Aristotle's contribution to biology is a natural scientist. Brief biography of Aristotle
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- Outline of message Aristotle the great natural scientist Even more remarkable are the views of the greatest natural scientist of antiquity, Aristotle, who foresaw the basic principle of Darwin's theory, the doctrine of natural selection.
He says that various phenomena occur in nature not at all in order to realize a known, pre-planned goal: rain does not fall in order to grow grain, and not in order to destroy it during threshing in the open air; individual parts of organisms were not formed in order to realize known life goals: some of them were expedient at their origin, others were inexpedient; only those that had the first property survived, while others disappeared or continue to disappear. In addition, we find in Aristotle a deep understanding of certain geological phenomena. He talks about dried up lakes, about the annual increase in sediment in the Nile delta, and speaks of uplifts and changes in the earth that occur so slowly that their results cannot be noticed by man during his lifetime. But the Stagirian naturalist was not equally happy in all his guesses, and as regards fossils, he expresses less plausible views than his predecessors. By the way, he notes that the fossilized fish found near Hercules in Asia Minor could have been formed from eggs left by fish living in the lake. But one accidentally erroneous view cannot darken the glory of a great man. He is not responsible for the fact that such ideas were eagerly seized upon in later periods and varied in all possible and impossible ways. Aristotle's ideas about the origin of fossils had the strongest influence on medieval views and served as the basis for misconceptions that were difficult to eradicate: they lasted more than a thousand years and found adherents even among geologists of our time. After the great migration of peoples, scientific activity was revived, but for a long time it was limited to the study of what was left as a legacy from the ancient world: the Bible and the works of Aristotle were in the foreground. From these two sources all geological and paleontological information was drawn; there was no place for free research: the idea of the creation of the world in seven days and Noah’s flood was taken ready-made from the Bible; Aristotle taught that fossils do not constitute the remains of extinct animals: they were formed in rock through some incomprehensible processes; this is a game of nature.
Aristotle, the greatest Greek philosopher and natural scientist, who had a tremendous influence on all subsequent development of philosophical thought. Genus. 384 BC in Stagira in Macedonia (hence stagirite); student of Plato from the age of 17; 343, at the request of Philip Maced., tutor of his son Alexander; 331 A. returned to Athens and founded a philosophical school at the Lyceum, nicknamed Peripatetic, thanks to Aristotle’s habit of teaching while walking. Aristotle died 322 in Chalcis, Euboea, where he fled after being accused of atheism. A., the all-encompassing mind of the ancient world, systematically developed all branches of knowledge of that time, put forward the importance of observation and experience, and thereby laid the foundation for the natural history study of nature; of his numerous works, only a small part has reached us: his works on logic and rhetoric, on natural science, "Metaphysics", "Ethics", "Politics" and "Poetics". The tasks of science, according to Aristotle, consist in the knowledge of being; the content of this knowledge is the general (concept), and therefore determining the relationship of the particular to the general is the main task of art. philosophy. This principle is the subject of the science of logic created by Aristotle, which, as a general theory of scientific techniques. he prefaced actual research. In metaphysics, A. retreated from Plato's teaching on ideas; A. by ideas or forms does not mean entities that exist in themselves separately from things, but the inner essence of the individual things themselves, to which reality or reality belongs. In each unit. things are inextricably linked form and matter; form is the realization (entelechy) of what matter contains within itself as a possibility. A. reduces the 4 principles of Greek to these two principles (form and matter). philosophy: form, matter, cause and purpose. All things are something like a ladder, and each thing, being