Life

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Plato died in 347 and was succeeded by his nephew Speusippus as head of the Academy. Soon after, Aristotle left Athens (possibly accompanied by Xenocrates, another pupil of Plato) to reside with Hermias, a tyrant of Atarneus, who had an interest in Aristotle’s philosophy. Aristotle married Pythias, Hermia’s niece, who bore him a daughter Pythia. In later years Hermias was abducted and executed by the kind of Persia, and Aristotle composed a poem in his honor (The Hymn to Hermias). Aristotle then moved to Assos and subsequently Lesbos, and it is during this period that he may have carried out research on marine animals detailed in his biological studies. In 342 Philip, king of Macedon, recruited Aristotle, to be the tutor of his son, the future king, Alexander the Great. Aristotle returns to Athens in 335 and founded his own school at  Lyceum (lectures for the general public).

Aristotle an invariant bibliophile, collected philosophical and other works that grew into a notable library. (Athens conquered by Alexander the Great. His sudden death trigged revolt in Athens, and Aristotle was indicted for impiety, possibly due to his poem in praise of Hermias or as retaliation. For Aristotle Macedonian connections. He vacated Athens, reportedly quipping that he would not permit the Athenians to “sin against philosophy a second time”(Socrates the first), but died soon after in 322, in Chalcisin Euboea. He was succeeded as head of the school by Theophrastus of Euresus. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.Xiii)

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Aristotle goes to Athens. (The traditional view is that the purpose of his going there was to study in Plato’s Academy. But Plato himself was away in Sicily at this time and it is possible that Aristotle’s reason for going to Athens was as much for safety as for study. Amyntas had been assassinated in 369 and Nicomachus had also died. There have even been suggestions, based on slender evidence, that Aristotle studied for a short period with the rhetorician Isocrates before joining the Academy) ( Aristotle Oxford p.xlvi)

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Aristotle leaves Athens for Atarneus. (The traditional view is that he left in anger at not being appointed to succeed Plato as head of the Academy. It is more likely that he was forced to leave by anti-Macedonian sentiment following the capture of Olynthus, a city allied to Athens.)(Plato Politics Oxford p.xlvi)

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Writings

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Texts that survived are not books (they have been lost) they are lectures. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.vii)

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Family

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Aristotle's father died when he was 10 years old. His father works in medicine, Aristotle should also have become a doctor. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. XXi)

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Aristotle was born in Stagira to Nicomachus and Phaestis. Nichomachus, a physician and reputed descendant of the legendary healer Ascelipus, died when Aristotle was young. Phaestis’ brother, Proxenus of Atarneus, arranged for Aristotle at the age of 18 to enter Plato’s Academy in Athens, where he stayed for another 18 years, studying philosophy and related subjects and delivering lectures on dialectic and rhetoric. Although Aristotle had great affection for Plato, this did not prevent him from criticizing Plato’s doctrines. It is the duty of philosophers, he claimed, to honor truth above even friends. (Aristotle On the soul p.42) 

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Aristotle said the poem he wrote to his friends Hermias every day in common meals after his death. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.168)

Mother from Aristotle was from a wealthy family. (Aristotle Stanford) 

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Study

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18 years old Aristotle went to the Academy of Plato, was a teacher there, and then created his own academy. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.vii)

He joined a philosophical circle in Assos on the coast of Asia Minor but soon moved to the nearby island of Lesbos where he met Theophrastus, a young man with similar interests in natural science. Between the two of them, they originated the science of biology, Aristotles carrying out a systematic investigation of animals, Theophrastus doing the same for plants. (Aristotle Stanford)

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One time Pupil 

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Barker included in his introduction to the Politics an account of the later history of Aristotle Political theory in which he noted that while Aristotle himself was still active, his one-time pupil Alexander was brought to an end the kind of world which is presupposed by the Politics- a world in which the basic political unit was the independent self-sufficient polis a world in which the distinction between Greek and barbarian was fundamental. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. xxix)

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Aristotle’s written facts

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1 Interesting facts

The mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their taste - inspired by the higher ground of people like Saradanapallus - spend the whole life in self-indulgent, dressed like woman’s clothes and wore make-up. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.6)

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Democracy originated in the reform of Cleisthenes carried out by Pericles and Ephialtes. (Aristotle Politics p.Xix) 

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Athens = 200.000 Habitants. (Aristotle Politics p.Xvii)

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Greek society depends heavily on slavery. It gives other people more time to think. (Aristotle's Politics p.xvii) 

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Before Homer there were monarchies. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 10)

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There were critics of slavery in Athens “There is no natural difference between them.” (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 13) 

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When the Persians Authophrades was planning to besiege Atarneus, Eubulus asked him to consider the length of time which it would take to capture it, and to calculate the expenses which a siege of that duration would mean. He was willing, he said, to surrender the town immediately for less than that amount. By saying this he caused Authophradates, after a little reflection, to abandon the siege. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 60) 

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Hippodamus - was a man who invented the planning of towns in separate quarters. City 10,000 citizens.

3 classes = 1 artisans 2 farmers 3 defence force.

Territory similarly divided into 3 parts.

