EARLY LIFE: Aristotle (Ancient Greek: , Aristotls) (384 BC 322 BC)[1] was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student

t of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. PHILOSOPHY:

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE PHILOSOPHY. A full presentation of the philosophical thought of Aristotle would require many volumes. However, some of the important points of that thought which influence the Aristotelian educational theory can be summarized briefly. Those points are: 1. METAPHYSICS. a. Reality. The universe is composed of two ultimate entities, spirit or form and materiality or matter. All things are reducible to one or other of these basic entities. b. The Nature of Man. Man is a rational animal. He is animal in his possession of a body With its physical needs and appetites. He is rational because he has a soul. The active element of the soul is part of the universal principle of life. This element is immortal. The passive element of the soul is the individual personality, with memories and thoughts relating to the experiences of life. This passive element ceases to exist with death. The soul and body form a necessary whole for the existence of the organism. The implications of this theory are:

(1) Destiny. Man has no eternal destiny. He ceases to exist as an individual personality at death. (2) Nature. The highest faculty in man is his spiritual nature. Man acts according to his nature when he subordinates his physical appetites to reason.

c. Teleology. There is purpose, order and intelligence in the universe, stemming from the first being, the unmoved Mover, God.

2. EPISTEMOLOGY. a. Source of Truth. The faculty of reason in every man can be trained, through the principles of logic, to reason toward true conclusions.

b. Nature of Truth. Truth is objective. For example, a true proposition does not depend upon the mind of the individual man for its existence. Truths exist in nature and are discoverable by the reason of man. 3. ETHICS. a. Happiness. The highest good to which man may aspire is happiness. A truly happy life can be assessed only upon its completion. b. Naturalism. A man lives happily when his actions are in accordance with his nature. Man's spiritual nature is superior to his physical nature. The highest good for any man is the activity of his soul.

c. Reason. The faculty of reason, resident in the soul of man, must guide his every action. The physical appetites must be controlled by reason. Reason, therefore, is the source of virtue. d. Virtue. Man uses his reason to judge between the extremes of any given act. The middle course constitutes virtue. For example, the mean between the two extremes of the vice of rashness (excess of courage) and the vice of cowardice (lack of courage) is the virtue of temperate courage.

4. POLITICS. a. Purpose. The purpose of the state is to produce human good. b. Naturalism. Man is social by nature. He will naturally be political. The difficulty in political philosophy is to determine how man may act reasonably and virtuously to achieve the best political action. c. Reason. The ideal state must be reasoned as a mean between two governmental extremes. d. Constitutional Monarchy. The best form of government is a constitutional monarchy, which is the mean between the extremes of despotism and democracy. The constitution guarantees moderation between the demands of the wealthy and the interests of the poor.

e. Public Education. The state is perpetuated through the education of its citizens. Therefore education is, of necessity, public in nature.

THE EDUCATIONALTHEORY OF ARISTOTLE

EDUCATION. The importance of education in the philosophy of Aristotle was great, since the individual man could learn to use his reason to arrive at virtue, happiness, and political harmony only through the process of education. 1. AIM OF EDUCATION. The purpose of education is to produce a good man. Man is not good by nature. He must learn to control his animal activities through the use of reason. Only when man behaves by habit and reason, according to his nature as a rational being, is he capable of happiness. Education must aim at the development of the full potentialities of each man. It must seek the development of man's intellectual capacities to their fullest extent. It must aim also at developing each individual's body to its highest level of health and strength. 2. EDUCATION OF WOMEN. Women were considered inferior to men. The nature of women suggested that their proper function was fulfilled exclusively in the home. Women would not be educated with men. They would receive training in gymnastics and domestic arts to enable them to manage households, to bear and raise children, and to please and be obedient to their husbands. 3. EDUCATION OF MEN. Since citizenship would extend only to the aristocracy, which included rulers, soldiers, and priests, education would be given exclusively to this group. The farmer, laborer, merchant, and slave would be trained in whatever specific skills were required of them. Training in industrial arts or vocational skills is not education. Education is that which liberates man, enabling him to live his leisured existence according to his full potentialities. Education is therefore a practical means to the end of achieving the acme of man's nature. 4. THE CONTENT OF EDUCATION. Education must not serve any mean or vocational activity. These activities are the functions of slaves. The subject material must train the future rulers in the use of reason. Future rulers must learn obedience and responsibility before they rule. We may infer from the curriculum of the Academy that the following subjects would be taught: a. Basics. These would include reading, writing and mathematics (not for purposes of trade, but as a preparation for the intellectual abstractions of higher mathematics).

b. Natural Sciences. Aristotle emphasized the natural sciences of astronomy, biology, physiology, zoology, chemistry and physics.

