ARISTOTLE

Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km (34 mi) east of modern-day Thessaloniki.[4] His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was trained and educated as a member of the aristocracy. At about the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle remained at the academy for nearly twenty years, not leaving until after Plato's death in 347 BC. He then traveled with Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. While in Asia, Aristotle traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Hermias's adoptive daughter (or niece) Pythias. She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander the Great in 343 B.C

Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. In his Politics, Aristotle states that only one thing could justify monarchy, and that was if the virtue of the king and his family were greater than the virtue of the rest of the citizens put together. Tactfully, he included the young prince and his father in that category. Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest, and his attitude towards Persia was unabashedly ethnocentric. In one famous example, he counsels Alexander to be 'a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants'.[6]

By 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stageira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus. According to the Suda, he also had an eromenos, Palaephatus of Abydus.[7]

It is during this period in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works.[5] Aristotle wrote many dialogues, only fragments of which survived. The works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the most part, intended for widespread publication, as they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. His most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics.

Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them. In physical science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, economics, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics and zoology. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. He also studied education, foreign customs, literature and poetry. His combined works constitute a virtual encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. It has been suggested that Aristotle was probably the last person to know everything there was to be known in his own time.[8]

Near the end of Alexander's life, Alexander began to suspect plots against himself, and threatened Aristotle in letters. Aristotle had made no secret of his contempt for Alexander's pretense of divinity, and the king had executed Aristotle's grandnephew Callisthenes as a traitor. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this.[9]

FRASES

• La amistad es un alma que habita en dos cuerpos; un corazón que habita en dos almas.

• El ignorante afirma, el sabio duda y reflexiona.

• El sabio no dice todo lo que piensa, pero siempre piensa todo lo que dice.

• La esperanza es el sueño del hombre despierto.

• No basta decir solamente la verdad, mas conviene mostrar la causa de la falsedad.

• Considero más valiente al que conquista sus deseos que al que conquista a sus enemigos, ya que la victoria más dura es la victoria sobre uno mismo.

• Cualquiera puede enfadarse, eso es algo muy sencillo. Pero enfadarse con la persona adecuada, en el grado exacto, en el momento oportuno, con el propósito justo y del modo correcto, eso, ciertamente, no resulta tan sencillo.

• Lo que con mucho trabajo se adquiere, más se ama.

• La inteligencia consiste no sólo en el conocimiento, sino también en la destreza de aplicar los conocimientos en la práctica.

Is the soul a product of body functions

Ancient philosophical theories of soul are in many respects sensitive to ways of speaking and thinking about the soul that are not specifically philosophical or theoretical.

The soul in ancient philosophy. By the end of the fifth century — the time of Socrates' death — soul is standard thought and spoken of, for instance, as the distinguishing mark of living things, as something that is the subject of emotional states and that is responsible for planning and practical thinking, and also as the bearer of such virtues as courage and justice.

Coming to philosophical theory, we have many conception of soul, according to which the soul is not only responsible for mental or psychological functions like thought, perception and desire, and is the bearer of moral qualities, but in some way or other accounts for all the vital functions that any living organism performs.

This broad conception, which is clearly in close contact with ordinary Greek usage by that time, finds its fullest articulation in Aristotle's theory. The theories of the Hellenistic period, by contrast, are interested more narrowly in the soul as something that is responsible specifically for mental or psychological functions. They either de-emphasize or sever the ordinary-language connection between soul and life in all its functions and aspects.

THOUGHTS OF SOCRATES

On the basis of psychological observation and analysis of the moral sense of mankind, Socrates arrived by the method referred to the following conclusions:

a) The duty of man and the most proper use of his powers, is to investigate the property, and conform his conduct to the moral good once known. The self-knowledge, and the constant effort to master their passions and evil inclinations, subject to reason, is the means to achieve this result, that is to acquire moral perfection, in which consists the true happiness of man in land.

b) Prudence, justice, temperance or moderation of sensitive lusts and strength, are the four main virtues are needed for moral perfection of man, which will be more perfect in that order, the more he resembles God in their actions, because God is the epitome of virtue and moral perfection. At trial and divine truth itself, the rule must be found that moral perfection, real and true notion of virtue, but not in the opinion of the masses and the masses: [205] Nobis curamdum non est, quid of loquantur multi nobis, sed quid dicat is unus, qui et intelligit just unfair, atque ipsa veritas.

The important thing, added one of your Socrates in Plato's dialogues (62), is not living but living well (non esse multi faciendum vivere, sed bene vivere), or live under the rules of moral rectitude and justice. In keeping with these rules or moral principles, we must take revenge for the injuries, nor return evil for evil, we must precede justice and love of country and laws to all other things, not excluding children, parents and life itself.

c) involves the idea justice and the fulfillment of our duties to others, being the main part of these duties the observance and obedience to human laws or positive, and also the unwritten laws, namely the natural law anterior and superior to those and root of all justice, but above all the sacrifice all of us and our belongings to the motherland, and unconditional submission to the judges and perfect.

d) The piety and prayer are two important virtues, through whom tribute to God honor and reverence, while we seek the solution for your needs. The best prayer is the resignation in adversity, and submission to divine will.

e) The order, harmony and beauty that shine in the world and man, attest and demonstrate [206] the existence of a supreme God, first author of the moral law and its ultimate sanction. God is an intelligent and invisible, which is manifested and revealed in its effects: his providence embraces all things, and particularly exercised over man, it is everywhere, sees all things and penetrates the most secret thoughts of man .

f) The instability and misery of every kind that weigh on the present life, would make despicable and loathsome, if there were an afterlife in which, disappearing these evils, the soul to reach full possession of the property. The right must have unlimited confidence in God, whose providence not abandon him in death.

PENSAMIENTO DE PLATON

Unlike the Christian thought (which also accepts absolutely identified with God) the absolute to which Plato refers not personal. Plato believed that reality is divided into two main genres: the Sensible World (also frequently used the term "visible world") and the Intelligible World, or World of Ideas. The absolute to which he refers to is precisely this latter field of reality. Sensible World is the set of entities that are offered to the senses, particular realities, changing, multiple birth, last and die and are captured by the senses. Intelligible World or World of Ideas is populated by entities absolute, universal, independent, eternal, immutable entities that are beyond time and space, and known by the most excellent of the soul, the rational. In reality this second area is the more valuable the Idea of the Good (which for many authors Plato identifies with God).
The task of philosophy is to ascend from the World Sensible World of Ideas and contemplate this idea of property (which is why Plato defines philosophy as "an ascent to be"). This theory is fundamentally an ontological theory but has clear implications for other fields such as anthropology, epistemology, ethics and politics.