Definition Of History According To Aristotle
Now aristotle is going to explain what definitions are.
Definition of history according to aristotle. Aristotle s logic especially his theory of the syllogism has had an unparalleled influence on the history of western thought. The subject matter of aristotle s metaphysics aristotle himself described his subject matter in a variety of ways. The highest good of a thing consists of the good performance of its characteristic function and the virtue or excellence of a thing consists of whatever traits or qualities enable it to perform that function well. A comment on these descriptions will help to clarify aristotle s topic.
As first philosophy or the study of being qua being or wisdom or theology. Aristotle has claimed that all problems and propositions come from four categories of topics these are definitions property genus and accident. Take the following two sentences as examples. According to aristotle philosophical thinking differs from other types of reasoning since philosophy seeks to answer the why of our beliefs while for other reasoning it is enough to know that we believe in something.
According to aristotle every living or human made thing including its parts has a unique or characteristic function or activity that distinguishes it from all other things. Aristotle distinguished about 500 species of animals arranging these in the history of animals in a graded scale of perfection a scala naturae with man at the top. He does this in topics book 1 we must now say what are. The systematic study of logic seems to have been undertaken first by aristotle.
History of logic history of logic aristotle. Only fragments of the work of these thinkers are relevant to what is now considered logic. The definition of democracy from webster s dictionary is the principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community this is essentially what aristotle preaches athens needed a ruler according to of aristotle s philosophy. This book argues that aristotle offers us a consistent theory of definition according to which a particular type of definition one which states the formal cause of a simple item is fundamental.
It did not always hold this position. In the hellenistic period stoic logic and in particular the work of chrysippus took pride of place. The highest gave live birth to hot and wet creatures the lowest laid cold dry mineral like eggs.