1- Religious purpose 2- public use 3- Private property. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 61) 

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The error is made at the beginning; and since, as the proverb goes, “The beginning is half of the job”, a small mistake at the beginning is equal to all the mistakes made in the reset of the business (...) ex: At Delphi, again, the beginning of all the later discords was a dispute which arose from marriage. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 187)

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An initial act of persuasion is dangerous: (...) This was the case with the revolution of the for hundreds (at Athens): they first defrauded the people by an assurance that the Persian king would provide money for the war against Sparta, and after lying in this way they attempted to keep the constitution permanently under their control. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 189)

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The tyranny of longest duration was that of Orthagoras and his descendants at Sicyon, which lasted a century. (...) It is recorded of Clesthenes that he awarded a crown to the judge who gave a verdict against him (in the game). (Aristotle Politics Oxford p.225) 

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The division of the body politic into classes, on the other hand, originated in Egypt. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 273) 

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Some poets measure life in 7 year periods. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 293)

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Antisthenes compared a smile (a metaphor with a prefix) “skinny” Cephisodotus to incense because his perishing was pleasing. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.127)

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Aristotle used to say that the concept of Gods arose among humans beings from two sources: from experiences of the soul and from phenomena in the sky. It arose from the experience of the soul involving raptures and prophecies. (...) This concept also arose from phenomena in the sky: by contemplating the sun making its circuit by day and by night they formed the opinion that there is some god who is the cause of such movement and good order. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.164)

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2 Events 

The great comet which appeared at the time of the earthquake in Achaea and the tidal wave rose due west: and many have been known to appear in the south (Aristotle Meteorology p.199) 

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At that time it was oligarchy (Sparta) against democracy (Athens) war (pelopones), Sparta won. (Unstable political life - Aristotle wrote Politics). (Aristotle Politics p.xx) 

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3 Fiction

Many wise men, as Crantor says, not only in the present day but long ago have bemoaned the human lot, regarding life as a punishment and being born a human being as the beginning of the greatest misfortune for a human being. Silenus: This Belief is so old that no one knows when it started.

Midias had captured Silenus, he questioned him what is the best thing for humankind (more choice worthy?)? Silenus: Short-lived seed of an oppressed daily and harsh fortune, why do you force me to say what is better for you humans not to know? For a life spent in ignorance of its own ills is most painless. But it is altogether impossible for human beings to obtain the best thing of all or even to partake of the best nature; for it is best for both men and women not to be born. However, the next thing after this, and the first thing attainable by humans beings, is after being born to die as soon as possible. (Plutarch, letter of consolation to Appollomius) (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.160) 

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Aesop tale: Charybidis had twice sucked the sea: the first time she made the mountains visible; the second time the islands. And when she sucked for the last time she will dry it up entirely (Aristotle Meteorology p.653) 

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4 Culture

The inhabitants of Pantus when they fish (they cut a hole in the ice) pour warm water around their reeds that it may freeze quicker. For they use the ice like lead to fix the reeds. (Aristotle Meteorology p.395) 

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Even Thersites had a soul, though he was the ugliest of men. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.163)

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They used to give names to winds the same way we give to rivers. (Aristotle Meteorology p.911) 

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Brutish state: as in the case of the female who, they say, rips open pregnant women and devours the infants or the things which some of the tribes about the Black Sea that have gone savage are said to delight - in raw meat or in human flesh or in lending their children to one another to feast upon - or the story told of Phalaris (tyrant of Acargas) sorted his victim alive in a bronze bull; perhaps the story added that Philaris ate the roasted flesh. This state is the result of disease, madness, or habit. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.126)

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Natural desire = Remember the man who excused himself for beating his father by saying “ Well, he beat his father, and his father beat him” and (appointing to his child) “ he will beat me when he is a grown man: it runs in the family” ex2: The man who told his son, who was dragging him out of doors, that he should stop at the threshold since that was how far he had dragged his own father. 

This enchantment of desire in a plot can be broken, Homer” Enchantment that makes away with wise man mind”. (Aristotle The Eudemian Ethics p.99)

Among the Scythians that man who had never killed an enemy was not entitled to drink from the (loving-cup passed round at a certain festival. The Iberians, who are a warlike people, have a similar custom: They place a circle of pointed stones around the tombs of the dead, one for each enemy they have killed. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p.. 256) 

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This will explain why some barbarians peoples have the habit of plunging their children at birth to a cold river. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p.295) 

But in order to prevent any distortion of their soft limbs, some tribes peoples still use mechanical appliances which keep their body straight. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 294)

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Books

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Substance

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1 what it is?

