ARISTOTLE (384 322 ) p. Mario Neva Grand Philosophât de Djimé, Février, 2013
The Philosopher, as Medieval thinkers like St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas called him, or master of those who know, as Dante Alighieri calls him in his Divine Comedy: Aristotle is the first and the greatest systematic thinker in Western philosophy. Through his perspective it is possible to build a whole knowledge system, centred on a correspondence between THINGS and THOUGHT, LOGOS and WORLD. The Medieval tradition expressed this relationship with the phrase ADEQUATIO REI ET INTELLECTUS. Aristotle then celebrates the worth and scope of human reason, which is ordered to know the truth in everything, starting TAMQUAM TABULA RASA and potentially following through to the contemplation of the ARKE. That is not a naïf vision, like in some dogmatic rationalist thinkers, or that of New Age visionaries, but rather the consequence of the notion that each man naturally desires to know. Knowing truth is therefore natural. Philosophical life transforms this universal natural attitude into an art and a technique, and the result can be WISDOM. This is the reason why Aristotle states that to know the truth is at the same time easy and difficult. One of the tasks of the wise man is to put order in what he understands. We ought to clarify that, while Aristotle gives us
sufficient elements to build his system, he himself did not fully achieve it. We can think of many reasons: did he not have enough time or will-power to follow through with his work? Or was he conscious of the precariousness of philosophical statements and their necessary intricacies and APORIAS? Or even, have we lost his further philosophical production? It must be observed that Aristotle s system, like a fortress, does not have one entrance only the great creator of Western theoretical grammar seems bent on finding different gateways towards a full and satisfactory result in his research. If we let go of this hermeneutical premise, Aristotle becomes a problem and his thought appears to invite rejection... Sometimes this door is Being as Being, sometimes it is Substance and accidents and the related ten categories, sometimes it is the four principles or causes, efficient, material, formal, and final, sometimes it is the vision of a correct dynamism of each nature with its tendencies, man as a man and stone as a stone, all starting from the senses and reaching theoretical contemplation through abstraction; sometimes it is the relationship between being and movement, act and potency, matter and form, soul and body, definition and syllogism. When at the beginning of our journey we focused on the great theme of the relationship between language and thought, we set out the premise for the
understanding of the Philosopher s ties to Greek grammar as well as his ability to transcend its limitations in the realm of universal logic. Induction is the beginning of philosophical inquiry, its necessary point of departure. In Aristotle s system there is no place for innate ideas; but then truthful thinking is such a spontaneous and quick process as to be close to innate. Aristotle argues that there are many degrees of being, interconnected through the principle of analogy, so we have many degrees of truth. This doctrine presents itself as a convincing conciliation of Parmenides with Heraclitus: all real experiences are at the same time individual and composite, only the first principle is simple. Total simplicity is Pure Act, the perfection of being and thought. Those who find Aristotle s system plausible, dogmatic, univocal and static (partly Descartes, Hegel and Heidegger) have not understood the living soul and the radical dynamism of his views. To project a dynamic style of thinking is to reflect the natural dynamism of world, as finalism is for the Philosopher the true universal rule of nature. Aristotle s analysis and investigation run on the plan of the real world and that of logic at the same time doubting also plays a role in his philosophy, but it does not take pride of place as in some more recent systems and
mentality. Subjectivism too, which characterizes the postmodern outlook, is spontaneously overcome in the very act of thinking and its natural aim. In this living dynamism, as the golden point of contact between sense-experience and speculative thought, stands the principle of non-contradiction, simply evident, belonging both in the realm of experience and in that of logic. The world is wide, full of conflicts, mysterious, but not at all chaotic: all things are made to be known. This leading persuasion dominates Greek Philosophy and above all Aristotle s philosophy. In Aristotle it becomes an achievement: the radical denial of confusion and chaos. Nietzsche was the philosopher who was most in contrast with this spirit; naturally, according to Greek mentality, we must say that he was simply foolish. In comparison with Plato s idealism, Aristotle s doctrine is universally defined as realism, but we find that this dichotomy idealism-realism is incapable of mapping out the deep metaphysical relationship that binds, despite real differences, the two great leader of Western philosophy. Certainly so far Aristotle has ruled the structure of scientific thought worldwide, even in those fields where modern sciences have gone a long distance from his scientific assertions. Like Plato, Aristotle gives Philosophy the top position in the hierarchy of
