Aristotle crosses swords with Plato

What makes people change their jobs in their middle age? What drives them to give up lay life and don saffron robes? What urges men and women to go for divorce even after producing children? Philosophers down the ages have tried to answer these questions in different ways. However, the celebrated Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) too might have thought that people who walk away from their jobs or families have been false to their “true selves” for years.

Aristotle can be placed on a par with Plato. However, his 27 dialogues perished when Visigoths ransacked Rome in 400 CE. Today we have to be satisfied with a collection of discourses known as Logoi which include what his students took down when they attended his lectures. Unlike Plato, Aristotle made notes for his lectures. The remaining work stands testimony to one of the great men who was interested in a wide range of subjects. Undoubtedly, he was a genius.

Aristotle was the son of a court physician in Stagira, a Greek community in Thrace. He probably learnt basic anatomy from his father before he was sent to Plato’s Academy where he excelled in studies. As a well-dressed young man he became the cynosure of all eyes. Plato is reported to have said that Aristotle paid more attention to his clothes than was proper for a philosopher. What is more, to be fashionable he cultivated a deliberate lisp like some of the Greek elite.

Altar for Plato

Despite his passion for eye-catching clothes and lisp, Aristotle did not neglect his studies. On one occasion when Plato was reading a treatise on soul aloud, all the students, except Aristotle, went away. He spent 20 years at the Academy prompting Plato to comment that his school consisted of two parts, the body of his students and the brain of Aristotle. Although Aristotle disagreed with his guru on many occasions, he remained faithful to him and even put up an altar to Plato when he died.

Everybody expected Aristotle to succeed Plato as the head of the Academy. However, he was overlooked by the trustees who considered Aristotle a foreigner. You cannot keep a good man down all the time. So, one of his classmates, Hermias, invited him to be his adviser. Hermias was a kind of philosopher-king who had power over a large area in Asia Minor.

Aristotle had little impact on Hermias’s rule but he married his adopted daughter Phythias in 344 BCE. When Hermias offended the king of Persia, Aristotle and Phythia fled to Lesbos where he studied natural history and physics. Phythia died while giving birth to her daughter. Some time later, Aristotle married Herpyllis. They lived together happily and Herpyllis gave birth to a son, Nicomachus. Aristotle dedicated the Nicomachean Ethics to his son.

Alexander the Great

A major event in his life took place when king Philip of Macedon invited Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander. Although Alexander was an unruly prince of 13, Aristotle made him a disciplined child who later became Alexander the Great. As a tribute to his teacher, Alexander ordered his soldiers to collect rare plants and animal species for Aristotle. In 340 BCE Aristotle was sent back to Stagira to compile a code of laws to restore the community life after the war. After completing his project, Aristotle returned to Athens where he founded his own school, the Lyceum.

Aristotle’s students popularly known as peripatetic philosophers, discussed philosophy while strolling down walkways known as Peripatos. Aristotle is credited with the setting up of a major library in the West. While Plato’s Academy catered to aristocrats, the Lyceum attracted middle class students. For some time, the two schools remained bitter rivals.

When Alexander the Great died, Athens turned hostile to Macedonian rule. Finding his life in Athens was becoming uncomfortable, Aristotle left for Euboea. He feared what happened to Socrates would also happen to him if he remained in Athens. He said, “lest Athens sin twice against philosophy.”

Before his death Aristotle realised many of his dreams. He set up the first major library in the West, tutored Alexander the Great, invented logic and left his mark as a great philosopher. In fact, today we know him as the Philosopher.

Plato’s idealism

In his search for good life, Plato used to compare the present life with a perfect model existing in his World of Forms. Aristotle did not see eye to eye with Plato’s idealism. He wanted to bring philosophy down to earth. As a philosophical naturalist, Aristotle said reality existed in the natural world. He saw order and consistency in nature. According to him, nature always acts with a purpose. It is our job to understand the purpose. The essence of his philosophy is that man is part of the natural order and he behaves according to fixed laws of nature.

Aristotlean philosophy cannot be explained in a paragraph or two because of its complexity. However, his main theory “Know thyself” or self-realisation was part of a natural process that could be understood only in terms of the whole. He did not believe that self-realisation was directed by an all-powerful God.

In the process of self-realisation he saw limits set by nature. However, in the 21st century we cannot find self-realised superior humans. Western culture encourages giving vent to every type of emotion. Psychologists say that suppression of emotions is unhealthy. As a result, modern man’s self is not free without a clear direction. Aristotle always reminds us that man is part of nature and he has to obey the laws of nature.