1.1 Primary substance 

A primary substance can receive contraries: a cold man a warm man. (Aristotle Categories and interpretation Oxford p. 11)

It is not possible for everything to be one, but it is possible for everything to be made by the same thing. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.13)

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1.1a Contains contraries 

There are two types of contraries: those without intermediate states (e.g. every number is either odd or even) or those with the intermediate states (e.g. between white and black there are many colors) (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXXiii)

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1.1b Element

The primary substance of any compound, when indivisible in form into another form, is called element; for instance, the elements of a spoken sound are things out of which the spoken sound is composed and into which it divides ultimately, but which do not themselves divide further into spoken sounds that other in form, as a portion of water is water (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 31)

The sublunary domain is made up of four basic elements earth, water, air, and fire - each of which travels by nature to a certain location. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XVI) 

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1.1 c Matter 

The argument is that anything that has elements must have matter and that nothing that has matter can be eternal. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.435)

It would make more sense if there were a special kind of matter for each kind of thing that there is. - But not separated from the substance. 

The distinction between matter and form: Bronze (matter) creates statue (form) (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXvi)

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1.2 Nature 

We call nature, in one sense, the coming to be of things that grow. 

All things are said to grow which gains enlargement through another thing by contact and assimilation or adhesion. (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 32)

A metaphysician must be able to state the finest principles of everything, and assumer that aiming these is a principle “firmest of all” (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 87)

If anyone wanted to conjuncture a nature, such as that of a bed, saying from what parts it was constructed and how it was put together, then he will know its nature. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 65)

Aristotle thinks that natural objects are distinguished by having within themselves a source of their own behavior, and he calls this source the “nature” of the object. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.xxii)

The alternative is to think of the nature of a thing like a shape and form of that which has in itself its own source of motion and change, where this shape or form is not separable from the thing itself except in definition. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.34)

If it is natural for a spider to make its web and it also serves some purpose, if the fruit is the reason that plants grow leaves and nourishment is the reason they grow their roots downwards rather then upwards, then it is clear that this type of causation is present in naturally occurring events and objects: nature - form : cause to. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.52)

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1.3 Substance

Whenever we say what something is, we do not say that it is white or that it is hot or that it is three-foot-long, but that it is a man or that it is a god.

Each of these other items (sitting, walking) owe they're being to substance, and so we may say that which is primary (i.e. not-is-F but just- is substance. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 168)

If we take everything out we are left with nothing. Unless just what delimited by these dimensions is something. But this means that if we adopt this approach it has to turn out that matter stands revealed as the only substance. The last item of something will not in itself be something, nor a quantity nor anything in one of the categories. We will not be able to identify this item even with the denial of these other subjects, since even denials will apply to it only accidentally. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.  175)

In the case of forms, the Good Itself is to be different from being good and Animal is to be different from being an animal and That-which-is is to be different from being a thing that is, then there will be both other substances and other natures and other forms in addition to those stated and these will be prior and more substantial, assuming that the what-it-was-to-be-that-thing is indeed a substance. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 186)

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1.3a Essence 

The essence of a thing is those per se features of it that are mentioned in its definitions. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 177)

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1.3b Qua-thing-that-is 

Qua-thing-that-is. That which is may also be so-called in several ways, but all within reference to one origin. For some are called things that are because they are substance; some because they are affections of substances; some because they are a route to a substance, etc... (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 1)

It is not possible for what is not should come to be. (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 14)

“That which is” (Das Seiende) verb: “enai” to be or to exist. 

Qua= in respect of being.

To exist in respect of being is to be changeless and to have a particular genus and one particular nature. (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 76)

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1.3c Genus & Animals

The species is more a substance than the genus. (Aristotle Categories and interpretation Oxford p. 7)

In general, it is not individuals but rather species (eidos: the word is one of those Plato uses for “Form”) that have an essence. A species is defined by giving its genus (genos) and its differentiation (diaphora): the genus is the kind under which the species falls, and the differentiation tells what characteristic the species within that genus has. As an example humans might be defined as animals (the genus) having the capacity to reason (the differentiation). (Aristotle Prior Analytic Oxford p. 72)

All things are not in a single genus, even if they were, all beings could not fall under the same principles. (Aristotle Stanford i.11)

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1.3d Difference

Why the contrast between having and not having wings, say, produces a new species, while that between masculine and feminine does not? Because the former has to do with the form of the animals in question, whereas the latter only has to do with their matter. Thus formal contraries produce species difference, whereas material contraries produce diversity within a species. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.311)

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1.3e Faculty

We have a worse sense of smell, but the best sense of touch. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.78) 

Generation then is the first participation in the nutritive soul which is present in the hot, and life is the perpetuation of this. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.154)

Aristotle proves a record of the first systematic and comprehensive study of animals. (Aristotle Stanford)

The natural way to proceed, then, is, to begin with, inquiry (historia), with the aim of grasping the differences between, and attributes of, all the animals; and then to attempt to discover their causes. This is natural because given that our goal is a demonstration between the facts to be explained (the perihon) and their explanation (the ex hon). Nevertheless, there are by nature these three [components of demonstrative knowledge ]: that about which (periho) it proves, what it proves, and those things from which (ex hon) it proves. (Aristotle Stanford)

The natural method to use is to first get clear on the differences and attributes to be demonstrated (‘ establish the fact that...’) Before going on to find the cause (“the reason why i.e. the causes) to be appealed to in these demonstrations. (Aristotle Stanford)

It begins with perhaps the best-known passage in Aristotle’s biological works, a stirring and beautifully crafted encomium to the joy of studying animals, even the lowliest. An elegant introduction divides natural beings into those that are eternal and those that partake of generation and perishing, noting that there are attractions to study both: though access to information about the former is limited, he likens it to”... a chance, brief glimpse of the ones we love “ on the other hand the latter, perishable things “take the prize in respect of understanding because we know them more fully” and they are “ more of our own nature. (Aristotle Stanford)

For this reason, we should not be childishly disgusted at the examination of the less valuable animals. For in all natural things there is something marvellous. (Aristotle Stanford)

Aristotle encourages us to conceive of these relationships in yet more unified way, as a single complex relationship between a single complex activity (living, I suppose) and a single complex instrument, the animal's body. 

