Ideas: animal and biped, how then is man a unity? However, according to Aristotle, the potential being (matter) and the actual one (form) are one and the same.
| + Aristotle's elements
! Element !!/ !!/ !! Motion !! Modern state of matter |
| Solid |
| Liquid |
| Gas |
| Plasma |
| Vacuum |
incorrect in modern physics.
Natural motion depends on the element concerned: the aether naturally moves in a circle around the heavens, while the 4 Empedoclean elements move vertically up (like fire, as is observed) or down (like earth) towards their natural resting places.
In the Physics (215a25), Aristotle effectively states a quantitative law, that the speed, v, of a falling body is proportional (say, with constant c) to its weight, W, and inversely proportional to the density, ρ, of the fluid in which it is falling:;
Aristotle implies that in a vacuum the speed of fall would become infinite, and concludes from this apparent absurdity that a vacuum is not possible. Opinions have varied on whether Aristotle intended to state quantitative laws. Henri Carteron held the "extreme view" that Aristotle's concept of force was basically qualitative, but other authors reject this.
Archimedes corrected Aristotle's theory that bodies move towards their natural resting places; metal boats can float if they displace enough water; floating depends in Archimedes' scheme on the mass and volume of the object, not, as Aristotle thought, its elementary composition.
Aristotle's writings on motion remained influential until the early modern period. John Philoponus (in late antiquity) and Galileo (in the early modern period) are said to have shown by experiment that Aristotle's claim that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter object is incorrect. A contrary opinion is given by Carlo Rovelli, who argues that Aristotle's physics of motion is correct within its domain of validity, that of objects in the Earth's gravitational field immersed in a fluid such as air. In this system, heavy bodies in steady fall indeed travel faster than light ones (whether friction is ignored, or not), and they do fall more slowly in a denser medium.
Newton's "forced" motion corresponds to Aristotle's "violent" motion with its external agent, but Aristotle's assumption that the agent's effect stops immediately it stops acting (e.g., the ball leaves the thrower's hand) has awkward consequences: he has to suppose that surrounding fluid helps to push the ball along to make it continue to rise even though the hand is no longer acting on it, resulting in the Medieval theory of impetus.
Meteorologica lends its name to the modern study of meteorology, but its modern usage diverges from the content of Aristotle's ancient treatise on meteors. The ancient Greeks did use the term for a range of atmospheric phenomena, but also for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Aristotle proposed that the cause of earthquakes was a gas or vapor ( anathymiaseis) that was trapped inside the earth and trying to escape, following other Greek authors Anaxagoras, Empedocles and Democritus.
Aristotle also made many observations about the hydrologic cycle. For example, he made some of the earliest observations about desalination: he observed early – and correctly – that when seawater is heated, freshwater evaporates and that the oceans are then replenished by the cycle of rainfall and river runoff ("I have proved by experiment that salt water evaporated forms fresh and the vapor does not when it condenses condense into sea water again.")
Aristotle reports on sea-life from observation on Lesbos and the catches of fishermen. He describes the catfish, electric ray, and frogfish, as well as such as the octopus and paper nautilus. His description of the hectocotyl arm of cephalopods, used in sexual reproduction, was widely disbelieved until the 19th century. He gives accurate descriptions of the four-chambered stomachs of , and of the ovoviviparous embryological development of the hound shark.
He notes that an animal's structure is well matched to function so the heron has a long neck, long legs, and a sharp spear-like beak, whereas have short legs and webbed feet. Charles Darwin, too, noted such differences, but unlike Aristotle used the data to come to the theory of evolution. Aristotle's writings can seem to imply evolution, but Aristotle saw mutations or hybridizations as rare accidents, distinct from natural causes. He was thus critical of Empedocles's theory of a "survival of the fittest" origin of living things and their organs, and ridiculed the idea that accidents could lead to orderly results. In modern terms, he nowhere says that different species can have a common ancestor, that one kind can speciation, or that kinds can become extinct.
Instead, he systematically gathered data, discovering patterns common to whole groups of animals, and inferring possible causal explanations from these. This style is common in modern biology when large amounts of data become available in a new field, such as genomics. This sets out testable hypotheses and constructs a narrative explanation of what is observed. In this sense, Aristotle's biology is scientific.