human knowledge; he distinguishes between physical, ethical and dianoetic (purely theoretic) sciences. Reason rules actions, but the highest source of happiness is the highest contemplation of truth, free from the necessity to do things and to own things. Many corollaries arise from this philosophical vision: the first is that philosophy is generated in personal life when the natural inclination to think is freed from physical needs; for example, when a group allows somebody to be free from needs In Aristotle s view that is a predicament that allows men to be similar to God. We see it as achievable in the context of an aristocratic society where slavery is very common and where women are removed from public life. God is the only entity who thinks the complete truth He is the one who thinks of thinking, as Aristotle defines him. The contemplation of truth like in Plato is then the apex of the human possibility of earthly happiness. Aristotle s tendency is to consider death as natural corruption, opposed to generation, both springing from constant change. This means that like in Plato, metaphysical contemplation is the prime goal of Philosophy. Everybody knows the fascinating history of the word metaphysics; this word is not in Aristotle s vocabulary and perhaps much misunderstanding arises from the different uses of it. In Aristotle s philosophy we find that all, natural observations, laws and constitutions, poetry,
rhetoric, physic, logic, ethic, politics,.. all must and derive from and tend towards first philosophy, through inductive and deductive processes. In modern culture physics and other sciences rightly claim their autonomy and many scientists and technicians do not understand the importance of philosophy; this prejudice sometimes is reinforced by many faults of philosophers, and so a generalized prejudice against philosophy has spread worldwide; the modern mentality regards with suspicion and distrust all metaphysics, forgetting that in Aristotle a solid contemplation is impossible without a full, conscious immersion in the living world. Without doubt the scientific love of observation in the natural sciences which informed the Academy deeply influenced Aristotle, but the outlook was different. We have already looked at critiques of Plato s ideas: form in Aristotle is the inner order of each thing but now we need to overcome that critique by entering Aristotle s vision. We start from a (certainly due) criticism of Aristotle cosmology. Aristotle s cosmology was born in the encounter of observation with imagination and leads very far from the results of modern telescopic observations of the skies, which reached its pinnacle in 1927 with the proof that the solar system is a little part of a galaxy and there are many others
galaxies outside our system. Aristotle s and Ptolemy s cosmology is a synthesis of Greek observations of the sky, free from theogonies and myths. After Galileo and the Copernican revolution the notion of humanity seems to lose its primacy in the world, in contrast with its central position within Aristotle s and the Bible s Universe. We witness the progressive forming of a new paradox. Each intelligence seems to be the centre of the world inside a Cosmos which does not have a centre. That is the reason why we assist in modern times to a new oscillation between subjectivism and absolute absence of horizons, very far from a classical perspective Philosophy and Theology today must assume this topic as a fundamental one, it is impossible to ignore it; indeed very possibly their destiny would be death if they did ignore it. Theology and Philosophy are compelled to justify their presence, their importance cannot be accepted spontaneously. Nature preserves its prerogatives but each man plunged into nature is placed within an infinite, wholly Centre-less perspective. Cosmology is also the reason why modern thinkers have rejected Aristotle, whose thought had been handed down through the centuries wholesale like a dogmatic truth the modern observation of the sky starting from Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and Pascal defined a new scientific approach. Modern science seems to be very far