History of animals: four kinds of animal differences: differences in parts (the topic of book I-IV), in modes of activity and ways of life (those related to generation in Books V-Vi- and human generation in IX - others in book Vii) and in character (book viii). These in turn are subdivided; for example, discussion of the non-uniform parts (organs as we say) of animals with blood is followed by that of their uniform parts (tissues). A discussion of the parts of animals without blood then concludes the discussion of differences in parts (IV 1-8) Book IV concludes with a discussion of differences in sensory faculties, voice, and differences related to the sea. (Aristotle Stanford)

Aristotle also stressed a crucial and problematic dis-analogy:”Natural things, once their generation begins,” grow by means of themselves” This is the most fundamental difference between art and nature for Aristotle: nature is a source of change within the thing itself. Natural development, then, though initiated by the warmth of the male parent, must internalize the source of change. The carpenter may not mine any of his own materials in the building, but he must be continuously, physically involved in the movements that create those buildings. Not so with the male parent in a natural generation. (Aristotle Stanford)

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2 Where it is & How it is affected?

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2.1 Infinite 

You cannot have parts of the infinite and the infinite is indivisible. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.343)

There is something that is always moved through an uninterrupted motion, and this motion is circular, and consequently, the primary heaven will be eternal. 

There must be something that moves without being moved. This will be eternal, it will be a substance and it will be activation. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.373)

Aristotle sets himself to argue that there is a single cause of all change, that it has infinite power, and that it is located at the circumference of the universe. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.lxii)

The infinite is taken not to have an origin, but to be the origin of everything - to contain everything and steer everything. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.64)

If the region beyond the heavens is infinite then it seems that body must be infinite too (i.e. there must be infinitely many worlds); why, after all, should there be the body in one part of the void rather than another? And so, provided that there is a body in one place, there must be a body everywhere. Infinite cannot be traversed and viewed. It can but will not be stopped. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.65)

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2.1a Time 

 Dor, a surface, a line; for the parts of a plane join together at some common boundary. Body, Time, and place are also of this kind. For the present time joins on to both past time and future time. (Aristotle Categories and interpretation Oxford p. 13)

Time is infinite. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.345)

Time is simply that which is between two nows (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.xlv)

Time is not changing, but at the same time that it does not exist without change. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.105)

Time is continuous thanks to the now but is also divided at the now because this too follows the nature of the movement and the moving objects. The point is that the change and the movement are units because of the moving obj. Is unity. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.107)

Evidently, then, time is a number of change in respect of before and after; and because it is a number of something continuous, it is continuous. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.108)

We measure change by time and time by change. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.109)

To be in time is to be measured by time, and time is a measure of change and rest. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.111)

There is a “now” in the future and a “now” in the past. These arguments make it clear that there is something indivisible in time, and this is what we call the now. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.145)

Time does not consist of nows, a line does not consist of points, and a change does not consist of discrete change. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.164)

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2.2 Change 

Six kinds of change: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place. (Aristotle Categories and interpretation Oxford p. 41)

It is not the case that everything is at rest or changing something, and nothing always is; for there is something which is always changing the things that change, and the first change is itself changeless  (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 26)

Everything is destroyed to that from which it comes. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 70)

How, indeed, is there to be an arrangement of the world at all, in the absence of something eternal, separable, and permanent? (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.322)

The change or the coming to be of any specific thing has to be a change from one state to another. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.123)

Since there are infinitely many nows, every changing object must have completed an infinite number of changes. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.154)

Everything that changes must be changed by something. For if the source of change is not to be found within the changing object itself, it must obviously be changed something other than itself, because the agent of change must under the circumstances be something different. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.167)

Change neither come into existence nor cease to exist, in which case it always was and always will be, and is an imperishable and unfailing property of things. This would make it the life, as it were, of all-natural constituted things. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.185)

There is a first agent of change which is eternal and changed even coincidentally. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.207)

No kind of change except the circular movement is either infinite or continuous. (Primary substance) (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.224)

We have argued that there was and always will be changed; we have also shown what the source of eternal change is, and in addition which the primary kind of change is, and which is the only kind of change that can be eternal, and we have proven that the first agent of change is unchanging. 

