Research Proposal on Aristotle
After going through the course and learning ideas from different scholars and philosophers, I find Aristotle an outstanding philosopher in his reasoning through his philosophical work. I am very interested in knowing his doctrines in various areas such as psychology, ethics, science, and philosophy. He contributed a lot to these areas that people still find remarkable. As a person, I love his arguments on matter and soul discussed in class and would like to research more on the same. The final paper will look into details of the works of Aristotle and during his philosophical lifetime. In general, knowing the beliefs of Aristotle, his contributions to science, geology, philosophy, and ethics are very important for any scholar or philosopher and understanding his relationship with Plato.
Before looking at Aristotle’s work, the final paper will look at Aristotle’s life steps. For example, the article will look at the college students who decided to write a good research paper on the topic have to know that Aristotle was born in Stagira, a Greek colony in Chalkidiki, not far from the Mount Athos, in 384 B.C. Aristotle’s father, Nicomachus, was a doctor at the court of Amyntas III of Macedon. Nicomachus descended from a renowned family of doctors, in which the art of medicine passed from generation to generation (Shields, 2000). The father was the first Aristotle tutor. In childhood, Aristotle became acquainted with Philip II of Macedon, the future the father of Alexander the Great, that played a significant role in becoming Aristotle, the educator of Alexander the Great.
Furthermore, the final research will look at different aspects of Aristotle’s work and his biography. The study will try to expand areas of work and the relationship between Aristotle and Plato. On a brief note, Aristotle was the first thinker, created a comprehensive system of philosophy, covering all the aspects of human development: sociology, philosophy, politics, logic, and physics. His views on ontology had a severe influence on the subsequent development of social ideas. As a student of Plato, he learned different aspects of philosophy. He knew in Plato’s college for twenty years. During this time, Aristotle used deductive reasoning in his philosophical arguments, while Plato used inductive reasoning. One of them started from the central premise while the other jumped from the minor premise.
The other concept which the final paper is going to look at is the metaphysical aspects and beliefs, according to Aristotle. The article will look into simple aspects of metaphysical ideas, such as forms, and relate them with Plato’s forms. The metaphysical studies of Aristotle were accepted by Thomas Aquinas and developed by the scholastic method. He was the most influential naturalist of the classic period from the dialecticians of antiquity, founder of formal logic. Aristotle is a great philosopher and someone worth researching because he created a conceptual construct used as a paradigm for the philosophical lexicon and scientific thinking style until now (Shields, 2000). Other than logic, Aristotle also studied and contributed to the difference between the soul and body. He argued that they are two different entities that, after death, separate. It is difficult to understand the main issues on soul and body, and reading additional articles and resource materials will help me understand them better.
Other things the paper is going to look into when dealing with Aristotle are his ability to divide sciences into theoretical, which is knowledge for learning, practical, and “poetic” (creative). The theoretical sciences include physics, mathematics, and “first philosophy” (also known as theological philosophy, known later as metaphysics); among the practical sciences, there are ethics and politics (also known as a science dealing with the state). One of the central doctrines of the “first philosophy” by Aristotle is a doctrine about four reasons or the first principles.
Aristotle asserted that philosophy emerged based on “episteme,” which was the knowledge beyond feelings, skills, and experience. So empiric expertise in the areas of calculation, health, natural properties of objects was the rudiments of sciences and theoretical preconditions for philosophy’s origin. Aristotle developed philosophy from the rudiments of sciences. Philosophy became a system of scientific knowledge.
Another right area to research Aristotle’s work is his understanding of the denotation of totality virtues. For denotation of the totality of virtues of a human character as a particular subject domain of knowledge and the accentuation of this knowledge of science, Aristotle introduced the term “ethics.” Derived from the word “ethos,” Aristotle formed an adjective “ethics” to designate the particular class of the human qualities he called ethics virtues. Ethic virtues are properties of a human character of temperament, also known as heartfelt qualities.
The passage that my final paper is going to dwell on majorly is the NATURAL WORLD. “Unlike Plato who dismissed the value of opinion due to the fact that it stems from experiences in the world (which Plato believed deceive us), Aristotle had no qualms about considering opinion and actually supported the idea that experience very much contributes to and produces knowledge. Aristotle had full confidence in the idea that we can know about particular objects in the world and we are able to do this, he thought, through the use of sense-perception” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/.
The paper is going to use different materials in the data collection process. One of the primary sources will be class materials. Other sources will include internet sources such as Google Scholar materials to make a concrete analysis of the subject matter. The paper will also use different online libraries. The materials will consist of articles from other scholars. The data will be analyzed with varying materials of discussion from class and compare them with other sources.
To conclude, doing a research study on Aristotle will be very interesting because he has different beliefs, and he also covers a wide range of topics or subjects. For example, knowing Aristotle’s views, his contributions to science, geology, philosophy, and ethics are significant for any scholar or philosopher in addition to understanding his relationship with Plato (Shields, 2000). Some of the main ideas that the final research paper will look at are soul, matter, and the difference between body and soul. His works are vast and give insights on different subject areas; for example, in physics, Aristotle related each of the four elements proposed earlier by Empedocles, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, to two of the four sensible qualities, hot, cold, wet, and dry. I am also looking forward to studying more about Aristotle in college and beyond.
References
Aveling, F. (1909). Form. The catholic encyclopedia, 6.
Aveling, F. (1911). Matter. The catholic encyclopedia, 10.
Shields, C. (2000). Aristotle’s psychology.