a form for a lower thing, is matter in relation to a higher one. This series ends with a pure form, excluding everything material, a deity. The transition from the state of possibility to realization is movement; the deity, as a pure form, is motionless, but as an object of striving (all things strive to realize the form eternally realized in them) it is the first mover. As a naturalist, A. is known for his classification of animals and research in organology; but he remained a leader in questions of systematics, morphology, and biology for many centuries. Soul according to school A. entelechy of the body; There are three kinds of souls: plant, animal and - in humans - reason. being the form of the soul; the main activity of the mind is thinking; he is immaterial and immortal. Aristotle's ethics are eudaimonic in nature: the highest good lies in bliss; The most perfect bliss is delivered to a person by the ability to carry out scientific activities, cat. Aristotle called dianoetic virtue. Man, as a being already by nature destined for social life, can develop his perfect activity only in the community; the highest form of community life is the state. "Politics" is devoted to reviewing the forms of government. After Aristotle, in his school, on the one hand, empirical interest begins to predominate, and a tendency to specialization is revealed; on the other hand, his works are commented on in a strongly Platonic spirit. In the 8th century they are translated into Arabic; Arab and Jewish scholars study them and provide commentaries. In this form they spread in the 13th century. between the scholastics of the West. Europe; in the XIII and XIV centuries. Aristotle's influence becomes predominant, and he is declared "the supreme teacher in human affairs." - Collected Works of Aristotle was ed. in Venice in Latin translation with commentary. Averroes (1489) and in the original. (1495). Usually cited ed. Berlin Academy (1831-70), Didot, P. 1848-74. In Russian language "Categories" (Kastorsky, 1889); “On Interpretation” and “Ethics” (E. L. Radlov, 1891 and 1894); "Metaphysics", first. two books (V. Rozanov and V. Pervov, “Journal of the Ministry of Public Education” 1890); "Rhetoric" (N. N. Platonov, 1894); “About the Soul” (V. Snegirev, 1885); "Politics" (N. Skvortsov, 1865); "Poetics" (Ordynsky, Zakharov, 1885); "The Athenian Polity", recently (1890) found in Britain. museum a passage that for the first time gave an accurate idea of the history of the Athenian state. building (translations by Shubin, 1893, and Lovyagin, 1895). - See Zeller, "Gesch. d. Philos.", and Siebeck, "A." (1903).
Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron
Aristotle
(Aristotélçs) (384-322 BC), ancient Greek philosopher and scientist. Born in Stagira. In 367 he went to Athens and, becoming a student of Plato, for 20 years, until Plato’s death (347), was a member of the Platonic Academy. In 343 he was invited by Philip (king of Macedonia) to raise his son Alexander. In 335 he returned to Athens and created his own school there (Lyceum, or Peripatetic school). He died in Chalkis on Euboea, where he fled from persecution on charges of a crime against religion. He was a supporter of moderate democracy.
The works of Aristotle that have come down to us are divided according to their content into 7 groups. Logical treatises united in the collection "Organon": "Categories" (Russian translation, 1859, 1939), "On interpretation" (Russian translation, 1891), "Analysts the first and second" (Russian translation, 1952 ), "Topeka". Physical treatises: “Physics”, “On Origin and Destruction”, “On Heaven”, “On Meteorological Issues”. Biological treatises: “History of Animals”, “On the Parts of Animals” (Russian translation, 1937), “On the Origin of Animals” (Russian translation, 1940), “On the Movement of Animals”, as well as the treatise “On the Soul” ( Russian translation, 1937). Essays on “first philosophy,” which considers existence as such and later received the name “Metaphysics” (Russian translation, 1934). Ethical essays - so-called. “Nicomachean Ethics” (dedicated to Nicomacheus, son of A.; Russian translation, 1900, 1908) and “Eudemus Ethics” (dedicated to Eudemus, A.’s student). Socio-political and historical works: “Politics” (Russian translation, 1865, 1911), “The Athenian Polity” (Russian translation, 1891, 1937). Works on art, poetry and rhetoric: “Rhetoric” (Russian translation, 1894) and the incompletely extant “Poetics” (Russian translation, 1927, 1957).
