Philosophical king

[dean]

Hello,Being a bit of a lover of philosophy I was curious to talk a little bit about Aristotle.I mean what would Alexander have learned about this subject- philospohy- if anything at all. I think that Aristotle was much more interested in science and the physical world rather than the world of ideas.With Socrates, from what I can see, it was reason, the all powerful concept but with Aristotle I am left wondering. Cartainly Aristotle encouraged Alexander's passion for literature- but to me it is unclear what philosophical concepts may have been taught.Can anyone enlighten me?Best regards and thanks in advance,
Dean.

[marcus]

I'm certainly not in a position to give a definitive answer to this, not least because I've read very little Aristotle - I tried, but found it very turgid.Of course, the fact is that we don't know what Aristotle taught Alexander; and, bearing in mind he wrote his works after the years at Mieza, we don't know how well-formed his ideas were. OK, so it's pretty clear that he taught botany and other more physical sciences, as well as literature, from the little the sources (mainly Plutarch) tell us; but as for what he taught as, say, political philosophy must remain an area for speculation.Of course, a 'philosopher' in Greece was not always the same as the more modern type such as Kant and Hegel. The range and diversity of Aristotle's extant works is proof enough of that. All the bestMarcus

[alejandro]

Hi DeanUnfortunately I am unable to give you any information beyond the one provided by Marcus. However, the only thing I remember from my secondary school philosophy course is that Aristotle was the first who distinguished between GÇ£essenceGÇ¥ and GÇ£accidentGÇ¥ (or maybe he was just one of the strongest exponents of the philosophical school based on this distinction, I donGÇÖt remember it well). The essence would be the immutable basic concept of something, that what defines it; the accident the volatile circumstantial qualities attached to it (at least that is what I understood then and now. Eg, a GÇ£personGÇ¥ would be composed of both essence GÇôthat what defines a person as such- and accident GÇôhair colour, race, etc-. The most striking example of the difference is the following: you can have the same GÇ£accidentGÇ¥ coupled with two different GÇ£essencesGÇ¥: the same set of muscles, bones and tissues (accident) can be a human being (essence 1) if the person is alive, but it becomes a corpse (essence 2) when the person dies!).In any case, the message I want to convey is that what we know as philosophy nowadays is much more concerned with the essence of beings than with their accidents. Aristotle, however, seems to have been much more concerned with the latter, as he is told to have been very keen on collecting everything, from bugs and exotic plants to political constitutions. In my view, he was rather obsessed with classification of observations and with the establishment of a rigurous taxonomy of every possible case available. Maybe this was what he transmitted to Alexander? Maybe that was the seed that led Alex to evaluate all types of people only according to their virtues and not on their race or religion? (and yes, I do know that Aristotle is supposed to have said that Persian were barbarians that were born to be slaves, but he was soured by the murder of his friend Hermeias and, also, he formulated his theory based on a few data-points, unlike Alex who actually dealt with almost every nation in the GÇôthen- known world. That is, if Alex learned the GÇ£Aristotelian methodGÇ¥ (?) based on analysing as many cases as possible, he could have simply reached a different conclusion from that of Aristotle because of the larger set of observations).Just my thougths anyway.BestAlejadro

[ruthaki]

I visited the site of Mieza last summer and was taken by the beauty of the location. In Alexander's time it must have been like a mini garden of Eden! If all Aristotle taught him were about nature, science etc the school's location was certain condusive to stimulating that kind of interest. And it seems Alexander took time to send many samples of flora and fauna home to Aristotle from his travels.

[jan]

Have you ever played the game Careers? In it, one can become a millionaire or a philospher. He who wears white is a millionaire and he who wears brown is a philosopher. Just a clue for you to consider in observing current events of current Aristotles.

[dean]

Hello,
Since I posted this topic certain things have come to me: I recalled for example that it was Aristotle who defined the concept of "catharsis" while speaking of the nature of tragedy. This now has another meaning in psychology. Also he seemed to be into classifying and dividing everything up- even where human beings are concerned- the Persians being barbarians and of course the Greeks the refined and cultured ones- perhaps due to the existence of "democracy". It is then seemingly paradoxical that Aristotle should then teach the son of supposed tyrant as Philip was held for in Athens.(Hsving said that, he was paid a small fortune for his trouble). Also Miguel Ale, I too recall the concept of essence and "accident" if that is how you want to put it.Although as Marcus so rightly said, Aristotle was no Schopenhauer.Best regards,
Dean.

[jona]

In fact, we do know something, because Aristotle published a little book and dedicated it to his pupil. It is called "Peri Kosmou pros Alexandrou" ("The cosmos, to Alexander").Many scholars have argued that it could not be authentic, because it contains several ideas that are un-Aristotelean, but during the last two decades, our understanding of Aristotle has changed considerably. Another argument against authenticity is that the author quotes an orphic hymn that was believed to be Hellenistic, but the text has been found in an early fourth-century context.An Italian scholar, Giovanni Reale, has therefore argued for its authenticity; using other arguments, a Dutchman Bram Bos has argued the same. A study of the linguistic aspects allows that the Greek of "The Cosmos" is Aristotelian. The most recent book on the subject is *Il trattato "Sul Cosmo per Alessandro" attribuito ad Aristotele, Monografia introduittiva, testo greco con traduzione a fronte, commentario, bibliografica ragionata e indici* (1995 Milano). This is a reprint of Reale's first book, but it takes into account a lot of modern scholarship.Jona