Talk:Aristotle/Archives/2008

Relationship with Alexander

I think that the claim that Aristotle was Alexander's teacher is pure legend. The actual historical evidence is mighty slim. I suggest including something to that effect. For discussion on this see Ingemar During, _Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition, 1957, 284-8, and W. W. Tarn, _Alexander the Great_, vol. II, 1948, 399-449. When Aristotle went to Mieza, he was pretty much an unknown except for his father's occupational connection to Philip. Moreover, Aristotle never mentions Alexander anywhere, and Philip only once. And Alexander's supposed letters to Aristotle are all fakes.Garbopash (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood Düring and are probably just repeating Düring's approving reference to Tarn, because if you actually read those pages of Tarn you will see that Tarn unambiguously accepts the indubitable historical fact that Aristotle was Alexander's tutor. Seach Tarn on Google Books for "tutor" for a couple of clear examples. The intention of Düring's reference is to recommend Tarn's interpretation of how exactly Alexander's career and thinking were influenced by certain political ideas of his tutor Aristotle ("He was soaked in Aristotle's ideas," Tarn, p. 436). Bottom line, neither Düring nor Tarn doubts "the claim that Aristotle was Alexander's teacher"; Düring implies pretty clearly on p. 287 that Aristotle won this position through his family's connections. Of course Düring is not equally credulous of every detail in every ancient source he brings together in AABT, and he prefers Tarn's critical interpretation to some of the unreliable primary sources (this is what he means by "The truth...differs somewhat from the legends")—but that is not the same as dismissing the relationship wholesale, which I've never heard of any historian doing. Wareh (talk) 15:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Who is his Father?

Aristotle was born in Stagira, on the peninsula of Chalcidice in 384 BC. His father, Poomus, was court physician to King Amyntas III of Macedon. It is believed that Aristotle's ancestors held this position under various kings of the Macedon. He did not go to school, instead he was taught by his father. His father's medical knowledge was perhaps the inspiration for Aristotle's later interest in natural phenomena.

Little is known about his mother, Phaestis, who died early in Aristotle's life. His father Nicomachus died when Aristotle was ten, making him an orphan. Then he was placed under the guardianship of his uncle, Proxenus of Atarneus, who also took over his education. He gave Aristotle significant instruction in Greek, rhetoric, and poetry (O'Connor et al., 2004). Aristotle went to Athens at the age of 18, and attended Plato's school for young Greek aristocracy (the Academy). Aristotle quickly became Plato's favorite student.

This article keeps changing. Who is Aristotle's father? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.173.173.96 (talk • contribs)

Indeed, Aristotle's father was Nicomachus. However, more importantly, the story of Aristotle being tutor to Alexander has very little historical support. I think that this fact deserves mention.Garbopash (talk) 21:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It is not a fact that Aristotle's position as Alexander's tutor is historically dubious. Please see my comment on this page as Talk:Aristotle#Relationship_with_Alexander. Wareh (talk) 16:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Influences

I am, indeed, but a eleven-year old. However, I am a bit knoledgeable. I have noticed that in the article, there is no mention of what his influences where. Although you may be able to glean that information from the article through carful scanning, but it would be good to have it made clear what some of his major influences were. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.82.213.74 (talk) 01:38, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Which city state?

Would someone add which city state he came from, just as an extra detail? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.217.50.56 (talk) 03:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

That's given in the first section of "Life": Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice... Wareh (talk) 18:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Reference Needed

"it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost. They were lost and rediscovered several times, and it is believed that only about one fifth of the original works have survived." Dolsson5 (talk) 04:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I think "They were lost and rediscovered several times" must be a muddled reference to the story of Neleus' family burying some of his works, then their being subsequently "rediscovered" by Apellicon (when he bought them from Neleus' family), and then their being taken by Sulla to Rome. Even if the story is accurate, it doesn't entail that Neleus' family ever possessed all of Aristotle's writings, and it doesn't entail that any set of writings was "lost" more than once (even if you count the burial as a "loss"). So the "lost and rediscovered several times" claim is just inaccurate. But it's true that "the majority of his writings are now lost", and I've sourced the claim. "One fifth" is not quite the number that is thought be extant; it's closer to one third; this is according to the same source (i.e., Jonathan Barnes).Isokrates (talk) 23:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Phyllis?

