Aristotle is widely considered on of the great thinkers in the history of western civilization. He wrote about everything from ethics to biology and metaphysics to astronomy. His works have been seminal in terms of how subsequent thinkers have approached topics as diverse as classification of plants, analysis of literature, teaching public speaking, and formal logic. Although we have advanced considerably in many of these fields over the past two millennia, it isn't necessary to characterize elements of his work which have been superseded as "failures"; it might be better to think of them as pioneering efforts. Newton, whose theory of gravitation superseded Aristotle's belief in the natural motions of elements, acknowledges this when he says, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants."
In general, Aristotle's works in the sciences are among those most likely to have been proven wrong with advances in technology. His ideas concerning physics, astronomy, and biology are obsolete. In literary theory, his Poetics, although still influential, is limited by its focus on only a limited number of works of one particular culture, and especially by his ignorance of prose fiction. In ethics, his concept of "natural slavery" is one many of us would find repugnant, as we would his assumptions about gender. One could also say that his ethical and political ideas are limited by a viewpoint that accepts human inequality and the power of elites as natural phenomena. He was also, like most Greeks, rather insular, tending to despise other cultures as "barbaric" rather than exploring cultural differences objectively.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
What were the failures of Aristotle?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
There are a plethora of rules that Jonas and the other citizens must follow. Again, page numbers will vary given the edition of the book tha...
-
The poem contrasts the nighttime, imaginative world of a child with his daytime, prosaic world. In the first stanza, the child, on going to ...
-
The given two points of the exponential function are (2,24) and (3,144). To determine the exponential function y=ab^x plug-in the given x an...
-
The play Duchess of Malfi is named after the character and real life historical tragic figure of Duchess of Malfi who was the regent of the ...
-
The only example of simile in "The Lottery"—and a particularly weak one at that—is when Mrs. Hutchinson taps Mrs. Delacroix on the...
-
Hello! This expression is already a sum of two numbers, sin(32) and sin(54). Probably you want or express it as a product, or as an expressi...
-
Macbeth is reflecting on the Weird Sisters' prophecy and its astonishing accuracy. The witches were totally correct in predicting that M...
No comments:
Post a Comment