The agent of change, the changed object, the place (time) (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.227)

Hence-owing the change of the compound-the same thing seems different and conflicting to different people it is “transposed” by a small additional ingredient, and appears utterly other by the “transposition” of a single constituent. Fo tragedy and Comedy are both composed of the same latter. (Aristotle On Generation and Corruption p.8) 

When the change from contrary to contrary is in quantity, it is “growth and diminution”, when it is in place, it is “motion”; when it is in property, i.e. in quantity, it is “alteration”: but, when nothing persists, of which the resultant is a property (or an “accident” in any sense of the term), it is coming-to be, and the converse change is “passing away”. (Aristotle On Generation and Corruption p.18)

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2.3 Movement

Necessarily, what moves is moved by something. Necessarily the prime mover must be intrinsically unmoved. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.377) 

Movement and time are indestructible. They are continuous in the same way. Time is infinite. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.368)

For each moved body must be in contact with the one that moves it, and so they can all be regarded as together forming a single body, united by contact, but it is impossible to have an infinite single movement in a finite time and - change only happens by something else than itself. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.lxx)

This is why everything is always undergoing movement and either coming to be or being destroyed. The surrounding environment either acts with it or against it. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.128)

We have already laid down that there is one physical element which makes up the system of the bodies that move in a circle, and besides these four bodies owning, their existence to the four principles, the motion of these latter bodies being of two kinds: either from the center or to the center. (Aristotle Meteorology p.42)

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2.4 Space 

The sequential does not have to be in contact, but anything that is in contact is sequential. Time is infinite. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.350)

Space: the fundamental notion is the notion of how things may be spatially related to other things. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.XL)

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2.5 Priori and Posteriori

Priori and Posteriori 

Place.

Time: past, present, future.

Change: Kid into man.

(Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 44)

One thing is called priori to another in four ways:

1- Time (One thing is older then another)

2- Something that doesn’t depend on existence 

(1 is priori to 2)

3- Order in science and speeches. 

(Silence - sound is priori to syllables

Speech - Introduction is priori to the exposition)

4- Least proper: My loved one has priority to everything else.

(Aristotle Categories and interpretation Oxford p. 39)

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2.6 Incomplete & Complete 

The distinction between incomplete and complete: The latter but not the former, contains their purpose within themselves. Ex: To dance is to engage in a complete action, whereas to fetch wood for fire is to engage in an incomplete one. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.266)

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Human 

Coming-to-be is circular motion. (Aristotle On Generation and Corruption p.63)

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Purpose 

What is the function of men? The function of men is an activity of soul (living) witch implies reason. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.11)

Anything one ever does is either due to oneself or not due to oneself. Anything which is not due to oneself is due either to chance or to necessity, where “necessity” means either compulsion or the natural course of events. (...) Anything anyone ever does, then, is bound to be caused by one of seven factors: Chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, anger or desire. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.39)

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Body capable of life

Being alive 

Performing walking activities 

The soul is the first actualization of a natural body which possesses life potentiality.

- First potentiality - having a body capable of life.

- Second potentiality=first actualization - being alive

- Second actualization - Performing waking activities.

The second is “the essence of a particular sort of body” (soul) The soul is essential to the entire living animal. The implication is that the animal no longer had a soul, it would be a corpse, and animal in name only.

(Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXVIII)

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1 Body

In the case of living things turn out to be capable to perform living functions, i.e. soul; and thus the form of a living this is casually prior to the matter because it is the goal for the sake of which the parts of the animals - its matter - come to be and exist. This, in turn, provides us with the appropriate way to understand “ conditional necessity” - parts and the process that produces that produce them do not necessitate the outcome; on the contrary, the outcome necessitates that the development process bring about the parts that are necessary for the organism to live its life, and do so in a temporally and spatially coordinate manner. (Aristotle Stanford)

The body on the other hand and its parts will be posterior to the substance that is the soul, and it will be, not the substance, but the composite that is divided into them as matter. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 203)

Change in the body is like putting water on wine, wine doesn’t change, but it grows. (Aristotle On Generation and Corruption p.23)

Hence, old age does not occur because the soul has been affected in some way, but because the body in which it resides has been affected as in the case of drunkenness and sickness. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.14)

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1.2 Potentiality of Body 

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1.2a Conditional necessity 

Nothing is or is happening, or will be or will not be, by chance or as chance has it, but everything of necessity and not as chance has it. (Aristotle Categories and interpretation Oxford p. 50)

We call necessary that without which, as a joint cause, it is not possible to live. (Aristotle Metaphysics Oxford  p. 34)

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1.2b Perception 

If he who sees perceives that he sees, and he who hears, that he hears, and he who walks, that he walks, and in the case of all other activities similarly there is something which perceives that we are active so that if we perceive, we perceive that we perceive, and if we think, that we think; and if to perceive that we perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for existence was defined as perceiving or thinking and if perceiving that one lives is in itself one of the things that are pleasant (for life is by nature good, and to perceive what is good present in oneself is pleasant): and if life is desirable, and particularly so for good man, because to them existence is good and pleasant ( for they are pleased with the consciousness of the presence in them of what is itself good; and as the virtues man is to himself, he is to his friend also (for his friend is another self). (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.178

On the forms: Aristotle The fundamental objection is that the forms explain nothing. They merely provide a shadow world in a parallel to the world of sensible entities. Plato stated this. Aristotle continues in Metaphysics. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 32)