What was Aristotles relationship with Phyllis? Did she ride on him? Or is it a myth? (I know that all information is uncertain but what sources we have on this case?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.17.197.178 (talk) 07:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It's fiction. From what I understand, the motif originates in Indian and/or Arabic literature, and was first applied specifically to Aristotle in the first half of the 13th century A.D. See George Sarton, "Aristotle and Phyllis", Isis, Vol. 14, No. 1. (1930), pp. 8-19. Isokrates (talk) 00:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Aristotle's Ideas

I have read a little bit of Aristotle, unfortunately, and like many others I personally think his writing is a fraudulent bunch of crap. Beckman is merely the last in a line of respected figures to publically take this point of view, earlier authors with the same opinion include Galileo. While Aristotle's writings on science are now completely discredited, he still has authority in some fields where human beings are not as enlightened. But even in those fields, his authority diminishes with every passing century.

The reason, in my opinion, is because all his writings are not really academic contributions, but sort-of summaries of common-sense wisdom and platitudes of the time, stuff that everybody just knows. Stuff that you have the impression is backed up by experiments or observations, but cannot possibly be because some of it is just so blatently false and the rest so vacuous. The style is ponderous and imperious, and conveys the impression upon a superficial reading that one is confronted with a superior mind, whatever that means, but whatever it is it is a property of an aristocrat. But a close reading shows there is no significant idea. This is in contrast to scientific contemporaries, like Democritus and Archimedes, a comparison Beckman makes in his book by laying two pages side by side with "Archimedian science" on one half and "Aristotelian blather" on the other side. If Aristotle's writings were not so influential even today, this would be less of a problem. But there are still people who take this stuff seriously, but they are not everybody.Likebox (talk) 00:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I think a crucial problem here is your use of emotionally charged language to describe your opinions of his work. "Fraudulent" means you think he "knew the truth and chose to write something else with malicious intent". With the death of Socrates still in recent cultural memory, subsequent thinkers have certainly kept an eye on the political viability of their conclusions. Aristotle very likely edited his works with exterior agendas in mind, but direct malice is a strong charge.

What exactly is a "bunch of crap"? Every person must negotiate life with the resources available. The modern sense of piercing accuracy was not possible in those times. Of course centuries of thinkers mingled and tossed ideas around. An important point is, however, that Aristotle put *tremendous effort* into *documenting* the state of his times regardless of the depths of his direct innovations. Like grains of dirt that encourage pearls, Aristotle provided the rawest beginnings in a permanent form. Considering that his works jump-started the late middle ages via the Arabic translations and commentaries, he gets credit *twice*. TaoPhoenix (talk) 23:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems you're taking great pains to make clear that (1) you are not particularly well-informed ("I have read a little bit...unfortunately," but you are ready to pronounce about "all his writings"), (2) you do not yourself possess the detached point of view appropriate to an encyclopedia ("personally...you have the impression...conveys the impression upon a superficial reading..."). No one thinks Aristotelian science is cutting-edge, and the article steers well away from any risk of implying it. On the other hand, basic facts about Aristotelian science (for example, the accuracy of his observations about the embryology of some fishes, not equaled by zoologists until quite recent times) are utterly irreconcilable with this shallow dismissal of a "bloviator." Moreover, the article makes plain that Aristotle's contributions have been most influential in other departments of philosophy (metaphysics, ethics). Your dismissal of these areas of philosophical inquiry ("fields where human beings are not as enlightened") casts serious doubts on your ability to edit the encyclopedia's treatment of them objectively: do you really think we will have a more scholarly encyclopedia if every metaphysician's article whines, "But metaphysics is a bunch of bloviation anyway, so who cares about this part of Leibniz' life work?" Wareh (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course I am taking pains to inform you that I have not read that much of Aristotle, that's just intellectual honesty. I read "The Nichmachean Ethics" and sections of "Physics" and skimmed the stuff in the "great books" series. I can't read it that much because it is so painful to read--- I hate it. But this is not about me, nor should it be. I was just trying to state my prejudices upfront, so that they are not secret. What needs to be mentioned is that there is a large community of people who share these views--- their respect for Aristotle is zero or less than zero, and a notable representative should be mentioned in any paragraph that expresses the point of view: "Some believe that Aristotle's writings are the most siginificant ever produced by one man". Really, some others believe it is a load of crap.Likebox (talk) 23:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It really isn't just Beckman that expresses this point of view. The other author that I read personally is Galileo. But it's hard to mention Galileo because he's so long ago, and I can't find everybody. Since I am not familiar with zebrafish embryology, I can't comment on that, but in other fields I can try to judge Aristotle's contribution:

