What did Aristotle do and believe?

Answer 1

Aristotle did a lot of philosophizing. His main beliefs were that :

1. That an idea has no power to produce the corresponding concrete object.

2. That the form, rather than the idea, held in the mind has a tendency to produce a concrete reality like itself. eg. the form of a building in the architect's mind is in some sense the cause of the building.

3. That metaphysical power and action achieve an outcome of complete development governed by four kinds of causes:

• the Formal - planning aspects:in mind, eg. design of building.
• the Material - physical aspects:in reality, eg. building made of.
• the Final - purpose aspects:in function, eg. end use of building.
• the Efficient - personnel aspects:in creators, eg.designers, builders, users of building.

4. That a spiritual explanation of the universe can be best attained by careful investigation and comparison of actual phenomena. His experimental and inductive methods were in harmony with modern science, of which he laid the foundation, along with that of the deductive science of logic. Aristotle was the one great authority, throughout the Middle Ages, on science and philosophy, in both theological and secular worlds.

5. That all knowledge is developed from sense impressions, and embraced in the categories of substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, posture, action and passion.

6. That syllogism (reasoning by means of a major and a minor premise followed by a conclusive statement), and deductive method are supreme in logic.

7. That ethically, the supreme good consists in contemplation and action combined, and virtue is the golden mean between two vices.

8 He was born on 384 bc.

More input

The above answer is logically TRUE, within the totally dominant 'rational' surroundings. These views have been taught in Western and Mohammedan culture as 'history' for ages. Philosophers are part of 'rational culture and subset of 'rational' scientists, so this is no surprise. It is a per definition correct 'rational' answer. TRUE science

The 'rational' 'natural laws' were in fact invented in ancient times by the hellenist greek wizard Aristotle. The view of the wealthy greek freemen in that time made into Nicomachean Ethics. Most destructive component: seeing the intuition of poor people, women and slaves (local common sense) as animal-like and inferior

Aristotle believed in a logical reality (logic = aristotle's god, logic is in reality, but logic did not make reality. So far so good, but Aristotle saw logic as existing independent of reality. In Aristotle's view some humans had a lot of logic in themselves and were superior, others had little logic and were barbarians.

This almost fascist view in many ages faded away. But unluckily Aristotle's views were in the 12th age AC translated in Latin (using Roman prejudices) and afterwards revived in Catholicism by the aristocrat priest Thomas Aquinas.

They were recognized in being very useful for things like: defending rich-poor duality, defending slavery and the dominant position of males.

Until Enlightenment these views were sold as God's natural laws.

In Enlightenment Immanuel Kant made God into 'metaphysics' with logic 'ratio'

99.999% of western people in 2010 still in essence let themselves be steered by 'ratio' (with ratio priests 'politicians' and 'scientists')

Neglecting much more sophisticated intuition, that was tested and improved in billions of years

But the 'ratio' paradigm is in recession

Time for a 'paradigm shift', a leap to the next paradigm

To get a feeling (just that) think of 'nerds' versus 'hiphoppers'.

Shy (thus intravert and stubborn) and very 'rational versus self-confident (extravert, just surrendering to emotion)

Answer 2

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who made significant contributions to various fields such as logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and Biology. He believed in the importance of observation and empirical evidence in understanding the natural world. Aristotle's works have had a lasting influence on Western philosophy and science.