c. Physical Education. The training of the body is important to the physical well-being of every citizen. d. Humanities. Rhetoric, grammar, poetry, politics and philosophy would be important subjects. During the early education of the child, Aristotle would have the state legislature censor the material which would be read by children. 5. THE METHOD OF EDUCATION. Aristotle placed habit high in the learning process. Man learns by nature, by habit, and by reason. Consequently, the teacher would organize materials according to the laws of reason. Repetitive drill would be used to reinforce what was understood by reason.an elementary knowledge of reading and writing. Arithmetic was never developed to a sophisticated extent because of the awkward method of writing numerals Ethics Main article: Aristotelian ethics Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote several treatises on ethics, including most notably, the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function (ergon) of a thing. An eye is only a good eye in so much as it can see, because the proper function of an eye is sight. Aristotle reasoned that humans must have a function specific to humans, and that this function must be an activity of the psuch (normally translated as soul) in accordance with reason (logos). Aristotle identified such an optimum activity of the soul as the aim of all human deliberate action, eudaimonia, generally translated as "happiness" or sometimes "well being". To have the potential of ever being happy in this way necessarily requires a good character (thik aret), often translated as moral (or ethical) virtue (or excellence).[45] Aristotle taught that to achieve a virtuous and potentially happy character requires a first stage of having the fortune to be habituated not deliberately, but by teachers, and experience, leading to a later stage in which one consciously chooses to do the best things. When the best people come to live life this way their practical wisdom (phronesis) and their intellect (nous) can develop with each other towards the highest possible human virtue, the wisdom of an accomplished theoretical or speculative thinker, or in other words, a philosopher.[46]

Legacy More than twenty-three hundred years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived. According to the philosopher Bryan Magee, "it is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did".[73] Aristotle was the founder of formal logic,[74] pioneered the study of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method.[75][76] Despite these achievements, the influence of Aristotle's errors is considered by some to have held back science considerably. Bertrand Russell notes that "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine". Russell also refers to Aristotle's ethics as "repulsive", and calls his logic "as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy". Russell notes that these errors make it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembers how large of an advance he made upon all of his predecessors.

Later Greek philosophers The immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school. Aristotle's notable students included Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus,Demetrius of Phalerum, Eudemos of Rhodes, Harpalus, Hephaestion, Meno, Mnason of Phocis, Nicomachus, and Theophrastus. Aristotle's influence over Alexander the Great is seen in the latter's bringing with him on his expedition a host of zoologists, botanists, and researchers. He had also learned a great deal about Persian customs and traditions from his teacher. Although his respect for Aristotle was diminished as his travels made it clear that much of Aristotle's geography was clearly wrong, when the old philosopher released his works to the public, Alexander complained "Thou hast not done well to publish thy acroamatic doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men's common property? Influence on Christian theologians Aristotle is referred to as "The Philosopher" by Scholastic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas. See Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 3, etc. These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. It required a repudiation of some Aristotelian principles for the sciences and the arts to free themselves for the discovery of modern scientific laws and empirical methods. The medieval English poet Chaucer describes his student as being happy by having

at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of aristotle and his philosophie,[78] The Italian poet Dante says of Aristotle in the first circles of hell, I saw the Master there of those who know, Amid the philosophic family, By all admired, and by all reverenced; There Plato too I saw, and Socrates, Who stood beside him closer than the rest.[79] Influence on Islamic theologians

Aristotle was one of the most revered Western thinkers in early Islamic theology. Most of the still extant works of Aristotle,[80] as well as a great number of the original Greek commentaries, were translated into Arabic and studied by Muslim polymaths, philosophers, scientists and scholars, whose knowledge of Aristotle thus stretched far beyond that of early Medieval Christian commentators. Oriental interpreters of Aristotle's work followed the Greek interpreters without chronological gap, and the Medieval western tradition was influenced equally by Christian thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and Muslim theologians suchas Averroes, Avicenna and Alpharabius, all of whom wrote on Aristotle in great depth, and frequently compared the teachings of Aristotle with those of theprophets of Islam. Alkindus considered Aristotle as the outstanding and unique representative of philosophy[81] and Averroes spoke of Aristotle as the "exemplar" for all future philosophers.[82] Later Muslim philosophers, like their Christian counterparts, spoke of Aristotle as "the philosopher" and some described him as the "first teacher".[83] In accordance with the Greek theorists, the Muslims considered Aristotle to be a dogmatic philosopher, the author of a closed system, and believed that Aristotle shared with Plato essential tenets of thought. Some went so far as to credit Aristotle himself with neoPlatonic metaphysical ideas.[80] Post-Enlightenment thinkers

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken nearly all of his political philosophy from Aristotle.[84] However implausible this is, it is certainly the case that Aristotle's rigid separation of action from production, and his justification of the subservience of slaves and others to the virtue or arete of a few justified the ideal of aristocracy. It is Martin Heidegger, not Nietzsche, who elaborated a new interpretation of Aristotle, intended to warrant his deconstruction of scholastic and philosophical tradition. Ayn Rand accredited Aristotle as "the greatest philosopher in history" and cited him as a major influence on her thinking. More recently, Alasdair MacIntyre has attempted to reform what he calls the Aristotelian tradition in a way that is anti-elitist and capable of disputing the claims of both liberals and Nietzscheans.[85] LIST OF WORKS: The works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are collected in the Corpus Aristotelicum. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's Royal Prussian Academy edition (Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica, Berlin, 18311870), which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works.