In logic: Aristotle is claimed to have produced a system of logic. But he placed great weight on propositions of the form (A implies B) and variants, which allow you to produce sentence B given sentence A. It is clear that he placed "A implies B" at the heart of his logical system, and that this is the main idea. These are called tautologies in modern logic, and they are important, but you can generate all of them using Boolean algebra in an automatic way, so they aren't the most important thing--- they are not the main routine. The main routine is the one that generates new propositions of the form (forall x A(x) implies B(x)) from speculative calculations involving a new variable x that you introduce and make assumptions about, then draw conclusions about. Once you reach the conclusions, you know that they follow from the assumptions, and you can write (forall x Assumptions(x) implies Conclusions(x)). This hypothesis generation is really the heart of the matter, so that any logical system that does not include something equivalent to this (like Aristotle's) is nothing more than a compendium of tautologies, and is really not a logical system but, sorry to say, pompous bloviation about trivialities. In Euclid, this hypothesis generation method is used implicitly and Aristotle could have checked his logical system by trying to formalize Euclid, but he doesn't.

In science: Aristotle's claims are readily disproved by experiments available at the time. I don't want to dwell on this, because it is so well accepted that Aristotle was bloviating here.

In biology: This is the heart of the matter, because Aristotle started with biology and made his biological observations the center of his philosophy. The main idea, as I gather it, is that the classification of flower morphology is in classes, like "multi-petal" and "long tube" and these classes have subclasses like "multi-petal round" and "multipetal pointy" and "multipetal overlapping" and so on (I'm making up the classes, I don't know flowers). This is made into a principle by Aristotle: forms can vary within a class subject to limited rules of variation but never outside of certain predefined limits. Classes have subclasses, but the subclasses never step over the bounds set by the parent class. This structure is called a tree, and it is one particular type of data structure. He doesn't look for an explanation for why natural forms are a tree structure, because it seems to him that this type of structure is "natural" and "automatic", and does not require explanation. This leads to the political ideas of heirarchy, and the notion that human beings are naturally made into "masters" "slaves" "philosophers" etc. amd that variation within the class is possible but not crossing boundaries from class to class.

It is here that Aristotle's ideas are most pernicious. The explanation of the class-subclass-subsubclass structure of biology is that all the organisms have evolved from a common ancestor, and the date of the last common ancestor defines the branching structure of the tree. This explanation had to wait until Lamarck and Darwin to penetrate into academia. His idea that tree order is the only order conceivable is just false, and the notion that it is particularly natural is belied by examples of objects which have overlapping class structure, like the "nearness" of points which are scattered in a plane. His social ideas are repugnant not just to the modern ear, but to any Democrat, even an ancient one, but they have the effect of endearing him to any authoritarian power structure.

His ideas are never clearly expressed, and it is difficult to know exactly what he is saying. I am making a guess based upon secondary sources and what I could make out from translated primary sources. I don't think that these criticisms have a place in the article. But the fact that many people hold these views is notable.Likebox (talk) 00:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Can you please explain what you mean when you say that "it's hard to mention Galileo because he's so long ago"? Aquinas, Chaucer, Cicero, and Dante are mentioned, though all predate Galileo. Anyway, this is a textbook case case of undue weight. The majority opinion is easily substantiated by Aquianas, Chaucer, Cicero, Dante, Nietzche, and Rand, among other prominant voices on Aristotle. Whereas, despite your insistance that there is a "large community of people" who hold the minority opinion that Aristotle is a "load of crap", Galileo and Petr Beckman constitute so small a minorty that the opinion does not belong in Wikipedia. Soldarnal (talk) 06:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you're right, but I don't think it's that small a minority. After a few minutes search I found the following references:

1. Bennedetti (dismissing projectile theory)--- [1]
2. Cherniss (dismissing reports on Plato's thought)--- [2]
3. Russo (on science)--- [3]
4. Betrand Russell (on logic) --- [4]

