ARISTOTLE

WHO IS ARISTOTLE?
Born on 384 BC in Stagiros Chaldice, Greece
Died on 322 BC (age approx. 62) in Chalcis, Greece
Father: Nicomachus Son: Nicomachus Wife: Pythias
Influenced by Plato- his teacher
Greek Philosopher and Scientist
Founder of the Lyceum and the Peripatetic School of Philosophy
Tutor of Alexander the Great who became the master of whole
Persian empire - “...he ought to be the leader of Greeks but the
master of the barbarians” (Aristotle's advice to him)

BIOGRAPHY
Physics
Metaphysics
Nicomachean Ethics
On the Soul
Poetics

HIS WRITINGS
EUDAIMONIA- Good Soul/Supreme Good
ARETE- Excellence
THE MEANS- The source
OLYMPICS- Competition
MAGNANIMITY- Great among the Greatest

NICOMACHEAN PRINCIPLES
ARISTOTLE SUPREME GOOD HAPPINESS
 TELOS
Prepared by: Group 1
 TELOS
Is the ancient Greek term for an end, fulfilment, completion,
goal or aim; it is the source of the modern word ‘teleology’. In
Greek philosophy the term plays two important and interrelated
roles, in ethics and in natural science; both are connected to the
most common definitional account of the telos, according to
which a telos is that for the sake of which something is done or
occurs.
• When Aristotle defined telos, it was in the context of a lengthy argument
 about politics, or politke in Greek, which referred to the political and
social structures of city-states, not everything that we call politics today. 
• Aristotle claimed that politics was the ultimate arena for the creation of
eudemonia (human well-being) – that a person can, most likely, fulfill
their telos only to the degree that his or her social and political
environment facilitates it. This idea was central to the American founding
fathers, who wrote in the “Declaration of Independence” that all humans
are born with the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
(Politics creates the conditions for humans to fulfill their telos)

HISTORY
Man-made Objects
Natural Object
Humans

EXAMPLES
 Take my coffee mug as an example.  If asked to define it, you might say something
like, “it’s a kind of container from which to drink hot beverages”; nearly everything
about the mug reveals its purpose.  It is too small and open to hold anything but a
drink or pencils; you wouldn’t want to carry gasoline in it!  It’s too big for drinking
shots of liquor. You can’t measure cups with it (not accurately anyway).  Mine is
ceramic and heavy, with a handle, which protects my hands from the heat of the
coffee.  You could of course, describe the mug without mentioning hot beverages,
just describing its shape and materials in technical terms; but doing so would miss
the most important thing about it, it’s very reason for existing – it’s telos.
The mug was made by humans for the drinking of coffee, and every human artifact
is made for some purpose—chairs for sitting, cars for driving, television shows for
entertaining.  You can try to create something with no purpose, which a lot people
would call “art,” except that it would then have a purpose—to make an artistic or
philosophical statement.

MAN-MADE OBJECTS
 According to Aristotle, the telos of a plant or animal is also ‘what it was made
for’—which can be observed.
 For example, trees seem to be made to grow, branch, produce fruit, nuts, or
flowers, provide shade, and reproduce.  So, that is all part of their telos. More
importantly, each of these elements of a tree’s telos is something that the tree only
does if healthy and thriving only if it lives long enough and under the right
conditions to fulfill its potential. You might try to argue that, according to these
criteria, the telos of a tree is to eventually decay and die, and perhaps that is part
of it, but Aristotle could disagree by saying that the telos of a thing is that which
it does when it fulfills its full potential.

NATURAL OBJECT
 According to Aristotle, the telos of a human being is happiness,
or eudaimonia actually, which means something more like “fulfillment.” Fulfillment
of what? Our potential for excellence, or “virtues” in English translations of
Aristotle. 
 The word “virtue” in Aristotle, refers to artistic, scientific, athletic, or any other kind
of excellence. They are the things human beings can do when they fulfill their
potential, such as paint a picture, win a race, or write philosophy.  Much of
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to “virtues” of which there are a great
variety, since each of us seems made to excel in different areas of life.

HUMANS
 TYPES OF TELOS
A. The telos of human artifacts
The purposes of human-created artifacts; i.e. books are for reading, chairs are for
sitting, etc.
B. The telos of living things:
The purposes of the natural features of living things; i.e. wings are for flying, ears
are for hearing.
C. The telos of historical trends:
The idea that historical processes have a telos became popular in the late
19th century, especially through Hegel’s dialectic and Karl Marx’s theories.
D. The telos of actions:
Telos is a central concept in the philosophy of human actions; actions are only
those behaviors which have a telos – those that are intentional; thus we hesitate to refer to
accidental behaviors, such as tripping, as “actions.”
 Telos vs Techne
 Techne means “art,” “skill,” or “technique,” as one might guess from its
appearance in words like technology and technical.  It is often
contrasted with telos as an alternate explanation for the characteristics
of objects.  In other words, one might say that a coffee mug is the way
it is because of its telos (purpose) or because of its techne (its design
and manufacture).  Obviously human artifacts can be described in terms
of both telos and techne, while natural objects cannot be explained
by techne (unless one believes they were designed and created by gods
or other intelligent agents).