Aristotle covered almost all branches of knowledge available to his time. In his “first philosophy” (“metaphysics”), Aristotle criticized Plato’s teaching about ideas and gave a solution to the question of the relationship between the general and the individual in being. The singular is that which exists only “somewhere” and “now”; it is sensually perceived. The general is that which exists in any place and at any time (“everywhere” and “always”), manifesting itself under certain conditions in the individual through which it is cognized. The general constitutes the subject of science and is comprehended by the mind. To explain what exists, Aristotle accepted 4 reasons: the essence and essence of being, by virtue of which every thing is what it is (formal reason); matter and subject (substrate) - that from which something arises (material cause); driving cause, beginning of movement; the target reason is the reason for which something is done. Although A. recognized matter as one of the first causes and considered it a certain essence, he saw in it only a passive principle (the ability to become something), but he attributed all activity to the other three causes, and attributed eternity and immutability to the essence of being - form, and He considered the source of all movement to be a motionless but moving principle - God. God A. is the “prime mover” of the world, the highest goal of all forms and formations developing according to their own laws. A.'s doctrine of “form” is the doctrine of objective idealism. However, this idealism, as Lenin noted, in many respects “... is more objective and distant, general, than Plato’s idealism, and therefore in natural philosophy more often = materialism” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 29, p. 255 ). Movement, according to A., is the transition of something from possibility to reality. Aristotle distinguished 4 types of movement: qualitative, or change; quantitative - increase and decrease; movement - spaces, movement; emergence and destruction, reduced to the first two types.
According to Aristotle, every really existing individual thing is the unity of “matter” and “form”, and “form” is the “form” inherent in the substance itself, adopted by it. One and the same object of the sensory world can be considered both “matter” and as a "form". Copper is "matter" in relation to the ball ("form"), which is cast from copper. But the same copper is a "form" in relation to the physical elements, the combination of which, according to A., is the substance of copper. All reality turned out to be, therefore, a sequence of transitions from “matter” to “form” and from “form” to “matter”.
In his doctrine of knowledge and its types, Aristotle distinguished between “dialectical” and “apodictic” knowledge. The area of the first is “opinion” obtained from experience, the second is reliable knowledge. Although an opinion can receive a very high degree of probability in its content, experience is not, according to Aristotle, the final authority for the reliability of knowledge, for the highest principles of knowledge are contemplated directly by the mind. A. saw the goal of science in a complete definition of the subject, achieved only by combining deduction and induction: 1) knowledge about each individual property must be acquired from experience; 2) the conviction that this property is essential must be proven by a conclusion of a special logical form - a category, a syllogism. The study of categorical syllogism carried out by A. in the Analytics became, along with the doctrine of evidence, the central part of his logical teaching. A. understood the connection between the three terms of a syllogism as a reflection of the connection between the effect, the cause and the bearer of the cause. The basic principle of a syllogism expresses the connection between genus, species and individual thing. The body of scientific knowledge cannot be reduced to a single system of concepts, because there is no such concept that could be a predicate of all other concepts: therefore, for A. it turned out to be necessary to indicate all the higher genera - the categories to which the remaining genera of existence are reduced.
The cosmology of A., for all its achievements (the reduction of the entire sum of visible celestial phenomena and movements of the luminaries into a coherent theory), in some parts was backward in comparison with the cosmology of Democritus and Pythagoreanism. The influence of geocentric cosmology in Africa continued until Copernicus. A. was guided by the planetary theory of Eudoxus of Cnidus, but attributed real physical existence to the planetary spheres: the Universe consists of a number of concentric. spheres moving at different speeds and driven by the outermost sphere of the fixed stars. The “sublunar” world, that is, the region between the orbit of the Moon and the center of the Earth, is a region of chaotic, uneven movements, and all bodies in this region consist of the four lower elements: earth, water, air and fire. The earth, as the heaviest element, occupies a central place, above it the shells of water, air and fire are successively located. The “supralunar” world, that is, the region between the orbit of the Moon and the outer sphere of the fixed stars, is a region of eternally uniform movements, and the stars themselves consist of the fifth - the most perfect element - ether.
In the field of biology, one of Aristotle's merits is his doctrine of biological expediency, based on observations of the expedient structure of living organisms. A. saw examples of expediency in nature in such facts as the development of organic structures from seeds, various manifestations of the expediently acting instinct of animals, the mutual adaptability of their organs, etc. In his biological works, which for a long time served as the main source of information on zoology, a classification and description of numerous species of animals was given. The matter of life is the body, the form is the soul, which A. called “entelechy.” According to the three kinds of living beings (plants, animals, humans), A. distinguished three souls, or three parts of the soul: plant, animal (sensing) and rational.