From his data, Aristotle inferred biological rules relating the life-history features of live-bearing tetrapods (terrestrial placental mammals) that he studied. He correctly predicted that brood size decreases with body mass; that Life expectancy increases with gestation period and with body mass, and that fecundity decreases with lifespan.
| + Aristotle's Scala naturae (highest to lowest)
! Group !! Examples (given by Aristotle) !! Blood !! Legs !! Souls (Rational, Sensitive, Vegetative) !! Qualities (–, –) |
| , |
| , |
| , |
| , , except eggs |
| , except scales, eggs |
| , except scales, eggs |
| , , including eggs |
| , , but placenta like tetrapods |
| , except shell |
| , |
| , (mineral shell) |
| , |
| , or , from earth |
| , |
| , |
For Aristotle, the soul is the form of a living being. Because all beings are composites of form and matter, the form of living beings is that which endows them with what is specific to living beings, e.g. the ability to initiate movement. In contrast to earlier philosophers, but in accordance with the Egyptians, he placed the rational soul in the heart. Aristotle distinguished sensation and thought, unlike previous philosophers except for Alcmaeon.
In On the Soul, Aristotle criticizes Plato's theory of the soul and develops his own in response. Firstly he criticises Plato's Timaeus which holds the soul takes up space and can come into physical contact with bodies. 20th-century scholarship held that Aristotle had here misinterpreted Plato.For instance, Ross, William D. ed. 1961. Aristotle: De Anima. Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 189. Aristotle also argued that Plato's view of reincarnation entails that a soul and its body can be mis-matched; in principle, Aristotle alleges, any soul can go with any body, according to Plato's theory.
Aristotle uses the term 'memory' for the actual retaining of an experience in the impression that develops from sensation, and for the intellectual anxiety that comes with the impression because it is formed at a particular time and processing specific contents. Memory is of the past, prediction is of the future, and sensation is of the present. Retrieval of impressions cannot be performed suddenly. A transitional channel is needed and located in past experiences, both for previous experience and present experience.
Because Aristotle believes people perceive all kinds of sense perceptions as impressions, people continually weave together new impressions of experiences. To search for impressions, people search memory itself. Within memory, if an experience is offered instead of a specific memory, that person will reject this experience until they find what they are looking for. Recollection occurs when a retrieved experience naturally follows another. If the chain of "images" is needed, one memory stimulates the next. When people recall experiences, they stimulate certain previous experiences until they reach the one that is needed. Recollection is thus the self-directed activity of retrieving information stored in a memory impression. Only humans can remember impressions of intellectual activity, such as numbers and words. Animals that have perception of time can retrieve memories of their past observations. Remembering involves only perception of the things remembered and of the time passed.
Aristotle believed the chain of thought that achieves recollection of impressions was connected systematically in relationships such as similarity, contrast, and contiguity, described in his laws of association. Aristotle believed that past experiences are hidden within the mind. A force operates to awaken the hidden material to bring up the actual experience. Association is the power innate in a mental state, which operates upon the unexpressed remains of former experiences, allowing them to be recalled.
Dreams do not involve sensing a stimulus. Sensation is involved, but in an altered manner. Aristotle explains that when a person stares at a moving stimulus such as the waves in a body of water, and then looks away, the next thing they look at appears to have a wavelike motion. When a person perceives a stimulus and it is no longer the focus of their attention, it leaves an impression. When the body is awake, a person constantly encounters new stimuli and so the impressions of previous stimuli are ignored. However, during sleep the impressions made throughout the day are noticed, free of distractions. So, dreams result from these lasting impressions. Since impressions are all that are left, dreams do not resemble waking experience. During sleep, a person is in an altered state of mind, like a person who is overtaken by strong feelings. For example, a person who has a strong infatuation with someone may begin to think they see that person everywhere. Since a person sleeping is in a suggestible state and unable to make judgements, they become easily deceived by what appears in their dreams, like the infatuated person. This leads them to believe the dream is real, even when the dreams are absurd. In De Anima iii 3, Aristotle ascribes the ability to create, to store, and to recall images to the faculty of imagination, phantasia.
