DISCOVERING ARISTOTLE: an EXAMINATION of HIS LIFE and the DEVELOPMENT of HIS IMMUTABLE BRILLIANCE Timothy H
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Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Honors Theses University Honors Program 4-25-2012 DISCOVERING ARISTOTLE: AN EXAMINATION OF HIS LIFE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIS IMMUTABLE BRILLIANCE Timothy H. Sparling Student, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/uhp_theses Thanks are necessary to Dr. Thomas Alexander for monitoring this research project from its young beginnings to its finished product. Additionally, Dr. Robert Hahn, to whom the fundamental inception of this work is owed, must also be recognized with the utmost deference. Recommended Citation Sparling, Timothy H., "DISCOVERING ARISTOTLE: AN EXAMINATION OF HIS LIFE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIS IMMUTABLE BRILLIANCE" (2012). Honors Theses. Paper 350. This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the University Honors Program at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Discovering ARISTOTLE An Examination of his Life and the Development of his Immutable Brilliance Timothy H. Sparling College of Liberal Arts Sparling 2 Retrospect will bear witness to the fact that the contemporary human condition is but a product of thousands of years of development which, in turn, was perpetuated by the greatest minds that such a fledgling species could possibly muster. In light of this, one fundamental metaphysical truth concerning human reality quickly becomes apparent: that, indeed, it was the unparalleled genius of hundreds of thousands of thinkers, toiling under the drudgery of intellectual labor, which formulated that conception of existence that has come to predominate modernity. But what idiosyncratic intellect, what anomalous creature, born of rationality, could possibly epitomize such a development? What prime member of such a young species of beings so diligent, so obsessed with progress, could be indicative of that infatuation with the expansion of the capabilities of humanity? One particular individual whose conception of reality insinuates itself into the rudimentary structure of human thought, whose incredible acumen, when compounded with an insatiable desire for truth for its own sake, resulted in a being whose prominence for prolificacy surpasses any other; that individual is the ever-illustrious Aristotle. The objective of the current piece is to succinctly examine the life and work of Aristotle while emphasizing his early or “exoteric” works (and, to a much lesser extent, his treatises) in an attempt to illustrate the maturation of his brilliance in a manner which further elucidates the relationship that exists between the various facets of his personal being and the philosophy which was synthesized as a product of his particular person. Consequently, the inquiry at hand does not explicitly select a single thesis as its primary end but, instead, adopts several theories regarding the essence of Aristotelian thought through the means of a concise dissection of his personality, relationships, convictions and method. Thus, although by no means a comprehensive review of Aristotle in his entirety (for such work is undoubtedly in demand, given the virtual absence of any single piece which commits to this noble endeavor), the present text will attempt to address Sparling 3 Aristotle in a compendious fashion while recognizing the contributions, and alternate interpretations, of the many scholars who have delivered the following information in the finest detail for the academic curiosity of those who constitute posterity. This is the tale of the legendary Greek philosopher named Aristotle. Aristotle was born in the year 384 B.C.E. in the small town of Stagira in Chalcidice, Thrace, on the northern periphery of the ancient Greek world. 1 Son of Nichomachus, a physician in the Macedonian court of King Amyntas II and Phaestis, a woman whose aristocratic roots can be ascribed to the city of Chalcis on the island of Euboea, Aristotle was bred in an atmosphere of material affluence as a result of his lineage. Aristotle’s paternal ancestry is composed of an extensive line of medical scholars and kings which discovers its genealogical origins in a group of settlers from the island of Andros. Following Aristotle’s birth, his father, Nichomachus, travelled to the old Macedonian capital of Aegae to pursue his own studies and, allegedly being an intelligent and well-cultured man, published several medicinal texts, in addition to one piece on physics, throughout the duration of his career. 