‘The Philosopher’, as Medieval thinkers like St. Albert
the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas called him, or ‘master of
those who know’, as Dante Alighieri calls him in his Divine
Comedy: Aristotle is the first and the greatest systematic
thinker in Western philosophy. Through his perspective it is
possible to build a whole knowledge system, centred on a
correspondence between THINGS and THOUGHT, LOGOS and
WORLD. The Medieval tradition expressed this relationship
with the phrase ADEQUATIO REI ET INTELLECTUS. Aristotle
then celebrates the worth and scope of human reason, which
is ordered to know the truth in everything, starting TAMQUAM
TABULA RASA and potentially following through to the
contemplation of the ARKE. That is not a naïf vision, like in
some dogmatic rationalist thinkers, or that of New Age
visionaries, but rather the consequence of the notion that
each man naturally desires to know …. Knowing truth is
therefore natural. Philosophical life transforms this universal
natural attitude into an art and a technique, and the result can
be WISDOM. This is the reason why Aristotle states that to
know the truth is at the same time easy and difficult.
One of the tasks of the wise man is to put order in what he
understands. We ought to clarify that, while Aristotle gives us
sufficient elements to build his system, he himself did not fully
achieve it. We can think of many reasons: did he not have
enough time or will-power to follow through with his work? Or
was he conscious of the precariousness of philosophical
statements and their necessary intricacies and APORIAS? Or
even, have we lost his further philosophical production? It
must be observed that Aristotle’s system, like a fortress, does
not have one entrance only … the great creator of Western
theoretical grammar seems bent on finding different gateways
towards a full and satisfactory result in his research. If we let
go of this hermeneutical premise, Aristotle becomes a
problem and his thought appears to invite rejection...
Sometimes this door is Being as Being, sometimes it is
Substance and accidents and the related ten categories,
sometimes it is the four principles or causes, efficient,
material, formal, and final, sometimes it is the vision of a
correct dynamism of each nature with its tendencies, man as
a man and stone as a stone, all starting from the senses and
reaching theoretical contemplation through abstraction;
sometimes it is the relationship between being and
movement, act and potency, matter and form, soul and body,
definition and syllogism. When at the beginning of our
journey we focused on the great theme of the relationship
between language and thought, we set out the premise for the
understanding of the Philosopher’s ties to Greek grammar as
well as his ability to transcend its limitations in the realm of
universal logic.
Induction is the beginning of philosophical inquiry, its
necessary point of departure. In Aristotle’s system there is no
place for innate ideas; but then truthful thinking is such a
spontaneous and quick process as to be close to innate.
Aristotle argues that there are many degrees of being,
interconnected through the principle of analogy, so we have
many degrees of truth. This doctrine presents itself as a
convincing conciliation of Parmenides with Heraclitus: all real
experiences are at the same time individual and composite,
only the first principle is simple. Total simplicity is Pure Act,
the perfection of being and thought. Those who find
Aristotle’s system plausible, dogmatic, univocal and static
(partly Descartes, Hegel and Heidegger) have not understood
the living soul and the radical dynamism of his views. To
project a dynamic style of thinking is to reflect the natural
dynamism of world, as finalism is for the Philosopher the true
universal rule of nature. Aristotle’s analysis and investigation
run on the plan of the real world and that of logic at the same
time… doubting also plays a role in his philosophy, but it does
not take pride of place as in some more recent systems and
mentality. Subjectivism too, which characterizes the
postmodern outlook, is spontaneously overcome in the very
act of thinking and its natural aim. In this living dynamism, as
the golden point of contact between sense-experience and
speculative thought, stands the principle of non-contradiction,
simply evident, belonging both in the realm of experience and
in that of logic. The world is wide, full of conflicts, mysterious,
but not at all chaotic: all things are made to be known. This
leading persuasion dominates Greek Philosophy and above all
Aristotle’s philosophy. In Aristotle it becomes an
achievement: the radical denial of confusion and chaos.
Nietzsche was the philosopher who was most in contrast with
this spirit; naturally, according to Greek mentality, we must
say that he was simply foolish.
