Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher. He was mentored by Plato and went on to become the mentor and tutor of Alexander the Great. His philosophical foundations draw upon a variety of sources including...

Aristotle's views of reality were enshrined in what he referred to as his "first philosophy," or what we today call metaphysics. This involved in-depth study of the universal principles and...

For Aristotle, virtue involves the disposition to act in a certain way that is deemed by one's society to be morally excellent. Virtue is therefore related to how one behaves rather than to the...

Catharsis refers specifically to a purging of emotion for the audience, a purging that occurs when the truth finally comes out and the characters now understand everything that the audience does....

According to Wikipedia.com, hamartia is a term that was developed by Aristotle and: ...can simply be seen as a character’s flaw or error...hamartia is the tragic flaw of the protagonist in a given...

In much contemporary dramatic thought, stress is placed on the importance of the character in the drama. This is in keeping with the relatively modern tendency to see acting as an art form, and a...

In Aristotle's Poetics, he says: Those who employ spectacular means to create a sense not of the terrible but only of the monstrous, are strangers to the purpose of Tragedy; for we must not demand...

Aristotle, judging by his writings, was extremely interested in contemplating the nature of man, that most intractable of subjects. Man’s role in society and the motivations that drive him to act...

Aristotle considers the soul to be the principle of life, which means that he holds that all living things have souls, not just human beings. His main work on psychology is called “De Anima,” which...

Aristotle defined three main modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. Each of these allows a speaker to utilize a different method of persuasion, and frequently all three work together to...

As mentioned in the previous post, Aristotle addresses the idea of catharsis in his text Poetics. Within the text, he describes catharsis as the purging of emotions, such as fear and pity....

This question has stimulated a good deal of philosophical debate among scholars down the centuries. Nevertheless, the general consensus seems to be that Aristotle believed that the intellect was...

Aristotle's model for communication focuses heavily on the importance of understanding one's audience. In order to employ effective audience-centered communication, the speaker must employ ethos to...

Pathos is a rhetorical device used to persuade an audience by appealing to its emotions. As groups of people tend to be more emotionally suggestible than individuals, pathos is often used in...

Aristotle argues that the supreme good for man is happiness. His rationalization is that the supreme good will also be the highest end, the end we pursue only for its own sake. To arrive at the...

Aristotle emphasizes that the very best life is a life of eudaimonia, or happiness. Aristotle reasons that the kind of happiness that he is referring to is good and desirable without being...

"Sleep-test ethics" refers to a concept of ethical evaluation that is based on one's personal instincts, which could also be called one's "gut feelings" or "moral compass." The idea is that if...

Aristotle examined several different ethical values to discuss their merit as well as how to uphold them properly. He analyzes these virtues and states that he believes they arise from both our...

Although Aristotle did not really use the modern scientific method, his methods did set the stage for full-fledged science later on. Aristotle was organized in his approach to science. He would...

Examples of primary substances are animals, apples, trees, and mountains. Secondary matter is comparable to form. This is to say that secondary matter is "said of" or "inhering in" a primary...

The concepts of moral excellence and the good are closely related in the works of Aristotle. For Aristotle, the supreme good is happiness. Most of the good things in life are a means to an end, but...

Plato's disparagement of mimesis can only be understood in relation to his theory of Forms. Very briefly—and simply—put, Plato believed that what was ultimately real inhered in what he called...

Aristotle ties truth to wisdom and knowledge and examines it as a part of metaphysics. The treatise Metaphysics lays his arguments forth. Aristotle's epistemology contends that finding knowledge...

Without more details about this hypothetical house party, it seems like, in the context of Aristotle’s distributive justice, the just decision would be to not attend. The house party could lead to...

The object of ethics is the distinction between good and evil. According to Plato, there is an absolute good which belongs to the transcendental realm of Forms, whereas Aristotle thinks that good...

