Aristotle’s Logic, Metaphysic, and Epistemology

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in the ancient city of Stagira where he flourished and founded Lyceum. He was sent to Athens at the age of seventeen to study with Plato at Plato’s Academy. He studied with Plato for twenty years and died in Chalcis in 322 B.C. His father was a doctor and Aristotle was interested in biology, especially marine biology. He tutored Alexander the Great. His school Lyceum differed a lot from Plato’s academy. He wrote more than 200 works on marine biology and Athenian constituencies. He was a naturalist and proposed a third way in the field of philosophy.

Aristotle was not religious. He was a naturalist. He differs from Plato, Socrates, Parmenides, and many others of his time. He was not a super-naturalist while explaining the world and universe. He differs from atomist who believes in the existence of the universe through their theory that homogeneous and indivisible atoms move through space mechanically, interact with one another, and create diversity.

He differs from dualism and materialism, in which Plato believes in the existence of soul and matter. He thinks that consciousness is the primary thing in human existence. He was an individualist which means that humans are neither transcendental beings nor made of one thing as atomists believed. He offered a distinctive view and a radical breakthrough in thinking about metaphysics and epistemology

Metaphysic has to do with the nature of reality. What is it? What are the universe, human beings, and the world? Metaphysics tells us what is true? How do we take action? And how do we understand the world? Aristotle’s metaphysic starts with the question of existence. He believes that there is only what is; there is no such thing as nothing. The pre-Socratic thinkers believed that there is nothingness which exists in the universe.  Aristotle rejects the claim of the existence of void and he said that existence is not the essence of anything; for the things that exist do not constitute a kind.  Existence is eternal and things are sorted out or categorized based on this premise.

In Aristotle’s metaphysics, all that existence is what that is, matter changes its forms, and new beings are created. Existence is made of particular entities that have their own distinctive attributes and characteristics. The particular thing has its own attributes. There are ten particulars Aristotle used to signify the uniqueness of existence that are how much, what sort, related to what, where, when, how positioned, in what state, what it is doing, or what is being done to it. These attributes give particulars their identity and uniqueness. Every particular has its own identity and nature which makes it unique. No man is identical and everything is different from one another. 

The law of causality in Aristotle's view also differs from pre-Socratics and modern philosophers. For instance, David Hume believes that causality is due to events but for Aristotle, causality is an innate ability of every particular entitle and causality flows from it. A cat is capable of things that a human isn’t. The nature of things is imbedded with unique attributes. The material form will be changed to anything by the productive work of other entities such as a stone can change to a house, art, or bridge. His premises of causality also explain changes that neither Plato nor the atomist is able to conceive. He believes that everything has its attributes which makes its parts go into change.

He believes that matter is eternal and in motion. This unmoved mover isn’t God as monists believe or atoms as atomists believe. He believes there has to be an unmoved mover who accounts for the eternal motion of matter by inspiring matter to move in orderly patterns. This unmoved mover isn’t God as monists believe or atoms as atomists believe. The universe has a mind-like consciousness without physical existence but it creates orderly motion in the universe.

Epistemology has to do with the theory of knowledge and for Aristotle it is to learn about nature of the things. He proposed a systematic approach to learning about the nature of things. Things have nature and how do we know that things have nature. Indication is one way Aristotle believes that we can use our senses to form concepts and universals and then define things based on reason and observation. This is an induction process that leads to the groundbreaking work for logic. We use our minds to go from perception to forming concepts that refer to unlimited numbers of particulars. Over time we learn about things and make concepts that we can apply to things with similar characteristics. First, we perceive things through our sense-perception ability, and then we remember those things through our repeated encounters and it becomes an experience that leads us to form concepts and universals.

The concepts and universal exist in human minds. When we think of an object in our mind, they are images in our mind. Our mind uses its power of reason to give an account for something and we try to define, conceptualize, and quantify it. The human mind is a powerful thing and we can use our mind to think rationally and reach conclusions. In terms of epistemology, he was a perceptual realist. His approach was neither intrinsic nor subjective. His approach differs in that the things we see in the world, their qualities are not in the things or we subjectively make them in our mind. This approach to epistemology was challenging and unorthodox at his time. 

The induction method leads to deduction which means when we come up with definitions of things through the process of sense-perception, we deduce to sentences, validations, and soundness of the arguments and conclusions. Both the processes of induction and deduction enable humans to understand themselves and the nature of things in the universe.

To cap it all, Aristotle's method of metaphysic and epistemology varied from other contemporaries. His premises in metaphysic provides another way to see the world which is unorthodox in its explanation. The methods of induction and deduction used in Epistemology gave birth to the logic. Most modern scientific inquiries and research use Aristotle's method of induction and deduction to study the universe and the world.