One component of Aristotle's theory disagrees with previously held beliefs. He claimed that dreams are not foretelling and not sent by a divine being. Aristotle reasoned that instances in which dreams resemble future events are simply coincidences. Any sensory experience perceived while a person is asleep, such as actually hearing a door close, does not qualify as part of a dream. Images of dreams must be a result of lasting impressions of waking sensory experiences.
| + Virtues and their accompanying vices ! Too little !! Virtuous mean !! Too much |
| Vainglory |
| Over-ambition |
| Irascibility |
| Obsequiousness |
| Rashness |
| Intemperance |
| Boastfulness |
| Buffoonery |
| Spitefulness |
| Vulgarity |
| Wastefulness |
Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function ( ergon) of a thing. An eye is only a good eye in so much as it can see because the proper function of an eye is sight. Aristotle reasoned that humans must have a function specific to humans, and that this function must be an activity of the De Anima ( soul) in accordance with reason ( logos). Aristotle identified such an optimum activity (the virtuous mean, between the accompanying vices of excess or deficiency) of the soul as the aim of all human deliberate action, eudaimonia, generally translated as "happiness" or sometimes "well-being". To have the potential of ever being happy in this way necessarily requires a good character ( ēthikē aretē), often translated as moral or ethical virtue or excellence.
Aristotle taught that to achieve a virtuous and potentially happy character requires a first stage of having the fortune to be habituated, not deliberately, but by teachers, and experience, leading to a later stage in which one consciously chooses to do the best things, becoming the phronimos or virtuous man. When the best people come to live life this way their practical wisdom () and their intellect () can develop with each other towards the highest possible human virtue, the wisdom of an accomplished theoretical or speculative thinker, or in other words, a philosopher.
The common modern understanding of a political community as a modern state is quite different from Aristotle's understanding. Although he was aware of the existence and potential of larger empires, the natural community according to Aristotle was the city ( polis) which functions as a political "community" or "partnership" ( koinōnia). The aim of the city is not just to avoid injustice or for economic stability, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together." This is distinguished from modern approaches, beginning with social contract theory, according to which individuals leave the state of nature because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences".
In Protrepticus, the character 'Aristotle' states:
As Plato's disciple Aristotle was rather critical concerning democracy and, following the outline of certain ideas from Plato's Statesman, he developed a coherent theory of integrating various forms of power into a so-called mixed state:
Aristotle's discussions on retail and interest was a major influence on economic thought in the Middle Ages. He had a low opinion of retail, believing that contrary to using money to procure things one needs in managing the household, retail trade seeks to make a profit. It thus uses goods as a means to an end, rather than as an end unto itself. He believed that retail trade was in this way unnatural. Similarly, Aristotle considered making a profit through interest unnatural, as it makes a gain out of the money itself, and not from its use.
Aristotle gave a summary of the function of money that was perhaps remarkably precocious for his time. He wrote that because it is impossible to determine the value of every good through a count of the number of other goods it is worth, the necessity arises of a single universal standard of measurement. Money thus allows for the association of different goods and makes them "commensurable". He goes on to state that money is also useful for future exchange, making it a sort of security. That is, "if we do not want a thing now, we shall be able to get it when we do want it".
While it is believed that Aristotle's Poetics originally comprised two books – one on comedy and one on tragedy – only the portion that focuses on tragedy has survived. Aristotle taught that tragedy is composed of six elements: plot-structure, character, style, thought, spectacle, and lyric poetry. The characters in a tragedy are merely a means of driving the story; and the plot, not the characters, is the chief focus of tragedy. Tragedy is the imitation of action arousing pity and fear, and is meant to effect the catharsis of those same emotions. Aristotle concludes Poetics with a discussion on which, if either, is superior: epic or tragic mimesis. He suggests that because tragedy possesses all the attributes of an epic, possibly possesses additional attributes such as spectacle and music, is more unified, and achieves the aim of its mimesis in shorter scope, it can be considered superior to epic. Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he and his school had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop.
Aristotle was the founder of term logic, pioneered the study of zoology, and benefited future scientists and philosophers through his contributions to the scientific method. Taneli Kukkonen, observes that his achievement in founding two sciences is unmatched, and his reach in influencing "every branch of intellectual enterprise" including Western ethical and political theory, theology, rhetoric, and literary analysis is equally long. As a result, Kukkonen argues, any analysis of reality today "will almost certainly carry Aristotelian overtones ... evidence of an exceptionally forceful mind." Jonathan Barnes wrote that "an account of Aristotle's intellectual afterlife would be little less than a history of European thought".
Aristotle has been called the father of logic, biology, political science, zoology, embryology, natural law, scientific method, rhetoric, psychology, realism, criticism, individualism, teleology, and meteorology.