In Aristotle’s ethics, the contemplative activity of the mind (“diano-ethical” virtues) is placed above all else, which, according to his thought, contains its own inherent pleasure, which enhances energy. This ideal reflected what was characteristic of slave-owning Greece in the 4th century. BC e. separation of physical labor, which was the share of the slave, from mental labor, which was the privilege of the free. The moral ideal of A. is God - the most perfect philosopher, or “self-thinking thinking.” Ethical virtue, by which A. understood the reasonable regulation of one’s activities, he defined as the mean between two extremes (metriopathy). For example, generosity is the middle ground between stinginess and extravagance.
Aristotle considered art as a special type of cognition based on imitation and put it as an activity that depicts what could be higher than historical knowledge, which has as its subject the reproduction of one-time individual events in their bare factuality. A look at art allowed A. - in "Poetics" and "Rhetoric" - to develop a deep theory of art, closer to realism, a doctrine of artistic activity and the genres of epic and drama.
Aristotle distinguished three good and three bad forms of government. He considered good forms in which the possibility of selfish use of power is excluded, and power itself serves the whole of society; this is a monarchy, an aristocracy and a “polity” (middle class power), based on a mixture of oligarchy and democracy. On the contrary, A. considered tyranny, pure oligarchy and extreme democracy to be bad, as if degenerate, types of these forms. Being a spokesman for the polis ideology, A. was an opponent of large state entities. A.'s theory of the state was based on the vast amount of factual material he studied and collected in his school about the Greek city-states. The teachings of A., whom Marx called the pinnacle of ancient Greek philosophy (see K. Marx and F. Engels, From early works, 1956, p. 27), had a tremendous influence on the subsequent development of philosophical thought.
V. F. Asmus.
Based on his ethical and psychological concepts, Aristotle developed the theory of educating “free-born citizens” (see Ancient Greece). According to A., the three types of soul correspond to three interconnected aspects of education - physical, moral and mental. The purpose of education is to develop the higher sides of the soul - rational and animal (volitional). Natural inclinations, skills and intelligence - these, according to A., are the driving forces of development on which education is based. A. made the first attempt in the history of pedagogy to give age periodization. Considering education as a means of strengthening the state system, he believed that schools should only be state schools and in them all citizens, excluding slaves, should receive the same education, accustoming them to the state order.
Aristotle based his economic teaching on the premise that slavery is a natural phenomenon and should always be the basis of production. He studied commodity-money relations and came close to understanding the differences between subsistence farming and commodity production. Aristotle established 2 types of wealth: how the totality consumes. values and as the accumulation of money, or as a set of exchange values. A. considered production - agriculture and crafts - to be the source of the first type of wealth and called it natural, since it arises as a result of production. activities aimed at meeting people's needs and its size is limited by these needs. Aristotle called the second type of wealth unnatural, because... it arises from circulation, does not consist of objects of direct consumption, and its size is not limited in any way. A. divided the science of wealth into economics and chrematistics. By economics he understood the study of natural phenomena associated with the production of use values. He also included small trade, necessary to meet the needs of people. By chrematistics A. understood the study of unnatural phenomena associated with the accumulation of money. He also included large-scale trade here. A. had a negative attitude towards chrematistics.
The contrast between economy and chrematistics led A. to an analysis of the internal nature of goods and exchange. A. was the first to outline the distinction between consumer value and the cost of goods. He tried to analyze exchange value, but, not understanding the role of labor in creating the value of a product, he argued that only money makes different goods comparable. K. Marx wrote: “The genius of Aristotle is revealed precisely in the fact that in expressing the value of goods he discovers the relation of equality” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 23, p. 70).
Marx also noted that Aristotle perfectly explained how, from barter trade between different communities, there arises the need to give the character of money to a specific commodity that has value (see ibid., vol. 13, p. 100, note 3). But A. did not understand the historical necessity of money and believed that money became a “universal means of exchange” as a result of the agreement. A. considered money as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, and a treasure function.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Aristotle was born on the Aegean coast, in Stagira. His year of birth is between 384-332 BC. The future philosopher and encyclopedist received a good education, because his father and mother served as doctors for the king, grandfather of Alexander the Great.
At the age of 17, the promising young man, possessing encyclopedic knowledge, entered the Academy of the Samo, which was located in Athens. He stayed there for 20 years, until the death of his teacher, whom he highly valued and at the same time allowed himself to get into arguments with him because of different views on significant things and ideas.
