Aristotle Flashcards
When and where was Aristotle born?
384 BC in Thrace
What subjects did Aristotle teach?
Rhetoric
Poetry
Ethics
Aristotle was the most famous alumni of what school?
Plato
What book did Aristotle name after his son?
Nicomachean ethics
What is the name of Aristotle’s most famous pupil?
Alexander the Great
What did Alexander the Great get from his mentor Aristotle?
A passion for unity
What was the name and nickname of Aristotle’s school?
The Lyceum
The peripatetic school (walking around school)
What happened to Aristotle toward the end of his life?
He was charged with impiety and he fled to challeis where he died a year later of natural causes
What word is used to describe Aristotle’s view of logic
Organon
What is the difference between an argument and a statement?
Statements are true or false
Argument are valid or invalid
The chief principle of logic is what?
The law of non contradiction
In the Greek language, what 2 ideas are connected in the term alethia?
Truth and reality
What concept did Aristotle develop that is vital to the understanding of language and knowledge?
Categories
What two ideas are associated with classification?
Compare (similarity) and contrast (differences)
What are Aristotle’s nine categories?
Quantity Quality Relations Place Date Posture Possession Action Passivity
What is the difference between the substance and accidens of a thing?
Substance essential nature of a thing and it’s accidens are its external, perceivable qualities
In what way did Aristotle break with his teacher Plato
Aristotle postulated that there is no ideal realm where forms and ideas exist in an of themselves but is combined as form and matter
Explain entelechy
Entelechy represents the form of a thing that enables a thing to become what it becomes
What are Aristotle’s four causes that produce change in things?
Formal cause - that which determines what a thing is- sculptors idea for a sculpture
Material cause – that out of which a thing is made - the block of marble
Efficient cause - that by which a thing is made - the sculptor
Final cause- that for which a thing is made - it’s purpose -the decoration of a garden
What was Aristotle’s answer to the problem of infinite regress?
Actuality must precede potentiality. This is the concept of the unmoved mover- eternal, immaterial and immutable