Everything which is altered is altered by things that are perceptible to the senses. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.174)

A general theory of perceptible qualities: in each sensory modality (e.g.. hearing, sight, flavors) form a spectrum between extremes (e.g.. high/low, white/black, sweet/sour) within which there is a finite of species (e.g.. sound, colors, flavors) such that each consists of a simple numerical ratio of the extremes and all other perceptible qualities are more complex combinations of the extremes. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.xlix)

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1.3 The actualization of the body

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1.3a Awake 

If being awake is nothing other than perceiving, it is clear then that by which one perceives is also that by which waking persons are awake and sleeping persons are asleep. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.104)

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1.3b Sleep 

It has also been stated what sleep is: it is a seizure of the primary sense-organ to prevent it from operating, and it occurs by necessity. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.113)

Just as in a liquid, if one moves it violently, sometimes no reflected image appears and sometimes it appears, but is completely distorted, so that it appears unlike the original: and when it settled down, the reflected images are clear and plain: and thus also during sleep the images act like that. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.119)

Dream thoughts: it is the image resulting from the movement of the sensation, whenever it occurs during sleep, and in so far as one is asleep, that is a dream. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.121)

Concerning the prophecy which takes place in sleep and is said to arise from dreams (...) the fact that we see no reasonable cause why such prophecy might occur gives rise to incredulity (...) It is absurd to hold both that the one who sends them is god, and that he sends them not to the best and most intelligent but to anyone at random. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.122) 

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2 Being the sort of thing that can have knowledge

Possessing knowledge 

Recognizing “A” by using knowledge 

The soul is the actualization of the body. This assumes a distinction between potentiality and actuality. Ex. a ship at rest in the sea has the potential be moved.

- First potentiality: being the sort of thing that can have knowledge.

- Second potentiality: possessing knowledge of grammar. =First Actualization: 

- Second actualization: Recognizing “A” by using knowledge

(Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXvi)

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2 Soul

Aristotle organizes his discussion thematically around the main attributes of the soul which his predecessors had identified. He begins with two - it is a source of motion and center of awareness - and later adds a third; it is incorporeal. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXi)

Aristotle goes on to identify four states of the soul: thought, knowledge, opinion, and perception. The thought is the ultimate source of the soul, just as1 is the source of all numbers. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXiv)

Soul movement- being angry or afraid consists of the hearth being moved in a particular way, and cognition consists in this or some other organ being moved. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.14)

The soul never thinks without an image. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.59)

The soul is in a way all things that exist.

- Thought is a form of forms and perception a form of perceptible objects. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.61)

Humans have a function and a purpose not one as an eye-see, but many. Aristotle calls them the capacities of the soul. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.xi) 

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2.1 Imagination 

In “On the soul” we witness Aristotle on the verge of a theoretical breakthrough. He is exploring the boundary between perception and thought, and he discovers something between fantasia, which “does not occur without perception, and without it, there is no judgment”/ He speaks of it as imagination, a mode of awareness involving images. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXXviii)

It is from memory that men derive their experience. For many recollections of the same thing perform the function of a single experience. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.4)

For it is clear that one must think of which is brought about by means of perception in the soul and in the part of the body which contains it namely, the affection the state of which we call memory as a sort of picture. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.96)

It has been stated, then, what memory or remember is: it is the possession of an image as a copy of that of which it is an image. And it has been stated what part of us memory belongs to: it is the primary faculty of perception, that is, the faculty by which we perceive time. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.98)

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2.2 Cognition 

Cognition stages:

Common to all animals: Perception of what is present 

Some animals: memory (a reflection of a sensation) 

Fewer animals: imperial (repetition of the same memory.)

Humans: kstholou (Many experiences give rise to knowledge of a single universal truth) (Aristotle Prior Analytic Oxford p. 64)

The things which we inquire are equal in number to the things we understand, we inquire about four things: the fact, the reason why, if something is, what something is. (Aristotle Stanford)

It is plausible that random people have foresight; for the cognitive function of such persons is not intellectually acute but is desolate and completely empty and influenced by whatever moves them. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.125)

The things which we inquire are equal in number to the things we understand, we inquire about four things: the fact, the reason why, if something is, what something is. (Aristotle Stanford)

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2.2a Repetition of the same creates Habit

Acts of recollection come about when movement naturally occurs after another.

-Whenever we recollect, then, we experience some preceding movement, until we experience the movement after which the one sought habitually occurs.

-For it is by habit that movement follows each other, this one after that. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.99)

Acts of recollection come about when movement naturally occurs after another.

-Whenever we recollect, then, we experience some preceding movement, until we experience the movement after which the one sought habitually occurs.