After leaving the Greek capital, Aristotle became a personal tutor and moved to Pella for 4 years. The relationship between the teacher and the student developed quite warmly, until the moment when Macedonian ascended the throne with inflated ambitions - to conquer the whole world. The great naturalist did not approve of this.
Aristotle opened his own philosophical school in Athens - the Lyceum, which was successful, but after the death of Macedon an uprising began: the scientist’s views were not understood, he was called a blasphemer and an atheist. The place of death of Aristotle, many of whose ideas are still alive, is called the island of Euboea.
Great naturalist
The meaning of the word "naturalist"
The word naturalist consists of two derivatives, so literally this concept can be taken as “to check nature.” Therefore, a natural scientist is called scientist who studies the laws of nature and its phenomena, and natural science is the science of nature.
What did Aristotle study and describe?
Aristotle loved the world in which he lived, longed to know it, to master the essence of all things, penetrate into the deep meaning of objects and phenomena and pass on their knowledge to subsequent generations, preferring the reporting of accurate facts. He was one of the first to found science in its broadest sense: for the first time created a system of nature - physics, defining its main concept – movement. In his work there was nothing more important than the study of living beings, and, therefore, biology: he revealed the essence of animal anatomy, described the mechanism of movement quadrupeds, studied fish and shellfish.
Achievements and discoveries
Aristotle made enormous contributions to ancient natural science - proposed his own world system. Thus, he believed that in the center there is a stationary Earth, around which celestial spheres with fixed planets and stars move. Moreover, the ninth sphere is a kind of engine of the Universe. Moreover, the greatest sage of antiquity predicted Darwin's theory of natural selection, he demonstrated a deep understanding of geology, in particular the origin of fossils in Asia Minor. Metaphysics was embodied in many works of the ancient Greek - “On Heaven”, “Meteorology”, “On Origin and Destruction” and others. Science as a whole was for Aristotle the highest level of knowledge, because the scientist created the so-called “ladder of knowledge.”
Contribution to philosophy
Philosophy occupied a fundamental place in the researcher’s activities, which he divided into three types - theoretical, practical and poetic. In his works on metaphysics, Aristotle develops the doctrine of the causes of all things, defining four basic ones: matter, form, productive cause and purpose.
The scientist was one of the first revealed the laws of logic and classified the properties of being according to certain criteria, philosophical categories. It was based on the scientist’s conviction in the materiality of the world. His theory is based on the fact that the essence is in the things themselves. Aristotle gave his own interpretation of Platonic philosophy and a precise definition of being, and also thoroughly studied the problems of matter and clearly defined its essence.
Views on politics
Aristotle took part in the development of the main fields of knowledge of the time - and politics was no exception. He emphasized the importance of observation and experience and was a supporter of moderate democracy, understanding justice as the common good. It is justice, according to the ancient Greek, that should become the main political goal.
He was convinced that the political system should have three branches: judicial, administrative and legislative. Aristotle's forms of government are monarchy, aristocracy and polity (republic). Moreover, he calls exclusively the latter correct, because it combines the best aspects of oligarchy and democracy. The scientist also spoke about the problem of slavery, drawing attention to the fact that all Hellenes should be slave owners, unique masters of the world, and other peoples should be their faithful servants.
Ethics and the doctrine of the soul
It is impossible to underestimate Aristotle’s contribution to psychological science, because his doctrine of the soul is the center of all worldviews. According to the ideas of the sage, the soul is connected on the one hand - with the material component, and on the other - with the spiritual, i.e. with God blessing. She represents only the natural body. In other words, all living things have a soul, of which, according to the scientist, there are only three types: plant, animal and human (intelligent). However, the ancient Greek philosopher categorically refuted the opinion about the transmigration of souls, considering the soul, although not the body, but an inseparable part of it, and assuring that the soul is not indifferent in whose shell it resides.
Aristotle's ethics is, first of all, the “correct norm” of human behavior. Moreover, the norm has no theoretical basis, but is determined by the characteristics of society. The central principle of his ethics is reasonable behavior and moderation. The scientist was convinced that only through thinking does a person make his choice, and creativity and actions are not the same thing.