In addition to Galileo an Beckman, that's quite a few outright dismissals of this guy.Likebox (talk) 06:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of avoiding a responsible & balanced survey of criticism of Aristotle. But we need to seek the truly most notable and substantial critiques. Unfortunately, the list provided above involves cherry-picking of the worst sort: for example, #2, Harold F. Cherniss, certainly had important criticisms of how Aristotle's statements about his predecessors must be understood in the context of his exposition of his own philosophical ideas in his own terms, but the idea that he dismissed Aristotle as a thinker is unfounded & not useful for improving the encyclopedia. To choose just one example from the rest of Likebox's critique—logic—this seems to mistake the whole concept of the history of philosophy. Yes, much of what's most important in Aristotelian logic might seem like obvious features of Boolean algebra to you. But does it occur to you that Aristotle was the first person in recorded human history to work out many of those now-routine-Boolean-principles in some form? Please, read Jan Łukasiewicz's Aristotle’s Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic, and then come back to us with a report on the insignificance of Aristotle's contributions in the history of logic. But the bottom line here is, you "hate" Aristotle. I don't edit articles on anything I hate, because it would be irresponsible and NPOV, and I remain very dubious that this article will be improved by cherry-picked denunciations culled from the Googleable world to justify a hatred. I'd like to clarify that my position may be different from Soldarnal's; I don't think it's the encyclopedia's job to offer "the majority opinion." But what we seem to agree about is that these changes are not balanced with the kind of historical-survey perspective of important critical contributions to the subject that this article is going to need, in order to have a well-grounded section exploring criticisms of Aristotle. Wareh (talk) 15:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I know I'm not the most competent when discussing these things--- I have a limited background and many prejudices, as I have tried to make clear. It is best if someone else could write something about this. I added one sentence because I thought this other point of view is neglected in favor of a pro-Aristotle slant. I don't know any more about the positions of the people I quoted than the mostly superficial stuff I found online. Of them, only Bertrand Russell seems to dismiss Aristotle as a thinker in a comprehensive way, and he is the only source I actually cited.

The problem as I see it with Aristotle's contribution to logic is the selection problem of studying ancient documents. When you see a discussion of syllogisms that looks novel, it might be because Aristotle was the first to talk about syllogisms, or it might be that Aristotle was taking ideas that were "floating around" in the mathematical community and putting them down on paper for the first time in a philosophical context. I know that this sort of thing happens today, philosophers vulturizing old physics and mathematics literature for ideas. I can't say for sure which happened, whether Aristotle actually was the first to discuss syllogisms or whether there is lost mathematical work that discusses syllogisms in a way that was inaccessible to less mathematical philosophers of the time. Its hard to evaluate for a non-classicist. But I can tell you that from looking at how he writes, it is hard to imagine he came up with anything particularly interesting, other than noting that "A implies B" implies B if you know A, which was a trivial statement even then.

I read the logic yesterday to see if I was giving it a fair shake, and again, I got so irritated by what seemed to me to be the senseless bloviation that I didn't get far, but I will try again. I hope someone more authoritative than me can put in a sentence to represent the anti-Aristotle POV because the POV in the article leaves out some people.Likebox (talk) 18:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should clarify: I am not saying that minority opinions should be omitted from the encyclopedia. I'm just saying that Beckman and Galileo together constitute too small of a minority for their opinion - even if it is true - to appear without giving it undue weight.

As an example, the majority opinion on beauty is that it is social and subjective. In addition to this opinion, though, I would certainly expect the article to contain the thoughts of notable aesthetic philosophers such as Kant who detect an objective quality within beauty as well. I would not, however, expect to find the recent theory[5] by Scott Adams that beauty is a grand-unifying god-law, because even if he is serious and even if his idea is true, he is not a prominent thinker on the subject.

Uh, surely you aren't suggesting that Galileo and Russell aren't prominent thinkers on the relevant subjects (natural philosophy and logic respectively)? I agree Beckmann isn't notable enough. As for the other three people Likebox mentioned, I have no idea who they are, so I wouldn't know how significant their opinions are. Ben Standeven (talk) 06:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Likebox - I think your four examples are a step in the right direction for establishing a notable minority opinion. It's a little odd, though, that three of the four examples you provided are characterized within the references you provided as "extreme", "exaggerated", and "biased". I know you've changed the language of your sentence by now, but I still think none of these substantiates that Aristotle was a "shameless bloviator". What might be worth noting, instead, is that others think his intellect has been overstated, especially when compared with near-contemporaries such as Archimedes. Soldarnal (talk) 18:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

It's true that, the more we learn, the more off-base we find much of Aristotle's work. The reason Aristotle's important is not because it's factually accurate. Rather, he's the earliest, best instance of someone taking a scientific, rational approach to understanding the world.