Aristotle's Poetics has certainly been very influential in many ways. It not only perfectly defines a tragedy, other authors have used his definitions as a model ever since. Since we are limited to...

Aristotle is renowned for various works including his Nicomachean Ethics. In studying the basis of what makes a person strive towards his or her goals, Aristotle maintains that performing "good"...

Excellent question! First, definitions are in order: Artificial selection, sometimes called "selective breeding," is the process of manipulating genetics to bring out qualities that the breeders...

Aristotle was a proponent of what's called virtue ethics. This is a school of moral philosophy that locates morality in the attainment of virtue, or moral excellence. Examples of virtues would...

As the title suggests, the second chapter will focus on Aristotle. Pelagia Goulimari starts by offering some details about Aristotle’s life. You might have noted that Aristotle served as the tutor...

There's a German word for taking pleasure in the fall of celebrities, but I don't know how to spell it- even to look it up! The idea is that people take pleasure in watching suffering. It sounds...

Aristotle served as the foundation for many aspects of philosophy, science, and theology for a period of over 1500 years. His first major position of some importance was his role as tutor to...

The golden mean is an idea from Aristotle. It is what we should all aspire to in our attempts to act properly. To Aristotle, all things can be good or bad. If they are done too little, they are...

Realism claims that the physical world exists outside of one’s own perception. Think about the words you are reading on this page. The page is filled with lines that your mind then recognizes as...

See http://www.enotes.com/aristotle/q-and-a/what-according-you-aristotles-views-mimesis-305660

For Aristotle as well as most classical writers, mimesis was a central concept, meaning "to copy" or "to imitate." The Classicists saw the world as a reflection. While Plato disapproved of poets...

When Aristotle divided “poetry” into epic, lyric, and dramatic, he was concerning himself with the kinds of narration that separated them. When he defined drama as “imitation of an action by...

Aristotle, as did and have many others, defined “virtue” as “excellence” in whatever activity in which one is engaged (a concept that Machiavelli would later refine in a more ruthless context)....

I would like to see this moved to the Literature Discussion Forum so we can hear other peoples' interpretations of Aristotle's comment. To me, Aristotle is adopting a somewhat cynical attitude,...

Any discussion of Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics needs to be acknowledged as occurring within a particular legal and social framework within which his essentially democratic thoughts are...

In very basic terms, "primary substance" refers to individual things, whether they're individual human beings, dogs, cats, trees, rocks, or anything else. Primary substances are specific things...

A catharsis is an outpouring of emotion. Tragedy is when there is so much emotion that it cannot be contained, and must be expressed. There is also a truth that comes with the catharsis, an...

This quote can be tough to parse because Aristotle links two different ideas to each other very quickly and without any explanation as to why he jumped from one to the other. The first idea is...

Aristotle wrote his "Poetics" fifty years after the death of Sophocles, and he was a great admirer of both Sophocles and his great tragedy, "Oedipus Rex." In "Poetics," Aristotle discusses tragedy...

Aristotle discusses the four causes (Greek: aitia) in the Physics and Metaphysics. These are the four types of explanation concerning why and, to a degree, how objects come into being. This theory...

Aristotle, like most thinkers of his period, divides thinking about morality into three categories. Moral actions with respect to the city-state (polis) as a whole, or politics Moral actions with...

For Aristotle, moral conduct consists of avoiding extremes. This is tied very closely to the question that you asked about the golden mean. To Aristotle, moral conduct is conduct that meets the...

In Metaphysics, Aristotle lays out his four causes as answers to "why" questions. In other words, if we were to ask why something is as it is, we would want to answer it with respect to the...

Aristotle divided animals into "those without blood" and "those with blood," a dichotomy that roughly corresponds to the modern classifications of vertebrates and invertebrates. He divided animals...

Aristotle was born in the ancient city of Stagira, Greece. Stagira was located along the country’s northern coast and also served as a seaport. The town was founded by people from Andros, and, at...