The significance of Aristotle's works
Aristotle's views were disseminated by Arabs throughout medieval Europe and were only questioned during the technological revolution of the mid-16th century. All the scientist’s lectures were collected in books - 150 volumes, a tenth of which has survived to this day. These are biological treatises, philosophical works, works on art.
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5. Aristotle (384-322 BC) - ancient Greek philosopher, encyclopedist, studied with Plato in Athens, was the teacher of Alexander the Great. In 355 he founded a school with a naturalistic bias. Author of many works on physics and literature, politics and logic, philosophy and biology, including “The History of Animals”, “On the Parts of Animals”, “On the Origin of Animals”. Founder zoology, developed the first classification of animals, expressed the idea of the common structure of animals and the correlative connection of organs, laid the foundations morphology, embryology etc. Aristotle tried to place all the bodies of nature in a certain order from simple to complex and developed the idea of a hierarchy of forms, about gradations. He divided the entire animal world into animals with blood (vertebrates) and animals without blood (invertebrates). These groups were then divided into a number of smaller divisions based on kinship. He studied the structure and function of many animals and their organs, the development of animals; allowed the possibility of the formation of new forms of animals through hybridization; related species were united into genera; pointed out the dependence of animals on environmental conditions.
7 Ideas about the spontaneous generation of life.
The essence of the spontaneous generation hypothesis is that living things continually and spontaneously arise from inanimate matter, say from dirt, dew or decaying organic matter. She also considers cases where one life form is transformed directly into another, for example, a grain turns into a mouse. This theory prevailed from the time of Aristotle (384–322 BC) until the mid-17th century, and the spontaneous generation of plants and animals was generally accepted as a reality.
In the 16th century, the era of the dominance of religious superstitions, the classical doctrine of spontaneous generation flourished. It was very actively developed at this time by the physician and naturalist Paracelsus (1493–1541) and his follower Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579–1644). The latter proposed a “method of producing” mice from wheat grains placed in a jug along with dirty laundry, which was repeatedly referred to later.
The Greek Florentinus claimed that if you chew basil and then put it in the sun, snakes will appear from it. And Pliny added that if you rub basil and put it under a stone, it will turn into a scorpion, and if you chew it and put it in the sun, it will turn into a worm.
Fish, nymphalina butterflies, mussels, scallops, sea snails, other gastropods and crustaceans are born from mud because they are unable to mate and resemble plants in their lifestyle.
The classical doctrine of spontaneous generation, along with many other time-honored fantastic ideas, was buried during the Renaissance. Its overthrower was Francesco Redi (1626–1697), an experimental physicist, famous poet and one of the first biological scientists of the modern formation; he was a figure typical of the late Renaissance. Redi's book “Experiments on the Spontaneous Generation of Insects” (1668) is distinguished by healthy skepticism, subtle observation, and an excellent manner of presenting the results. Redi not only did not confirm the then widespread opinion about the spontaneous generation of the listed animals, but, on the contrary, in most cases demonstrated that they are in fact born from fertilized eggs. Thus, the results of his carefully conducted experiments refuted the ideas that had formed over 20 centuries.
MINISTRY OF GENERAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE RF
ARMAVIR ORTHODOX SOCIAL INSTITUTE
FACULTY OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES
ABSTRACT
in the discipline: “Concepts of modern natural science”
on the topic of: "Aristotle"
Completed by: 2nd year student
full-time education
Shevtsova I. V.
Checked by: Ph.D. Lagutinskaya L.P.
Armavir, 2005
Introduction. 3
1. Aristotle’s main research directions. 4
2. Natural science research of Aristotle. 6
Conclusion. 9
The relevance of the topic of our essay is explained by the unabated interest that arouses the personality and scientific research of Aristotle.