A great deal of Aristotle is, we now know, simply nuts: for example, modern science has conclusively disproven (*ahem*) that a mensruating woman who looks at a mirror will taint it red, because there's just a little bit of menstrual blood in her eye (invisible to her husband, because they share the same substance), and that this red taint is easier to clean off old mirrors than new ones, because new ones are smoother.

Given that he wrote 2000 years ago, it's not surprising that he got things that wrong. It is *very* surprising, though, that he got so much right. So, we keep Aristotle because it is a demonstration of the strengths and weaknesses of rational inquiry, showing us where it is likely to succeed and where it is likely to go wrong; and we can study it with an eye to iron out the kinks in our own inquiries. 216.15.121.40 (talk) 23:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC) -CC.

(deindent) Just a comment--- I am not edit warring, I am just trying to adress the wording concerns. If it gets deleted again I will give up.Likebox (talk) 18:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

About the word "telos" (=end)

The word "telos" in ancient greek did not represent the end, for example a physical one such as death but it is better translated as "purpose" or "goal". This explenation is mainly based on the notion that "nature does nothing in vain": this means that every being, living or not, (a notion accepted by philosophers such as Aristotle) has a purpose, a reason to exist and when it finally does, that's the "telos". So, "telos" actually means the stage of the evolution of a being in which it has reached perfection. Still, it does not necesserily means that it is its end of existence but a fulfilment of its higher goal. That's what "telos" means in ancient greek and offcourse every time Aristotle uses this word.– —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmakos (talk • contribs) 20:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually the word in ancient Greek did mean end or termination and did imply finality. And actually one word for "to die" in ancient Greek was simply a verb whose root was "telos"; sometime "telos" did just mean death. But you are right about Aristotle's use of the term. That specialized "teleological" sense of the term, however, did not really appear in the language until it was so developed by philosophers like Diogenes of Apollonia, Plato, and Aristotle (see the entry for "telos" in the Liddell & Scott's A Greek-English Lexicon; also p. 191, F. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms, New York University Press 1967). Isokrates (talk) 05:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Body & Soul

Im not very knowledgable about Aristotle (or wikipedia, for that matter!), but perhaps it would be useful to have a section for Aristotle’s concept of the soul and its relation to the body? There is a bit squeezed into the "Aristotle's ethics" part, but there is more that could be discussed...

-What's a soul?

the soul is the spirit and body united eternally

what do you think would be one of the main focuses of all that aristotle did? This would be a great help thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.180.108.74 (talk) 02:21, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Date of death

I've read that he died on either 2 October or 7 March, 322 BC. Does either date have any support from authoritative sources? -- JackofOz (talk) 01:58, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked in likely sources and found no evidence for any death date. I removed the references to March 7 (there weren't any to Oct. 2, I don't think) from the encyclopedia and would not like to see them return without clear evidence. The ancient sources seem to say only "shortly before Demosthenes," who died in October. But I don't see justification there for anything more specific. Wareh (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

As I suspected. Thanks, Wareh. (start of mini-rant) It always amazes me how published authors often just assert this or that specific birth/death date without any evidence to back them up (not just about Aristotle, but generally speaking; early popes, writers, philosophers, rulers, the whole gamut). I mean, if the ancient sources didn't name the date, how come much later writers magically seem to know it? Sometimes there's other evidence and a reasonable deduction can be made, but often it seems to come from an abhorrence of gaps in the record and if a real date can't be found then anything slightly plausible will do. I don't mind authors saying "My theory is X, and here are my reasons"; but I object to them simply saying "X was born/died on <specific date>", without qualification, as if it were established fact. And then others just copy them because they have no reason to disbelieve them, and away we go. (End of mini-rant). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Very often, it begins as an appropriately cautious hypothesis ("My theory is X") but gets repeated by others who did not bother to understand the insecurity of the factoid they've extracted. This is particularly an issue in fields of equal interest to those unused to working with ancient sources; for example, you can read a lot about the history of mathematics that will look very different, maybe even quite unlikely, if you insist on finding a primary source for each factoid. But then again the sin of repeating the received wisdom uncritically is plenty common among Classicists too. Wareh (talk) 17:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Aristotle is really and women lm is father i loved Aristotle very much she is and angel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.102.107 (talk) 00:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.102.107 (talk) 00:49, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

