Aristotelianism

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n Aristotelianism (philosophy) the philosophy of Aristotle that deals with logic and metaphysics and ethics and poetics and politics and natural science "Aristotelianism profoundly influenced Western thought"
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • Aristotelianism The philosophy of Aristotle, otherwise called the Peripatetic philosophy.
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n aristotelianism The philosophy of Aristotle, or any later modification of it. Aristotelianism is a kind of metaphysical evolutionism. Its central idea is the distinction of act and power (actuality and potentiality). The nature of the world as a whole, as well as every part of it, may be illustrated by the analogy of the growth of a tree from a seed. The tree has a sort of being in the seed—a potential being: it exists in it in power only. That which is actualized in the perfected development from the seed—the tree—exists in act or actuality. This perfected development—the entelechy—is the characteristic nature of the thing which places it in some natural species, and which is its form, or that element of the thing which makes it to be the kind of thing that it is. The other element, which merely makes the thing to be, is its matter, which, as unformed, is identified by Aristotle with the power or potentiality of a germ. Every event is an act of development. Most events take place under the influence of an external efficient cause, and their character is determined by an end. Matter, form, efficient cause, and end are the four Aristotelian causes or principles. But not all events are brought about by external efficient causes. Some happen by fortuitous spontaneity, and are not determined by any causes whatever. Other events come to pass naturally, that is, by a self-determined growth. Besides that which is moved but does not cause motion, and that which is both moved and causes motion, there must needs be a tertium quid, which is not moved, yet causes motion; and this is God, or pure act (actuality) without undeveloped potentiality. The soul is the entelechy, or perfect flower, of the body. It has three parts, the vegetative (or merely vital), the sensible, and the rational. The reason is not a mere belonging of the individual; it exists before the body, and, as the active reason, is common to all persons upon the tablets of whose passive reason it writes its dicta. Space and time are mere logical elements of motion. Aristotle is justly called the father of logic, although there were some vague logical doctrines before him, and although his system is now largely superseded. He holds the only excellent reasoning to be syllogism, and all other kinds of reasoning to be imperfect approximations to syllogism. Particular facts are first and best known to us, but general truths are first and best known in themselves. Science must set out with certain fixed first principles, which are definitions. Knowledge is a development from impressions of sense, to the formation of which reason and experience both contribute. Things are of ten classes, substances, relations, quantities, qualities, etc. See category. Different genera are subdivided upon different principles, so that there are no cross-divisions in the real classification of natures. It is possible to so collate passages from Aristotle as to make him appear as an inductive logician; but the whole cast of his mind was such as to lead him to underrate the importance of induction. He lays much stress on the principle of excluded middle, which he treats as a corollary of the principle of contradiction; and he has a general leaning to hard and rather wooden distinctions. The most important of his ethical doctrines are that happiness lies in the working out of one's inwardness, and that every virtue is a golden mean between two vices.
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Usage

In literature:

He regards the subject largely from an Aristotelian point of view.
"The Basis of Early Christian Theism" by Lawrence Thomas Cole
The so-called Aristotelian dramatic canons, formulated by Scaliger in his Poetic, were rigorously applied.
"A History of French Literature" by Edward Dowden
He is an Aristotelian of the fifteenth century.
"The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3)" by Leslie Stephen
Even in the universities Aristotelian physics and metaphysics, and with them the scholastic philosophy, still held their own.
"The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11" by Various
Aristotelian doctrine of chemical elements, 4.
"Manures and the principles of manuring" by Charles Morton Aikman
The Aristotelian distribution of the intellectual faculties corresponds fully to this division of the objects of knowledge.
"Christianity and Greek Philosophy" by Benjamin Franklin Cocker
The Aristotelian philosophy was no longer satisfying.
"Jewish Literature and Other Essays" by Gustav Karpeles
Marius himself, however, seems to have held the Aristotelian terrestrial-exhalation theory of cometary origin.
"A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century" by Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
Controverted the Aristotelians concerning falling bodies, at Pisa.
"Pioneers of Science" by Oliver Lodge
What was the Athanasian creed but an Aristotelian formula, making a hard dogma out of a dim mystery?
"Beside Still Waters" by Arthur Christopher Benson
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In news:

A professor of philosophy at St John's University recently launched the first phase of a comprehensive Web-based database on Aristotelian scholarship that includes 43,000 articles, book reviews, books and PhD dissertations.
timesledger.com
Simple, direct and memorable, this Aristotelian "triptych" is a handy method to employ whenever you need to make a presentation, long or short, that you want people to remember.
inc.com
"Greek medicine" was long viewed with suspicion, and it took three centuries for Aristotelian logic to be accepted, over the strenuous objections of pious clerics.
online.wsj.com
You still have to satisfy all those pesky Aristotelian needs, but you don't have story and character to help you out.
backstage.com
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In science:

Two or more Aristotelian diagrams, and their duals, can be concatenated and reduced, if possible.
A diagrammatic calculus of n-term syllogisms
Moreover, these involve three distinguished term-variables, denoted S , P and M , in such a way that M occurs in both the Aristotelian diagrams in the premisses and does not in the conclusion, whereas S and P occur in the conclusion as well as in the premisses.
A diagrammatic calculus of n-term syllogisms
Syllogistic inferences will be represented by diagrams filled i n with the symbol |= upside down, so to explicitly underline the fact that the notion of syllogistic inference is a directed one but also written in line, by letting ♯ denote the concatenation of Aristotelian diagrams.
A diagrammatic calculus of n-term syllogisms
Aristotelian diagrams for its premisses to the Aristotelian diagram for its conclusion.
A diagrammatic calculus of n-term syllogisms
Aristotelian diagram representing the conclusion of (4) has been obtained by reduction through the formal calculation of the composite • ← M ← P, making the middle term M disappear.
A diagrammatic calculus of n-term syllogisms
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Related words