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58 pages 1 hour read

Will Durant

The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers

Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1926

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Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 2 Summary: “Aristotle and Greek Science”

The most famous aspect of Aristotle’s biography is that he tutored a young Alexander the Great, whose father had subjected Greece to Macedonian rule. Aristotle’s remarkably prolific work as a philosopher took place within the context of a turbulent political scene, with Aristotle assuming control of a school—known as “the Lyceum”—just as Alexander left behind the restive Greek city-states to conquer the Persian Empire.

Aristotle pursued a huge variety of subjects, making him a one-person “Encyclopedia Britannica of Greece” (65) whose name would be synonymous with philosophy for centuries to come. One of Aristotle’s most significant contributions was to the field of logic, which would have enormous influence on medieval thinkers. Logic demands a precise definition of terms, which combine the general and particular features of an object. In contrast to Plato, Aristotle emphasized the specificity of objects rather than their general nature. Nevertheless, he also showed his debt to Plato by introducing the syllogism, a deductive method of reasoning in which two propositions lead to a third concluding statement: e.g., if Socrates is a man, and a man is a rational being, then Socrates is a rational being (70-71).

Aristotle also helped to introduce the concept of science to Greek civilization, as philosophy was then more closely connected with understanding the natural world as well as human nature and society. Later scientific and technological developments would disprove many of Aristotle’s hypotheses on the natural world, although many of his efforts to classify animals would much later apply to the study of evolution and genetics.

In the field of metaphysics, he presents the idea of the “form,” the “inner necessity and impulse” (80) which directs matter toward an object that it pursues on account of its nature. The ultimate cause of form and matter is an “unmoved prime mover” (81), an ideal of “pure energy” (82) which Aristotle’s medieval admirers would later interpret as an early glimpse of the Christian God. Aristotle also anticipates a notion of free will, to the extent that people may pursue or not pursue what nature intends of them, but nature ordains one purpose alone for the soul. This applies to works of art as well as sentient beings. A tragic drama, for example, has the sole purpose of eliciting feelings of “pity and fear” (85) in the audience.

Another of Aristotle’s most significant contributions is in the field of ethics, where he identifies happiness as the supreme good of life, the achievement of virtue as the key to happiness, and the exercise of reason as the path to virtue. Reason finds good conduct in the middle ground of extremes: For example, “between cowardice and rashness is courage; between stinginess and extravagance is liberality” (86), although the precise character of each depends on circumstances. His ideal man is friendly and generous toward others, but not reliant upon them for his sense of self-worth.

Aristotle’s political teaching shares Plato’s distrust of democracy, but insists on learning from experience rather than searching out a purely rational ideal. Family provided the basis for the political community, and so kinship and familiarity will always matter more to the citizen than philosophic truth. Consequently, any community is going to represent a jostling of competing interests that will not submit to a neat and tidy hierarchy. A state should accordingly limit its size to no more than 10,000 people (96), or else its multiple interests will prove beyond the powers of government.

The place of women is in the management of the household, while men’s role is to promote the interests of the family in the public sphere. The political community (or polis, as Aristotle calls it) must teach its citizens that only socialization and obedience to the law can secure them prosperity and virtue, that alone “one must be either an animal or a god” (97). The longer a government lasts, the easier it will be to maintain itself by habit and tradition rather than bargaining or force.

The most difficult question in politics is which regime is best. Rule under a just monarch is ideal, but should such rule fall to an evil man, it would be the worst regime. Aristocracies could feature a small clique of the wealthiest and most capable, but there can hardly be a guarantee of the greatest wealth possessing the greatest talent. In a democracy, the masses cannot govern themselves, and so they will fall under the influence of demagogues. Thus, Aristotle favors a constitutional regime that permits mass participation, but reserves offices for the talented and retains a monarchy’s potential for decisive action.

In Durant’s final estimation, Aristotle’s contributions are enormous, but he clipped the wings of philosophy by tying it too closely to naturalism and logic, whereas Plato’s works are rich with imaginative speculation. Shortly after his death in 322 BCE, Greek philosophy gave way to the ruthless practicality of the Roman empire, until that gave way to the Dark Ages.

Chapter 2 Analysis

Socrates influenced Plato, who in turn influenced Aristotle, creating an important philosophical trilogy in the intellectual Greek world. Aristotle’s tutorship of Alexander the Great is often treated as an interesting biographical detail, a noteworthy meeting between the greatest mind and might of the ancient Greek world. Durant sees something far more significant for The Sociohistorical Context of Philosophy, pointing out that the young prince was from Macedonia, conquerors of Greece whom the Greeks deemed uncivilized. Aristotle’s influence gave Alexander a degree of intellectual prestige, while Alexander created a wider-spread Hellenistic civilization that bridged more of the gaps between ancient east and west. As Durant tells it, it is much to the world’s detriment that Alexander and Aristotle both died in fairly rapid succession, extinguishing their fusion of mind and power before the Romans ascended to mastery over the Mediterranean.

Unlike Plato, whose ideal forms existed outside of matter, Aristotle finds The Nature of Human Beings and the World within matter, as “everything in the world is moved by an inner urge to become something greater than it is” (80). Every person can thus aspire to be a more virtuous version of themselves. Nevertheless, Aristotle is only slightly more democratic than Plato or Plato’s Socrates, finding that “the great majority of men are natural dunces and sluggards; in any system whatever these men will sink to the bottom” (92) while others still are fit only for enslavement. He does not even consider whether women have a claim on virtue, a theme that will persist through the majority of the book.

Like Plato, moral education remains important to Aristotle. However, the differences with Plato are instructive, such as character being a matter of moderation between extremes rather than the perfection of one quality (such as wisdom) which invariably compromises another (courage). Virtue is not just the qualities of the soldier or the philosopher king—it can belong to any citizen, and although the extraordinary difficulties involved in training one’s self to be virtuous make it the likely provenance of a few, they do not constitute a ruling class, as virtue is at least as much a private as a public activity. On the scale of society, constitutional government promises a genuine balance among interests, and not merely a hierarchy that trusts in the benevolence of the masters.

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