Aristotle’s Philosophy: A Critique of Plato’s Doctrine
Historical Context of Aristotle’s Philosophy
The intellectual work of Aristotle developed in the 4th century BC. Greece had defeated Persia in the Greco-Persian Wars. However, Athens suffered a defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. This was a time of crisis for the Greek ideal of the polis. A new power emerged, governed by Philip, who conquered all of Greece. Philip, aware of Aristotle’s prestige, appointed him as tutor to his son, Alexander the Great. Alexander continued his father’s work, conquering the Persian Empire, Egypt, and part of India. After Alexander’s death, the Empire was divided, and Aristotle had to leave Athens, taking his intellectual work with him.
This crisis was reflected in all aspects of culture, with the transition from classical art (which governed the ideal of order, serenity, and rationality) to Hellenistic art (which incorporated Eastern influence and expressed violent movement and human suffering). The architectural orders (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian) became more sophisticated. Tragedy, studied by Aristotle himself, evolved as Euripides humanized the heroes.
The question about the arché (the underlying principle of all things) was replaced by the question of the human reality of the Sophists and Socrates. Plato used this to create a complete philosophical system that would respond to questions of metaphysics, morality, and politics. To this end, he founded the Academy, where a 16-year-old Aristotle entered. However, after Plato’s death, Aristotle separated himself from Plato’s theories and founded a rival school, the Lyceum. Both schools were fundamental to philosophy, enriched by their different approaches. Towards the end of Aristotle’s life, the Hellenistic schools began to emerge: Hedonism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Skepticism.
Philosophical Context: A Critique of Plato’s Doctrine
Generally speaking, Aristotle’s philosophy can be interpreted as a long reckoning with Platonic philosophy.
The fundamental thesis of Plato’s thought was the claim that substances are ideas. For Aristotle, in contrast, substances are individuals in the physical world. Plato’s cosmological dualism, according to Aristotle, is a grave mistake that exacerbates the problem to be solved. Plato’s world of ideas, intended as the principle for explaining the world of things in its three aspects (metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical-political), results in having two worlds to explain instead of one. By doubling the object to be known, the problem to be solved is also doubled. Against Platonic dualism, Aristotle asserts that the only reality is this physical world we inhabit, and that we should try to explain it from within, without resorting to an “external world.” One can speak of Aristotelian naturalism, which contrasts with Platonic idealism.
For Plato, the model for understanding philosophy was mathematics. Mathematics provided examples of the necessity of ideas, the decoupling of knowledge from sensory experience, and a strict and ideal order uncontaminated by matter. In contrast, the model of knowledge for Aristotle was biology, a discipline that the Greek sage had the merit of founding. Biology studies things from our experience in the physical world, sorting them into types that are perpetuated by reproduction. Thus, biology is the method that Aristotle assumes, along with a sense of wonder at the order of reality, the spirit of his philosophy. For Aristotle, nature is subject to a strict teleology, which is responsible for its order.