This article

This article is confused about whether Socrates taught Plato or Plato Taught Socrates. It also mentions Socrates attending Plato's Academy. Nice to see that even death couldn't keep him from learning something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.110.194 (talk) 16:51, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Could you point more specifically to this confusion? Gimmetrow 16:57, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Was going to add US emperical untis in parenthesis next to the SI units. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.15.48.57 (talk) 23:14, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Biology

A section on Aristotle's work in Biology would be useful, mainly because his theories were important for the development first of creationism and then of evolutionary theory: basically his grouping of the world into animal, vegetable and mineral, and his development of the scale of nature. Could even be a subheading under metaphysics as they are both based on causality. Anyone up to the task, or should I try it? Davidhc

You should not try it. Aristotle was pretty clear about the eternity of time. He wrote that all species of living beings had always been in existence for all of time; so Creationism is out. Further, he grouped living things (ψυχη) into nutritive, sensitive, and intellective, with sensitive and intellective souls each partaking of local movement. Furthermore, Aristotle explicitly states in Book XIV of the Metaphysics that the forms cannot exert causality. Period. Beginning with that, basically everything under the heading "Biology" is misleading, if not utterly false. I don't know how to put this delicately, so here it is: Aristotle is very difficult. Moreover, His study of biology, or physics, has nothing to do with biology of physics understood in the sense of modern biology or mathematical physics. He was studying the essences of things, addressing himself to questions of "why?"; he was not concerned with the latent processes underlying, say, the growth of hair on the pubescent human male. Backing up to the issue of "difficulty": if you find yourself saying, "I reread his Logic the other day..." maybe you can be of better help elsewhere. Aristotle "Logic" is a collection of works that demand a bit more than a day to understand. Generally, it might be wise to avoid two to three sentence summaries of Aristotle's thought. It lowers the standard of the site in general, because, quite frankly, its a circus of reductive, misled, misleading, garbage in here. I only read the section on biology, and, honest to god, I refuse to read anymore because its Sunday and I'm not about to look up at the clock in five hours and cry because I spent my entire day digging up when and where Aristotle contradicts everything here. REMEMBER: Aristotle came from a tradition of philosophers that deliberately dissembled and concealed their thought, to protect it from slander, misuse, and misinterpretation. Plato specifically calls attention to the hidden meanings of his own texts. Aristotle may SEEM like he writing an expository essay, or a really frustrating technical manual, - he is not. Again, there is literally no way to summarize his work without including extensive tracts very disputable information. my name is Matt, i wish you well

There is an error in the section "Classification of living things": 'Animals with blood were divided into live-bearing (humans and mammals), and egg-bearing (birds and fish). Invertebrates ('animals without blood') are insects, crustacea (divided into non-shelled – cephalopods – and shelled) and testacea (molluscs).' should be replaced by 'Animals with blood were divided into live-bearing (humans and mammals), and egg-bearing (birds and fish). Invertebrates ('animals without blood') are insects, crustacea, cephalopods and testacea (snails, sea-urchins, ascidiae, mussels, etc.).' Bruno.asm (talk) 18:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

more on telos

Aristotle's views on telos are far more beyond the end of an object. For example, an acorn's end is to become a tree. But as an an acorn, it also supplies nourishment for life, namely squirrels and birds. It is aslo important to note that a tree's end is a table, or a chair; so in effect, Aristotle's view on telos is that the end is ever changing, and is symbolic of our evolution into a higher being.

A good novel to read is "An Imaginary Life", by David Malouf. The story is centered around the poet Ovid in his exile, and how he grows, not just physically, but mentally as well. The main motif around the book is change, and the process of change. Though you may disagree with the views of Ovid, the views of change are similar to Aristotle's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.220.169 (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Aristotle's nationality inadequately adressed

After reading the article on Aristotle and reading some archival material regarding Aristotle's nationality, I have concluded that no one (including moderators) has sufficiently answered this issue: Was Aristotle Greek or Macedonian? Moderators tend to simply shut down other individuals arguments one way or another, but make no sufficient conclusion. Thus, I present to you some of the information which should be adressed in order to pursue a more accurate conclusion of Aristotle's origin.

