Aristotle
384-322 BC. Aristotle was the greatest of the Greek philosophers. He criticized Plato and Socrates with a certain hardness. Been the tutor of Alexander of several years at the court of Philip of Macedon. Studied under Plato. Accepted Plato's general notion of the existence of ideas, but held that physical matter also is a part of reality and not to be despised. Like Plato, Aristotle thought it necessary, first of all, to understand and explain the workings of the human mind and to show what kinds of reasoning were valid and could be relied on to give us sure knowledge of anything and what were not. God the first principal and final cause of all the universe. Not the creator, nothing can be produced out of nothing. In a lunar eclipse, the earth throws a curved shadow on the moon, which it could only do if it were a ball.The wisdom for which all philosophers are in search is the knowledge of first principles and the causes of things. The first heaven must be eternal. There is also something that moves it.. moves others without being moved. Motion in space is the first beginning of change. Life also belongs to God, for thought as actuality is life, and God is that actuality. For a man is magnificent not when he spends on himself, but when he spends for the common good. Every prophetic vision contains some lesson by means of allegory. The universe has not a beginning.. an ultimate final cause cannot be sought.. t of a permanent order of things. Everything in nature serves a purpose.. each part is thought to be a product of the divine will. The circumference and the radius of the earth are known. While one part of the universe owes its existence to Providence and is under control of a ruler and a governor, another part is abandoned and left to chance. Man has free will, it is therefore unintelligible that the Law contains commands and prohibitions. The theory of man's perfectly free will is one of the fundamental principles of the law of our teacher Moses, and of those who follow the Law. Providence can only proceed from an intelligent being. Earth lies at the center of the universe and must be spherical.. it is clear that the earth does not move. Called father of science.
The basis of a democratic state is liberty. To be happy means to be self-sufficient. From the same truth-seeking school came Aristotle, who led the search into added fields and made it more scientific and exact. Philosophy in his hands was enlarged, to embrace natural science, as well as morals and metaphysics. Natural science, indeed, may be said to have originated with Aristotle.
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