Aristotle (384 - 323 BC) - ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist. The biography of Aristotle is known in the most general terms. He was born in the village of Stagira in Chalkidiki, which is why he is often called Stagirite. His father was the physician Nicomachus, who traced his family back to the mythical healing god Asclepius and was the author of many works on medicine. At the age of seventeen, in 367, A. went to Athens and became a student at Plato’s Academy, and then taught there. In 347, after the death of Plato, years of wandering began. In 343, A. was invited by the Macedonian king Philip to tutor 13-year-old Alexander. After his accession, he soon returned to Athens, where he founded a school, which became known as the Lyceum, since it was adjacent to the temple of Apollo the Lyceum. The peculiarity of the school was the form of classes that took place in the open air, while walking along the shady paths of the Lyceum. Therefore, A.’s school and his followers began to be called peripatetics (strollers). During the second period of his stay in Athens, A. wrote his most important works on philosophy and natural science. The patronage of the Macedonian court allowed him to collect a large library, from which he drew information for processing. However, this same proximity led to accusations against A. when Athens rebelled against the Macedonian rulers. He had to flee to Chalkis on the island. Euboea. Here he died, leaving his daughter Pythia and son Nicomachus.
The purpose of our essay is to find out what Aristotle’s scientific activities related to natural science were.
The task is to study and analyze the literature on the topic of our essay.
Not all of A.’s works reached descendants; many works are attributed to him. The dating of his works, their authenticity and the separation of his works from imitations and adaptations represents a major scientific problem.
Based on topics, essays are divided into four main groups. First, there are the works on logic, usually collectively called the Organon. This includes Categories; About interpretation; First Analytics and Second Analytics; Topeka.
Secondly, Aristotle owns works of natural science. The most important works here are: On creation and destruction; About the sky; Physics; History of Animals; On the parts of animals and a treatise on human nature On the soul. Aristotle did not write a treatise on plants, but the corresponding work was compiled by his student Theophrastus.
Thirdly, we have a body of texts called Metaphysics, which is a series of lectures compiled by Aristotle in the late period of the development of his thought - in Assos and in the final period in Athens.
Fourthly, there are works on ethics and politics, which also include Poetics and Rhetoric. The most important are the Eudemic Ethics, composed in the second period, and the Nicomachean Ethics, which dates back to the last Athenian period, consisting of many lectures on Politics, Rhetoric, and partially preserved Poetics, written in different periods. Aristotle's enormous work on the state structure of various city-states was completely lost; almost the complete text of the Athenian polity that was part of it was miraculously found. Several treatises on historical topics have also been lost.
Aristotle's works fall into two groups. First, there are the popular or exoteric works, most of which were probably written in the form of dialogue and intended for the general public. Most of them were written while still at the Academy. Now these works have been preserved in the form of fragments quoted by later authors, but even their names indicate a close relationship with Platonism: Eudemus, or about the soul; dialogue about justice; Politician; Sophist; Menexen; Feast. In addition, Protrepticus (Greek “motivation”) was widely known in antiquity, inspiring in the reader the desire to engage in philosophy. It was written in imitation of some passages in Plato's Euthydemus and served as a model for Cicero's Hortensius, who, as reported in his Confession of St. Augustine awakened him spiritually and, turning him to philosophy, changed his whole life. A few fragments of the popular treatise On Philosophy, written later in Asse, have also survived. during the second period of Aristotle's work. All these works are written in simple language and carefully finished in terms of style. They were very popular in antiquity and established Aristotle's reputation as a Platonist writer who wrote eloquently and vividly. This assessment of Aristotle is practically inaccessible to our understanding. The fact is that his works, which are at our disposal, have a completely different character, since they were not intended for general reading. These works were to be listened to by Aristotle's students and assistants, initially a small circle of them in Assa, and later a larger group in the Athenian Lyceum. Historical science, and primarily the research of V. Yeager, has found that these works, in the form in which they have come down to us, cannot be considered philosophical or scientific “works” in the modern sense. Of course, it is impossible to definitively establish how these texts arose, but the following hypothesis seems most likely.
In his astronomical views, Aristotle was influenced by contemporary science. He believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe. The movement of the planets is explained by the rotation of the spheres surrounding the Earth. The outer sphere is the sphere of the fixed stars. It turns directly back to the immovable first cause, which, being devoid of all material potentiality and imperfection, is completely immaterial and immovable. Even the celestial bodies move, thereby revealing their materiality, but they consist of purer matter than that found in the sublunary world.
In the sublunary world we discover material entities of various levels. Firstly, these are the basic elements and their combinations that form the kingdom of the inanimate. They are driven exclusively by external reasons. Next come living organisms, first plants, which have organically differentiated parts capable of influencing each other. Thus, plants do not simply increase in size and are generated by external causes, but grow and reproduce on their own.