In comparison with Plato’s idealism, Aristotle’s doctrine is
universally defined as realism, but we find that this dichotomy
idealism-realism is incapable of mapping out the deep
metaphysical relationship that binds, despite real differences,
the two great leader of Western philosophy. Certainly so far
Aristotle has ruled the structure of scientific thought
worldwide, even in those fields where modern sciences have
gone a long distance from his scientific assertions. Like Plato,
Aristotle gives Philosophy the top position in the hierarchy of
human knowledge; he distinguishes between physical, ethical
and dianoetic (purely theoretic) sciences. Reason rules actions,
but the highest source of happiness is the highest
contemplation of truth, free from the necessity to do things
and to own things. Many corollaries arise from this
philosophical vision: the first is that philosophy is generated in
personal life when the natural inclination to think is freed from
physical needs; for example, when a group allows somebody
to be free from needs … In Aristotle’s view that is a
predicament that allows men to be similar to God. We see it as
achievable in the context of an aristocratic society where
slavery is very common and where women are removed from
public life. God is the only entity who thinks the complete
truth… He is the one who thinks of thinking, as Aristotle
defines him. The contemplation of truth like in Plato is then
the apex of the human possibility of earthly happiness.
Aristotle’s tendency is to consider death as natural corruption,
opposed to generation, both springing from constant change.
This means that like in Plato, metaphysical contemplation is
the prime goal of Philosophy. Everybody knows the fascinating
history of the word metaphysics; this word is not in Aristotle’s
vocabulary and perhaps much misunderstanding arises from
the different uses of it. In Aristotle’s philosophy we find that
all, natural observations, laws and constitutions, poetry,
rhetoric, physic, logic, ethic, politics,.. all must and derive from
and tend towards first philosophy, through inductive and
deductive processes. In modern culture physics and other
sciences rightly claim their autonomy and many scientists and
technicians do not understand the importance of philosophy;
this prejudice sometimes is reinforced by many faults of
philosophers, and so a generalized prejudice against
philosophy has spread worldwide; the modern mentality
regards with suspicion and distrust all metaphysics, forgetting
that in Aristotle a solid contemplation is impossible without a
full, conscious immersion in the living world.
Without doubt the scientific love of observation in the natural
sciences which informed the Academy deeply influenced
Aristotle, but the outlook was different. We have already
looked at critiques of Plato’s ideas: form in Aristotle is the
inner order of each thing … but now we need to overcome
that critique by entering Aristotle’s vision.
We start from a (certainly due) criticism of Aristotle’
cosmology. Aristotle’s cosmology was born in the encounter of
observation with imagination and leads very far from the
results of modern telescopic observations of the skies, which
reached its pinnacle in 1927 with the proof that the solar
system is a little part of a galaxy and there are many others
galaxies outside our system. Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s
cosmology is a synthesis of Greek observations of the sky, free
from theogonies and myths. After Galileo and the Copernican
revolution the notion of humanity seems to lose its primacy in
the world, in contrast with its central position within
Aristotle’s and the Bible’s Universe. We witness the
progressive forming of a new paradox. Each intelligence seems
to be the centre of the world inside a Cosmos which does not
have a centre. That is the reason why we assist in modern
times to a new oscillation between subjectivism and absolute
absence of horizons, very far from a classical perspective …
Philosophy and Theology today must assume this topic as a
fundamental one, it is impossible to ignore it; indeed very
possibly their destiny would be death if they did ignore it.
Theology and Philosophy are compelled to justify their
presence, their importance cannot be accepted
spontaneously. Nature preserves its prerogatives but each
man plunged into nature is placed within an infinite, wholly
Centre-less perspective. Cosmology is also the reason why
modern thinkers have rejected Aristotle, whose thought had
been handed down through the centuries wholesale like a
dogmatic truth … the modern observation of the sky starting
from Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and Pascal defined a
new scientific approach. Modern science seems to be very far
from Ancient and Medieval science. In addition, the
development of mathematical methods and applications has
been extraordinary, to the point that we consider it the
greatest revolution of modern times. The unconditional
success of science and technology in the Western civilization
has progressively become a worldwide reality and the principal
agent of globalization. We cannot understand modern
philosophy if we do not ponder this fundamental topic. Finding
an alternative to Aristotle was the great task of Descartes,
Bacon, Galileo, Kant, Pascal, Leibniz, Husserl, Wittgenstein and
Heidegger. But there is more, to complicate things and maybe
to open up a new great philosophical arena. We want to
address the tendency to consider human visions temporary
constructions, and the attempts to build an alternative logic,
alternative physics, alternative mathematics, alternative
philosophy and theology. While traditional faith and religions
become more radical, many atheist thinkers are describing the
whole of reality as relative: holding on to a non-relative
principle of reason appears to be the new form of total heresy.