According to the Penguin Books Classics publisher's historical biography of Aristotle in several of their (current) published Aristotle texts, Aristotle is designated as being Macedonian - not Greek - due to the (supposed) facts that: 1. he never spoke Greek since the current form of the Greek language was undeveloped. Rather, he spoke a tribal language of Vlach origin 2. While some simplistic historic accounts render ancient Macedonia as a Greek city-state, more accurate accounts reveal that Macedonia was considered by the Greeks to be a barbaric savage-land 3. Aristotle was chased out of Athens due to his Macedonian origins by an anti-Macedonian mob. This forced Aristotle to live out the remainder of his life in exile. 4. Macedonians were originally of Vlach, Trachi and Illiri (in addition to 4 or 5 other tribes, I cannot recall the names) tribe origins. In later centuries, slavic people began moving to Macedonia, however, there still exists a genetic connection between many contemporary Macedonians and the original 7 or 8 tribes. Aristotle supposedly had Vlach and Illiri descendants, accounting for the fact that he spoke a non-Greek language.

Keep in mind, that these are not my assertions, but rather, the assertions of a reliable publisher and source, Penguin Books. And if any moderators attempt to claim that this source is "unreliable", I should like to remind them that Wikipedia has yet to have earned the recognition of being reliable. I would find it hard to believe that any adequately educated individual would not recognize the unreliability of Wikipedia. High schools and universities alike have restricted students from using Wikipedia due to its "butchering of the nuance-related or obscure facts." Perhaps, if Wikipedia staff members and writers continue to strive to be more accurate in their articles (and I certainly hope that they do), Wikipedia would be well on its way to scholarly recognition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amh009 (talk • contribs)

The above is, at best, confused misinformation. Aristotle "never spoke Greek"? That's remarkable (and obviously false) for someone who wrote extensively about Greek literature in Greek and was known (in his exoteric writings) for his polished Greek style. (It's hardly a scholarly source anyway, but I found the most recent Penguin blurb, from Malcolm Heath's Poetics. It only mentions "Stageira, in the dominion of the kings of Macedonia," and, yes, the idea that "anti-Macedonian feeling drove Aristotle out." But the latter statement can be fully explained by the political appearance of Aristotle's family connections; it hardly attempts to make a factual claim about language or ethnicity.) If you want to work on this subject, you'll need to work from better material than publisher's blurbs (which, quite obviously, are not reliable sources). But from the unsupportable and tendentious claims you've offered here, I really think you'd be better advised to avoid this topic and look for a topic on which you have more knowledge and neutrality. It would be possible to address this topic at length, but in fact the "Life" section of the article already contains all of the essential facts regarding the Aristotle-Macedon connection, and any interpretation that goes beyond them would be debatable. Actually, it would improve the article if it were made clear how unreliable many of the ancient biographical traditions uncritically repeated in this article are. (I'm the one who, way back when, added the reference to Vita Marciana, but no scholar takes such tales without a huge grain of salt. For real reliable sources, start with all of the secondary literature on the ancient sources for the life of Aristotle and other philosophers, and it will become quite clear how problematic much of it is as a basis for claims of historical fact.) I realize this is probably exactly what Amh009 meant by "shutting down," but it seems clear that the reliability and accuracy of the article would suffer if changes were introduced along the lines Amh009 suggests. Wareh (talk) 17:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Every bit of research confirms that he is of Greek nationality. I actually can't find him listed as anything else. Perhaps one should look at the scholastic value of the material one is quoting before using it as an objection to someone else's material.

Wophi (talk) 10:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

His home town is in Chalcidici which is located in Macedonia (Greece). That has to be added to the text. Aristotle was a Greek Macedonian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jctergal (talk • contribs) 19:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Fkitselis As correctly said by Wophi, Aristotle was a Greek Macedonian and at that time that's the only version of Macedonians you can have. Chalkidiki Macedonians had Euboan (Chalkidean -> which explains the name of the area), Corinthian and Bottian descend. Aristotles own words that "Greeks should rule over barbarians" (Aristotle - Politics) is self explaining about his view on the issue.

Wifes?

I was reading through this info and noticed that it says that his daughter of Hermias was Pythias and then if you click on Pythias it says she was the first wife of Aristotle? Something just does not seem right. Also in this article it says that his wife Pythias died. So did he marry Hermias then she died he married his daughter and then she died? So confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.128.111.76 (talk) 04:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

He was a greek philosopher. teacher and student... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.189.130.101 (talk) 18:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)