2 Seeing as Aristotle’s family was deeply involved in the medicinal arts for generations, it is quite possible that, due to his constant exposure to such an environment in his youth, the common occupation of his predecessors and their extensive utilization of medical knowledge may have exerted a significant influence upon his mode of thinking, thus potentially contributing to his later advocacy of empirical procedure, as opposed to purely speculative ones, to justify his scientific and philosophical findings throughout several fields of human knowledge; this point is of clear significance and must remain in one’s consciousness as this analysis proceeds. 3 1 J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher , (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 4. 2 Anton-Hermann Chroust, Aristotle: New Light on his Life and on Some of his Works , Vol. 1 & 2 (Indianapolis, I.N.: University of Notre Dame Press., 1973), p. 74-76. 3 Thomas P. Kiernan, Aristotle Dictionary , (New York, N.Y.: Philosophical Library Inc., 1962), p. 3. Sparling 4 However, despite this clear correlation between Aristotle’s own work and the occupation of his paternal antecessors, he is said to have once stated that although a man should possess a degree of medical knowledge, he must not stoop so low as to become a medical practitioner; this latter statement seems to imply a certain contempt between Aristotle and his father mixed with an air of superiority and potential rejection of his parent. 4 Aristotle also had a sister, named Arimneste, and a younger brother, named Arimnestus, the latter of whom died at a young age. Arimneste first married an individual by the name of Demotimus (also referred to as Callisthenes by some ancient sources) with whom she had a daughter named Hero. After Demotimus’ death, Arimneste married a man named Proxenus with whom she birthed a son named Nicanor. Arimneste’s daughter, Hero, later bore a son named Callisthenes of Olynthus, who was Alexander the Great’s famed historian; this would make Arimneste significantly older than Aristotle, seeing as her grandchild was Aristotle’s contemporary. Additionally, Proxenus, a native of the city of Atarneus, was possibly an associate of Plato’s and may have even been a distant relative of Aristotle’s. 5 Regardless, as fate determined it, both Arimneste and Proxenus eventually affected Aristotle’s own life in such a way as to necessitate an irrevocable revision in his person; one which facilitated the creation of one of the single most important relationships which Aristotle would ever sustain. Proxenus, acting in accordance with Nichomacus’ will, became Aristotle’s legal guardian after his death in accordance and is likely to have been instructed by the posthumous document to take sufficient care of Phaestis (assuming that she was still alive at this juncture) and his three children as well. Proxenus would have also taken care of Nichomachus’ estate (which may indicate a possible familial relationship between him and Aristotle) after marrying the then- 4 John Ferguson, Aristotle , (New York, N.Y.: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1972), p. 15. 5 Chroust, Aristotle , p. 76-79. Sparling 5 young Arimneste. Given Arimneste’s substantial seniority to that of her younger brother, it is likely that she became some semblance of a mother figure to him in his young age while Proxenus supplanted the now-vacant position of Nichomachus as Aristotle’s custodian. Under the guidance and security of Proxenus, Aristotle commenced a respectable rudimentary education in his youth, possibly due in part to the renowned character of his family both in Stagira and in Macedonia, and may have even studied medicine, in spite of whatever reservations he may have possessed, as a result of his paternal lineage. Additionally, it is reported that Proxenus was the individual to first escort Aristotle to Athens at the age of eight, meaning that Nichomacus, and Phaestes as well, were likely to have already been dead anywhere between the years 376/375 and 367 B.C.E; consequently, one cannot overemphasize the degree to which Arimneste and Proxenus’ presence impacted Aristotle’s own identity during his most formative years. 6 Tradition maintains that in the year 367 B.C.E., Proxenus again accompanied Aristotle to Athens, where the former transmitted authority of the young thinker to Plato in the Academy. However, an alternate interpretation asserts that, due to the renowned fame of a rhetorician by the name of Isocrates, Aristotle may have first joined Isocrates’ school prior to transferring to the Academy. Isocrates, who once worked with the infamous Gorgias in Thessaly, had become widely-known in Macedonia and the young Aristotle may have encountered his works at an early age, thus succumbing to Isocrates’ rhetorical power to such an extent as to pay little attention to Plato’s developing Academy. Aristotle’s early infatuation with the art of rhetorical speechcraft and political oratory, as is evident in such early