It is within this paradox that we see favourable conditions for a
renewal and regeneration of philosophy. We reasonably
reject postmodern dissolution and we consciously consider
ancient thought to be able to assimilate the open mentality of
modern times; or, better, to undertake a dialogue with human
cultures. Principles are principles. It is true that Neo-Scholastic
and classical thinkers have worked hard in this field, but it is
not possible, in a changing world, to live only of recollections,
without new creative energy.
Aristotle sees the unity of soul and body as a natural fact, like
man’s political dimension. We can then define man as an
animal by genus, and as rational by his specific properties.
This process of definition is possible with all things; it is purely
a process of the mind; therefore our main intellectual activity
is to ‘put together’ and ‘discern’ notions (medieval author
describe this as ‘componere et dividere’).
Human happiness resides in doing as well and fully as possible
what God does always, that is thinking of himself. If we look at
this sentence from a Christian and Enlightenment perspective
we find it -at the very least- disagreeable, but here we must
try to consider it from the viewpoint of a world that did not
know Christianity or critical thought: that sentence appears to
us simply genial. If we read Aristotle directly we find other
paths, normally overlooked in philosophy handbooks which
usually are content to present Aristotle as a very good
companion and a precursor to future thinkers. Plato’s and
Aristotle’s persuasion that astonishment is the starting point
of philosophy is well-known; less well-known is the detailed
exposition of this concept. Certainly the contemplation of the
skies brings about the peak of astonishment, like in Kant, but
Aristotle, in his realism, finds the same astonishment in
doubting too, and in imagination and myth. In fact Aristotle is
very close to the real mechanisms of knowledge and creative
art.
When people insist (it is an especially European habit), on the
twilight of Western civilization, they forget that both Plato and
Aristotle had a clear insight into the spectacle of the decline of
civilizations … what is distinctive is that they thought about the
civilization of the Greek polis, Athens’ age of splendor, and did
not witness the diffusion of Alexander’s Hellenization.
Consequently, Aristotle’s notion of a close relationship, an
ontological one, between ethics and politics, is a notion
specific to the context of a powerful and free polis; but that
did not turn out to be the course of history for the following
centuries. Foreign dominion, like political corruption,
ultimately engenders a separation between external behavior
and inner persuasion.
In his realism Aristotle allows ethical irrationalism its own
space, and acknowledges the presence of evil in the
world…not so well-known is the passage where he says that
there are more bad things than good in the world. The
consequence is not that he repudiates the worth of reason.
This realism allows him to reflect deeply on the value of the
true Philosophy.
We can say with Masnovo, a great Italian commentator of
Saint Thomas and Aristotle, that all men are in the truth but
not all man think the truth… so that all Aristotle’s philosophy is
both a full immersion in the world and a continuous opening
of the eyes of the mind to the truth of Being, Thought as
LOGOS. Opening up does not mean completely to grasp or
perfectly to achieve, as we have already said before.
Thomas Aquinas achieved this insight when, as he perfected
the first demonstration of the existence of God, he maintained
that the principle of the explanation of change is what we call
GOD. Aristotle’s way to GOD is rich and very significant, as he
considers that in the world many things are GOOD and
BEAUTIFUL; both dimensions require a superior Intelligence.
The superb page of St John in the prologue of his Gospel finds
in Aristotle’s doctrine of first principle its ground of
confrontation.
Aristotle was the preceptor of Alexander the Great. Both are
sometimes believed to have been homosexual … we find this
assumption more than a little suspicious, perhaps the
interesting stance of a noisy minority. Philosophy and love of
truth do not need gossip; on the contrary what is certain is
that Alexander’s adventure changed the world, but not
definitively: philosophy must accept that the only one reality
to discover is the discreet and eternal power of human reason.