Who was Aristotle

He is one of the philosophers of the ancient Greece more known in our days. Aristotle was a disciple of Plato and shared and interpreted in a personal way the theories of his teacher. Aristotle has been one of the most important scientists of our culture and with an enormous influence on the development of science until almost our days. In addition, he was the pioneer of modern logic or scientific language. As we can see, therefore, your contributions have been extremely important to reach the reality of our days. In we explain to you who was Aristotle .

Plato and Aristotle

Aristotle began as a disciple of Plato's school and when he died, Aristotle was 36 years old. When he was 17, he entered the Platonic school but, after many years, he became one of the greatest critics of this idealist philosophy in which he talks about the myth of the cave. While Plato and his contemporaries bet for explanations of the world based on idealism and fantasy, Aristotle bet for a more realistic and naturalistic vision denying the separation that Plato promulgated from the two worlds: the real and the projected in the cave; in we tell you how is the myth of the cave.

Aristotle argued that there was only one world (unlike Plato who spoke of two) and that it was possible to understand this reality through experience and contemplation. For this philosopher, universal ideas are not separated from matter but are immersed in it; this was the essential reason why Aristotle gave great importance to the study of science and direct observation of nature.

In this article we tell you who Plato was.

The metaphysics of Aristotle

The ethics promoted by Aristotle was based on a particular concept of human virtue . For him, the attitude that a man develops throughout his life has to be governed by prudence or by virtue; The thinker determines that there are two ways to achieve this ethic, the first is through the use of the intellect (dianoetics) and the second through the use of sensitivity and affection (ethics). Within all the virtues that can come to exist, the greatest there is is justice.

The metaphysics of Aristotle is known as the " first philosophy", that is, that deep thought that wants to study God and the divine and immaterial world. What he intends with this study is to understand the principles and causes that caused human life, for that reason, this branch of his philosophy is also considered as the science of the divine.

Movement considers the basic principle that governs the entire Universe: everything is subject to movement, everything passes through one before and one after. There is a first motor that is the one that gives movement to the Universe, an immobile motor that is God, the cause . The Universe is a closed system full of matter and outside of it, nothing exists because it is eternal. Consider that the Earth is in the center and around all the planets rotate.

Philosophy of Aristotle

Aristotelian philosophy is one of the most important legacies of ancient thought that, together with Plato, can explain in a simple way the evolution of the understanding of the world and the difference between idealism and naturalistic realism. Aristotle embodied the empirical spirit in which he questioned everything and with which he could only choose to get the answers through direct experimentation of reality. He questioned everything and was not satisfied until he checked his theses and arguments.

The Greek thinker determines that the sensitive substances are divided into two principles: matter (the material of which it is made) and the form (the structure of it). And, for him, there was no real separation of man in matter and soul as most explanations so far advocated; according to Aristotle happiness can only be achieved when one enjoys the direct contemplation of life because for this philosopher man is not divided into two aspects, but the soul and matter are a whole of the person.

However, in addition to his study on the origin of the world and the role of the human being in the universe, Aristotle also cared for other types of studies such as logic, morality, politics and aesthetics creating, at the end of his life. life, a collection of 170 works, although only 30 have reached us.

With Aristotle, science leaves the universal aside and focuses on the concrete : truth can only be achieved through the particular. Experience considers the only accurate knowledge, which is born of dealing with the individual. Distinguishes between theoretical sciences such as mathematics, metaphysics or physics, and sciences that study the practical as ethics or politics.