$54. The Philosophy of Aristotle.

Introductory.
Aristotle considered himself a member of the school of Plato, and sharply as he
contested the doctrine of its founder in many points, more especially in the central
point of the doctrine of ideas, yet his whole philosophy is far more deeply and
completely defined by its connection with Plato than by its opposition to him. It is
true that he limits philosophy more exclusively than Plato to the region of science,
and disN2
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tinguishes it more distinctly from moral activity, while on the other hand he assigns a
greater importance for philosophy to empiric knowledge. Yet he, like Plato, places
the peculiar mission of philosophy in the knowledge of unchangeable Being and the
ultimate bases of things, the general and necessary. This essence of things, the true
and original real, he finds with Plato in the forms (siSrj), which make up the content
of our concepts. Hence his philosophy, like that of Socrates and Plato, is a science of
concepts ; the individual is to be referred to general concepts, and explained by
derivation from concepts. Aristotle has brought this process to the highest state of
perfection, both in the direction of dialectical induction and in that of logical
demonstration. Excluding all the poetical and mythical adornment, which, following
the pattern of Plato, he did not despise in the writings of his youth, he carried it out
with scientific severity. By the incisiveness and brevity of his mode of expression,
and his extraordinary skill in creating a philosophical terminology, he knew how to
gain for his exposition those advantages by which it is as far in advance of the
exposition of Plato, as it is behind Plato in artistic finish, at any rate, in the works
which have come down to us. But as the philosopher did not think of the forms as
essences existing independently and separate from things, but only as the inner
essence of individual things, he combines with the philosophy of concepts such a
decided demand for the most comprehensive empiric knowledge, as can only be
found at most in Democritus among his predecessors. He is not only a scholar, but an
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observer of the first rank, equally eminent for his multifarious knowledge, extending
more especially to the earlier philosophers, for his comprehensive knowledge of
nature, arid his penetrating researches, though it is obvious that we must not expect
from him what could only be obtained by the scientific aids and methods of our own
century.
The indications which Aristotle gives for the division of the philosophic system can
only be with difficulty applied to the contents of his own writings. He distinguishes
three sciences theoretic, practical, and productive. Under the first are included
Physics, Mathematics, and the First Philosophy ( Metaphysics, cf. p. 174), which is
also called Theology; practical philosophy is divided into Ethics and Politics, but the
whole is also called Politics. For our purpose it is best to make the division into

Logic, Metaphysics, Physics, and Ethics, the chief basis of our exposition of the
Aristotelian system, and to add something by way of supplement to these main
divisions.
$55. The Aristotelian Logic.
Aristotle has created Logic as a special science on the foundation laid by Socrates and
Plato. He calls it Analytic, i.e. the introduction to the art of investigation, and treats it
as scientific methodology. According to his view, scientific knowledge in the
narrower sense (episteme) consists in the derivation of the special from the general,
the conditioned from its causes. But the development of knowledge in time takes the
reverse path. Though the soul in its thinking nature possesses
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the possibility of all knowledge, and to that extent is dynamically possessed of all
knowledge, it attains to actual knowledge by degrees only. What is the better known
and more certain in itself is not so for us ( Anal. Post. i. 2, 71 b. 33 ; Phys. i. 1, 184 a. 1
6) ; we must abstract the general concepts from the individual observations, and rise
by steps from perception by means of memory to experience, and from experience to
knowledge ( Anal. Post. ii. 19 ; Metaph. i. 1, &c.), and it is owing to this importance of
experience for knowledge that Aristotle expressly undertakes the defence of the truth
of sensuous perception. He is of opinion that the senses as such never deceive us ; all
error springs out of the false reference and combination of their evidence. Hence the
Aristotelian Logic (in the c Second Analytics ) deals with induction as well as proof ;
but both are preceded (in the First Analytics ) by the doctrine of the syllogism, which
is the form common to both. It is only in connection with the syllogism that
Aristotle deals with concepts and judgments.
A syllogism is a speech, in which from certain presuppositions there arises
something new (Anal. Prior. i. 1, 24 b. 18). These presuppositions are expressed in the
premisses, and therefore in propositions (both are called protasis by Aristotle). A
proposition consists in an affirmation or negative assertion, and is therefore
composed of two concepts (oroi), a subject and a predicate. Nevertheless Aristotle
only treats concepts more at length in connection with the doctrine of the definition
of the concept, as part of his metaphysical inquiries. In the proposition or judgment