Animals have the same plant functions, but they are also endowed with sense organs that enable them to take into account the things of the surrounding world, striving for what contributes to their activity and avoiding everything that is harmful. Complex organisms are built on the basis of simple ones and perhaps arise from them as a result of gradual changes, but Aristotle does not speak out with any certainty on this issue.
The highest earthly being is man, and the treatise on the soul is entirely devoted to the study of his nature. Aristotle states unequivocally that man is a material being, undoubtedly a part of nature. As with all natural objects, a person has a material substratum from which he arises (the human body), and a certain form or structure that animates this body (the human soul). As with any other natural object, a given form and a given matter are not simply superimposed on each other, but are constituent parts of a single individual, each existing thanks to the other. So, the gold of the ring and its ring shape are not two different things, but one gold ring. Likewise, the human soul and the human body are two essential, internally necessary causes of a single natural being, man.
The human soul, i.e. human form, consists of three connected parts. Firstly, it contains a plant part that allows a person to eat, grow and reproduce. The animal component allows him to sense, strive for sensory objects and move from place to place like other animals. Finally, the first two parts are crowned by the rational part - the pinnacle of human nature, thanks to which man possesses those wonderful and special properties that distinguish him from all other animals. Each part, in order to begin to act, necessarily develops essential accidents or abilities. Thus, the plant soul is in charge of various organs and abilities of nutrition, growth and reproduction; the animal soul is responsible for the organs and abilities of sensation and movement; the rational soul controls the immaterial mental abilities and rational choice, or will.
Cognition must be distinguished from activity. It does not involve the construction of something new, but rather the comprehension, through noesis (rational faculty), of something that already exists in the physical world, and exactly as it is. Forms exist in a physical sense in individual matter, which binds them to a specific place and time. It is in this way that the human form exists in the matter of every individual human body. However, thanks to its cognitive abilities, a human being can comprehend the forms of things without their matter. This means that a person, different from other things in a material sense, can noetically, mentally unite with them in an immaterial way, become a microcosm reflecting the nature of all things in a mental mirror within his mortal being.
Sensation is limited to a certain, finite series of forms and comprehends them only in the mutual mixing that occurs in the course of a specific physical interaction. But the mind does not know such limitations; it is capable of comprehending any form and freeing its essence from everything with which it is connected in sensory experience. However, this act of rational apprehension, or abstraction, cannot be accomplished without the preliminary activity of sensation and imagination.
When the imagination calls into being a particular sensory experience, the active mind can shine its light on that experience and bring out some nature present in it, freeing the experience from everything that does not belong to its essential nature. The mind can highlight all the other real elements of a thing, imprinting its pure, abstract image on the perceiving mind, which every person possesses. Then, by means of judgments which unite these natures according to the way in which they are united in reality, the mind can construct a complex concept of the whole essence, reproducing it exactly as it is. This ability of the mind not only allows one to acquire a theoretical understanding of all things as a result, but also influences human aspirations, helping a person to improve his nature through activity. And in fact, without rational guidance of aspirations, human nature is generally incapable of improvement. The study of this process of improvement belongs to the field of practical philosophy.
Thus, in the course of writing our abstract, we came to the following conclusions:
In general, Aristotle's studies are distinguished by a tendency to overcome a purely philosophical consideration of the subject. He tries to determine the properties of an object not by its origin from some “essence” and not by combining and separating the concepts of language, but to move on to scientific research, albeit without experimental verification, by considering the phenomenon’s own characteristics and its real connections. Aristotle's main methods are logical reasoning and observation, and extensive use of research from his predecessors. In the natural science works of Aristotle, the philosophical basis sometimes seems eclectic and contradictory due to the variety of subjects of knowledge, but he summarized all the knowledge achieved during the developed period of Greek scholarship and had a decisive influence on the subsequent development of theoretical sciences, philosophy and theology.
Aristotle made significant contributions to the ancient education system. He conceived and organized large-scale natural science research, which Alexander financed. These studies led to many fundamental discoveries, but Aristotle's greatest achievements still belong to the field of philosophy.
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