from Ancient and Medieval science. In addition, the development of mathematical methods and applications has been extraordinary, to the point that we consider it the greatest revolution of modern times. The unconditional success of science and technology in the Western civilization has progressively become a worldwide reality and the principal agent of globalization. We cannot understand modern philosophy if we do not ponder this fundamental topic. Finding an alternative to Aristotle was the great task of Descartes, Bacon, Galileo, Kant, Pascal, Leibniz, Husserl, Wittgenstein and Heidegger. But there is more, to complicate things and maybe to open up a new great philosophical arena. We want to address the tendency to consider human visions temporary constructions, and the attempts to build an alternative logic, alternative physics, alternative mathematics, alternative philosophy and theology. While traditional faith and religions become more radical, many atheist thinkers are describing the whole of reality as relative: holding on to a non-relative principle of reason appears to be the new form of total heresy. It is within this paradox that we see favourable conditions for a renewal and regeneration of philosophy. We reasonably reject postmodern dissolution and we consciously consider ancient thought to be able to assimilate the open mentality of
modern times; or, better, to undertake a dialogue with human cultures. Principles are principles. It is true that Neo-Scholastic and classical thinkers have worked hard in this field, but it is not possible, in a changing world, to live only of recollections, without new creative energy. Aristotle sees the unity of soul and body as a natural fact, like man s political dimension. We can then define man as an animal by genus, and as rational by his specific properties. This process of definition is possible with all things; it is purely a process of the mind; therefore our main intellectual activity is to put together and discern notions (medieval author describe this as componere et dividere ). Human happiness resides in doing as well and fully as possible what God does always, that is thinking of himself. If we look at this sentence from a Christian and Enlightenment perspective we find it -at the very least- disagreeable, but here we must try to consider it from the viewpoint of a world that did not know Christianity or critical thought: that sentence appears to us simply genial. If we read Aristotle directly we find other paths, normally overlooked in philosophy handbooks which usually are content to present Aristotle as a very good companion and a precursor to future thinkers. Plato s and Aristotle s persuasion that astonishment is the starting point
of philosophy is well-known; less well-known is the detailed exposition of this concept. Certainly the contemplation of the skies brings about the peak of astonishment, like in Kant, but Aristotle, in his realism, finds the same astonishment in doubting too, and in imagination and myth. In fact Aristotle is very close to the real mechanisms of knowledge and creative art. When people insist (it is an especially European habit), on the twilight of Western civilization, they forget that both Plato and Aristotle had a clear insight into the spectacle of the decline of civilizations what is distinctive is that they thought about the civilization of the Greek polis, Athens age of splendor, and did not witness the diffusion of Alexander s Hellenization. Consequently, Aristotle s notion of a close relationship, an ontological one, between ethics and politics, is a notion specific to the context of a powerful and free polis; but that did not turn out to be the course of history for the following centuries. Foreign dominion, like political corruption, ultimately engenders a separation between external behavior and inner persuasion. In his realism Aristotle allows ethical irrationalism its own space, and acknowledges the presence of evil in the world not so well-known is the passage where he says that
there are more bad things than good in the world. The consequence is not that he repudiates the worth of reason. This realism allows him to reflect deeply on the value of the true Philosophy. We can say with Masnovo, a great Italian commentator of Saint Thomas and Aristotle, that all men are in the truth but not all man think the truth so that all Aristotle s philosophy is both a full immersion in the world and a continuous opening of the eyes of the mind to the truth of Being, Thought as LOGOS. Opening up does not mean completely to grasp or perfectly to achieve, as we have already said before. Thomas Aquinas achieved this insight when, as he perfected the first demonstration of the existence of God, he maintained that the principle of the explanation of change is what we call GOD. Aristotle s way to GOD is rich and very significant, as he considers that in the world many things are GOOD and BEAUTIFUL; both dimensions require a superior Intelligence. The superb page of St John in the prologue of his Gospel finds in Aristotle s doctrine of first principle its ground of confrontation.
Aristotle was the preceptor of Alexander the Great. Both are sometimes believed to have been homosexual we find this assumption more than a little suspicious, perhaps the interesting stance of a noisy minority. Philosophy and love of truth do not need gossip; on the contrary what is certain is that Alexander s adventure changed the world, but not definitively: philosophy must accept that the only one reality to discover is the discreet and eternal power of human reason.