-For it is by habit that movement follows each other, this one after that. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.99)

For it is easier to change a habit than to change ones’ nature, as Evnus says: I say that habit’s but long practice, friend, and this becomes men’s nature in the end. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.135)

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2.2b Memory 

In “On the soul” we witness Aristotle on the verge of a theoretical breakthrough. He is exploring the boundary between perception and thought, and he discovers something between fantasia, which “does not occur without perception, and without it, there is no judgment”/ He speaks of it as imagination, a mode of awareness involving images. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXXviii)

It is from memory that men derive their experience. For many recollections of the same thing perform the function of a single experience. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.4)

For it is clear that one must think of which is brought about by means of perception in the soul and in the part of the body which contains it namely, the affection the state of which we call memory as a sort of picture. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.96)

It has been stated, then, what memory or remember is: it is the possession of an image as a copy of that of which it is an image. And it has been stated what part of us memory belongs to: it is the primary faculty of perception, that is, the faculty by which we perceive time. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.98)

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2.3 Mind 

Acting for the sake of something

For the things that have mind is always acting for the sake of something. For the end is the limit. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p. 47)

Mental state: They too all exist because they are in some way or another relative to something: and again good state is condition of completions while bad states are departures from completion. (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.176)

Aristotle makes a distinction between practical reasoning and theoretical reasoning and makes a corresponding division of faculties within the mind. There is a deliberative part of the rational soul (logistical), which is concerned with human affairs, and there is a scientific (epistemology), which is concerned with eternal truths, the rational soul is the seat of the intellectual virtues. (Aristotle The Eudemian Ethics p.XV)

The man is a moving principle of actions, now deliberation is about the things to be done by the agent himself, and actions are for the sake of the things other than themselves (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.44)

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2.3a Voluntary 

So, too, to the unjust and to the self-indulgent man it was open at the beginning not to become men of this kind, and so they are unjust and self-indulgent voluntary; but now that they have become so it is not possible for them not to be. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.47)

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2.3a 1 Common 

Most people are forgetful and are more anxious to be well treated than to treat others well. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.172)

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2.3a 1 Age 

Let us turn next to the character, and consider how emotions, dispositions, ages, and luck affect what people are like. By “emotions” I mean those I have already covered- anger, desire, and so on. By “disposition” I mean virtues and vices. These two have already been discussed, and I have also covered the kinds of things individuals choose and choose to do. By “ ages” I mean youth, the prime of life, and old age. And by “luck” I mean good birth, wealth, power, and their opposites, and good and bad fortune in general. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.87)

You put it generally, all the useful qualities that are found separately in either the young or the old are united in people in their prime, and all their excesses or deficiencies are replaced by the mean and what is proper. The body is in its prime between the ages of 30 and 35, and the mind peaks at about 49. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.90)

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2.3a 1a The young 

The young:

Follow the leads of desire. They are passionate, quick-tempered, and likely to act on their anger, incapable of resisting anger. They take it badly if they think they are being wronged, although they desire distinction, it is not as important to them as getting the better of others. They care for money less than distinction or victory. They are guileless rather than cynical, because as they have not come across much wickedness. They are trusting because as yet they have rarely been lied to. They are optimistic because they are warmed by their nature. Hope plays a very large part in their lives because hope is for the future and memory is of the past and young people have little in the way of a past. Their hopes are easily excited. They are high-minded. They are more attracted to friends and companions than members of their own age-groups. Their mistakes are always due to a lack of moderation and taking things too far. If they do wrong it is because of abusiveness, not malice. They are readily moved to piety because they everyone to be good or at any rate better than themselves for they measure others by standard of their own innocence, and so see them as suffering undeservedly. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p. 87)

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2.3a 1b The old 

Elderly people:

They have lived for many years, they have often been lied to, they have made many mistakes, and most things that have happened to them have been bad, so they affirm nothing with confidence and are always overly different. They have opinions but know nothing, and because they are uncertain they always add “perhaps” and “maybe”. They qualify everything they say along these lines. They are cynical. Lack of trust makes them suspicious. They never love or hate strongly. Instead, they follow Bias advice: they love as though they will someday hate and hate as though they will someday love. They are a small mind. They are stingy because money is one of these necessities, but at some time their experiences have thought them that money is hard to get and easy to lose. And this means that old age prepares the way to cowardice because fear is a kind of chill. They cling to life, especially when they are at death's door, because the object of all desire is what is absent, and men particularly desire what they miss. Their goal in life is expediency rather than finest, more than it should be. They do not care what people think of them. They have been made pessimistic by their experience (for much of life is bad, or at rate things generally turn out worse than expected and by their cowardice too. Memory plays a large part in their lives than hope, because they have little in the way of the future, while memory is for the past. This also explains their, talkativeness enjoy reminiscing. They get angry quickly but their outbursts lack force. Their desires have either failed or wounded. Hence people of this age are taken to be moderate, but in fact, it is just that their desires have lost their force and they are ruled by the profit motive. Their lives are guided more calculation than by character, because calculation aims at expediency, while character aims at virtue. If they do wrong, it is due to malice, not abusiveness. The young are moved to piety by empathy, but the old by weakness. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p. 88)

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2.3b Involuntary 

So, too, to the unjust and to the self-indulgent man it was open at the beginning not to become men of this kind, and so they are unjust and self-indulgent voluntary; but now that they have become so it is not possible for them not to be. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.47)

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2.3b 1 Desire 

Desire comes in three forms: violation, appetite, and temper. Volition is intellectual wanting: the kind of desire that only language-users can have, such as the desire to act justly. The other two are forms of sensory desire, whether positive (as hunger or lust) or negative (as the desire to punch someone in anger). (Aristotle The Eudemian Ethics p.XV)

Natural desire = remember the man who excused himself for beating his father by saying “ Well, he beat his father, and his father beat him” and (appointing to his child) “ he will beat me when he is a grown man: it runs in the family” ex2: The man who told his son, who was dragging him out of doors, that he should stop at the threshold since that was how far he had dragged his own father. 

