Aristotle’s Philosophy: Key Concepts and Classifications
Aristotle’s Core Ideas
1. ArisPlat: Opposition to Platonic Ideas
Aristotle expresses his opposition to the doctrine of the teacher about ideas and their implicit commitment to develop a scientific rather than poetic alternative to the joint search. Aristotle seeks a connection, real or metaphorical, between the sensible and the intelligible, between the universal and the concrete.
NewConSaber: Knowledge Through Causes
Aristotle posits that true knowledge is knowledge of causes. He is more attentive to the diversity of the reality we perceive, distinguishing between theoretical science and practical science, which have different objects of study.
ConTeleológica: Natural Reality
Aristotle sees natural reality integrated into the intelligible and the sensible, the universal and the concrete. The reality that we must begin with, according to Aristotle, is the concrete things we perceive around us through our senses. This is Aristotelian realism.
NatuHumana: The Human Soul
Aristotle understands the natural man as the soul, the vital principle that makes both animal and human inseparable. Body and soul are one reality in which only conceptually can we distinguish the immaterial from the corporeal. The study of the soul should be based on biological science.
Science Logic: The Need for Demonstrative Science
Aristotle’s demand that science be demonstrative, moving away from myth and metaphor, requires previous research into how scientific knowledge is achieved. This leads to the development of a science of science, comprising an analytical logic of the forms of thought.
Realidad1ª: Singular and Specific Reality
Aristotle warns that the subject of predication is always singular and specific, i.e., an individual. The specific individual things around us that we perceive through our senses are the first reality. This is what Aristotle calls ousia. Accidental qualities, amounts, only exist and can only be perceived in concrete things.
2. Types of Knowledge
SaberClases: Natural Knowledge
The first moment of knowledge proper to humans is experience, which comes from dealing with the individual and concrete. Technical knowledge is the ability to produce something useful or beautiful from a concept that is teachable. Scientific knowledge is knowing the why of things, showing them from the beginning.
ClasifiCiencias: Classification of Sciences
For Aristotle, science starts from the individual and concrete, covering not only theoretical knowledge but also the productive and practical. Productive knowledge deals with making things. Practical knowledge covers action, how to act in various circumstances. Theoretical knowledge is the most perfect, not having production or action as its object, but simply the truth. Examples include:
- Mathematics: studying geometric properties that do not change.
- Physics: studying sensible realities that have the ability to change and move.
- Metaphysics: the first Aristotelian science, examining being as being, its principles, and causes.
Logic is the instrument of science, determining the formal conditions for the validity of all knowledge.
ClasesRealy: Classification of Predicates
The correspondence between what we say about things and what things are gives rise to a classification of the predicates or attributes that are possible on a subject. This classification aims to achieve a full and perfect understanding of reality. Aristotle distinguishes nine types of possible accidental predicates on any subject, in addition to the predicate that expresses essence:
- Entity
- Quantity
- Quality
- Value
- For
- When
- Position
- State
- Action
- Passion