The scholar Taneli Kukkonen writes that "in the best 20th-century scholarship Aristotle comes alive as a thinker wrestling with the full weight of the Greek philosophical tradition." What follows is an overview of the transmission and influence of his texts and ideas into the modern era.
Aristotle's pupil and successor, Theophrastus, wrote the History of Plants, a pioneering work in botany. Some of his technical terms remain in use, such as carpel from carpos, fruit, and pericarp, from pericarpion, seed chamber. Theophrastus was much less concerned with formal causes than Aristotle was, instead pragmatically describing how plants functioned.
Under the Ptolemies, the first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not.
The primary way that ancient philosophers in the Roman empire engaged with Aristotle's technical work was via philosophical commentary; interpretation and explication of the text of Aristotle along with their own synthesis and views on the topics discussed by Aristotle. The peripatetic commentary tradition began with Boethus of Sidon in the 1st century BC and reached its peak at the end of the 2nd century AD with Alexander of Aphrodisias, who was appointed to the official Imperial chair of Aristotelian philosophy established by Marcus Aurelius, many of whose commentaries still survive.
With the rise of Christianity and closure of the pagan schools by the order of Justinian in 529, the study of Aristotle and other philosophers in the remainder of the Byzantine period was primarily from a Christian perspective. The first Byzantine Christians to comment extensively on Aristotle were Philoponus, who was a student of Ammonius, and Elias and David, students of Olympiodorus, along with Stephen of Alexandria in the early seventh century, who brought the study of Plato and Aristotle from Alexandria to Constantinople. John Philoponus stands out for having attempted a fundamental critique of Aristotle's views on the eternity of the world, movement, and other elements of Aristotelian thought. Philoponus questioned Aristotle's teaching of physics, noting its flaws and introducing the theory of impetus to explain his observations.
After the Scholasticism Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologica, working from Moerbeke's translations and calling Aristotle "The Philosopher", the demand for Aristotle's writings grew, and the Greek language manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe that continued into the Renaissance. These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. Scholars such as Boethius, Peter Abelard, and John Buridan worked on Aristotelian logic.
According to scholar Roger Theodore Lafferty, Dante built up the philosophy of the Divine Comedy on a foundation of Aristotle, just as the scholastics used Aristotle as the basis for their thinking. Dante knew Aristotle directly from Latin translations of his works and indirectly through quotations in the works of Albert Magnus.Lafferty, Roger. " The Philosophy of Dante", p. 4 Dante acknowledges Aristotle's influence explicitly in the poem, when Virgil justifies the Inferno's structure by citing the Nicomachean Ethics. Inferno, Canto XI, lines 70–115, Mandelbaum translation. Dante refers to him as "he / Who is acknowledged Master of those who know". Inferno, Canto IV, lines 115-16 trans., 131 original, Robert Pinksky translation (1994); note to line, p.384
Charles Darwin regarded Aristotle as the most important contributor to the subject of biology. In an 1882 letter he wrote that "Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle". Also, in later editions of the book "On the Origin of Species', Darwin traced evolutionary ideas as far back as Aristotle; the text he cites is a summary by Aristotle of the ideas of the earlier Greek philosopher Empedocles.
The Dutch historian of science Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis writes that Aristotle and his predecessors showed the difficulty of science by "proceeding so readily to frame a theory of such a general character" on limited evidence from their senses. In 1985, the biologist Peter Medawar could still state in "pure seventeenth century" tones that Aristotle had assembled "a strange and generally speaking rather tiresome farrago of hearsay, imperfect observation, wishful thinking and credulity amounting to downright gullibility".
Zoologists have frequently mocked Aristotle for errors and unverified secondhand reports. However, modern observation has confirmed several of his more surprising claims. Aristotle's work remains largely unknown to modern scientists, though zoologists sometimes mention him as the father of biology or in particular of marine biology. Practising zoologists are unlikely to adhere to Aristotle's chain of being, but its influence is still perceptible in the use of the terms "lower" and "upper" to designate taxa such as groups of plants. The evolutionary biologist Armand Marie Leroi has reconstructed Aristotle's biology, while Niko Tinbergen's four questions, based on Aristotle's four causes, are used to analyse animal behaviour; they examine function, phylogeny, mechanism, and ontogeny. The concept of homology began with Aristotle; the evo-devo Lewis I. Held commented that he would be interested in the concept of deep homology. (2017). 9781316601211, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316601211 In systematics too, recent studies suggest that Aristotle made important contributions in taxonomy and biological nomenclature.
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