This enchantment of desire in a plot can be broken, Homer” Enchantment that makes away with wise man mind”. (Aristotle The Eudemian Ethics p.99)

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2.3b 2 Pleasure & Pain 

It is on account of pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.26)

All moral virtues are concerned with bodily pleasures and pain, and this found either in actions or in memory or in anticipation, So those pleasures and pains which are found in actions rely on perception in the sense that they are aroused by something perceptible and those which are found in memory and anticipation are based ultimately on perception because people feel pleasure either when they remember past experiences or when they anticipate future ones (Aristotle Physics Oxford p.176)

Pleasure: It expels pain. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.140)

Let us assume, then, that pleasure is a certain movement within the soul, a thorough and perceptible restoration of one’s natural condition, and perceptible restoration of one’s mature, in that “often” as close to “always”, and nature is a matter of “always” while habit is a matter of “often”. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.41)

For while there is pain at the loss, it is also pleasant to remember and in a sense to see the dead man - to call to mind what he used to do and what kind of person he was. Hence it was not implausible for the poet to say ‘Thus he spoke, and stirred in them all a clanging for tears of grief’. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.42)

The reason why an abusive man feels pleasure is his belief by treating others badly he increases his superiority to them. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.62)

Those who have loved exceedingly can also hate. As much as they have loved. (Aristotle Politics Oxford p. 267)

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2.3b 2a Fear 

Let us take fear to be a feeling of pain and disturbance accompanying a mental image of imminent evil of life-threatening or painful kind. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.71)

Object fear: Those who know what a man has done. Those who are able to do a man wrong when he is vulnerable because human beings usually do wrong if they have the ability to do so. Those who are objects of fear to people stranger than ourselves. Those who attack people weaker than us, because they are not already objects of fear, they will be when they have grown strong. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.71)

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2.3b 2b Envy

The kinds of good things that are matters of luck are those which arouse envy. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.21)

Envy: Those who are near us in time, place, age, and reputation. Hence the line “Kingship too knows ho to envy”. If we have spent a lot on something, we envy those who have spent little. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.85)

Envy, and what conditions, if we define envy as a kind of pain aroused, in respect of one’s peers. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.84)

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2.3b 2c Piety

Pity: pain aroused in oneself when someone is perceived as meeting undeservedly with trouble. (...) Hence, those who have nothing left to lose feel pity (because, given all they have suffered, they feel they have reached the limit of suffering. People who think they might suffer. Elders, because of their wisdom and experience. Weak or timid. Those with parents, children, or wives, because these people are one’s very own and are vulnerable to the kinds of misfortune just mentioned. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.79)

²¹ Hence in the story Amasis shed no tears for his son as he was being led off to death, but did for a friend who had been reduced to begging because while the latter situation was pitiful, the former was dreadful. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.81)

Piety: What we fear for ourselves we piety in others. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p. 81)

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2.3b 2d Shame 

What is anger? Boiling of blood or desire for retaliation? Analogy: What is a house protect it from a storm? The bricks or the form of it for the sake of it? (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.3)

We should try to see a) in what condition people get angry: b) with whom they get angry: and c) what kinds of things provoke them to anger. (...) Arouse anger in someone else, same goes for the other emotions. (...) anger, then, to be the impulse, accompanied by pain. (...) Anger, then, to be accompanied by a certain feeling of pleasure based on the expectation of achieving retaliation. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.61)

Everyone who acts in anger acts with pain, while the man who commits outrage acts with pleasure. (Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics p.128)

The precondition for anger is a pain because anyone in pain desires something. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p. 63)

Gets angry with: mock, physically harm, those who are rude, fail to return favors, his friends if they fail to speak well of him or do him good, and especially if they do the opposite, his friends also if they are insensitive to his needs, forgetfulness. (...) Use what he says to incline his audience to anger. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.63)

Let us take it that becoming gentle is settling and quieting of anger. That anger dies down in the face of humility is shown also by the fact that dogs do not bite people who are sitting down. Those who are serious when he is serious, because this gives him the impression that he being treated seriously and not despised. Those who have done more good than bad. Mercy, Make a man gentle by considering the condition that makes him angry. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.64)

Hence Philocrates did well once the people of Athens were angry with him and someone said” “ why aren’t you defending yourself?” “When I see someone else receiving a dressing-down. The point is that people become gentle once they have exhausted their argument on someone else. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.66)

We do not stay angry with a man after his death, seeing that there is nothing left for him to suffer. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.66)

Time heals anger but not hostility. (Aristotle The art of Rhetoric Oxford p.70)