CONFUCIUS-ARISTOTLE SYMPOSIUM –
Aristotle’s Impact on the Intellectual History of Human Thought and his Legacy Today –
Keynote Speech –
Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou –
Founder and Current President of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Aristotle Studies, A.U.Th. –
I. Introduction
One year after the 2nd Aristotle-Confucius Symposium of July 2023, the Thessaloniki part of which we had the great honor to host at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, at ancient Stageira, the birthplace of Aristotle, and at ancient Mieza, the place where Aristotle taught Alexander the Great, is now successfully hosted at the homeland of Confucius!
And, certainly, it is impressive to notice how the teachings of Aristotle and Confucius, who were born more than two thousand years ago, transcend the geographical, cultural, and historical boundaries of the two most ancient civilizations, China and Greece.
Their common ideas of the intimate relation of Ethics and Politics, the theory of the mean, the principle of social order, the idea of the primacy of paideia, the principle of higher life, of virtue ethics, in general, their interest in what is the best way to live, is becoming all the more relevant for contemporary philosophers, scientists, but also—hopefully, for politicians, as we are confronted with increasingly complex global challenges.
As I am expected to talk about Aristotle, let me first say very proudly, that he happens to be my compatriot. He was born in 384 BC in Stageira of Chalkidiki in Macedonia, only 100 kilometers from my birthplace, Thessaloniki. He was the pupil of Plato and the teacher of Alexander.
ΙΙ. The Timeless Contribution of Aristotle’s Work.
Aristotle’s work has had a unique impact on the history of human thought over 2400 years. He has left his marks on the Hellenistic world, on Byzantium, on Arabic Philosophy, on the Medieval thought of Europe, on the Modern Western world, and continues to exercise an influence on our intellectual lives on a global scale. His authority was so great in the Middle Ages that he was known simply as “the philosopher” and for Dante he was “the master of those who know” (The Divine Comedy Inf. 4.131).
ΙΙ.a Aristotle’s contribution to the foundation of the fields of Philosophy
In the 62 years of his life (384-322 BC) Aristotle wrote more than 200 treatises, only 1/5 of which have been saved. So multifarious is his work, that it spreads over the broadest range of topics, covering all major branches of Philosophy. His intellectual contribution to such areas as Logic, Dialectic, Syllogistic, Metaphysics, Political and Moral Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Poetics, has a universal recognition through the centuries.
Aristotle was the first in the history of mankind to give the laws of the human mind and the laws of syllogism; his logic was the basic instrument of Medieval Philosophy, under the general name Όργανον and dominated for the next two thousand years the intellectual life of the Eastern and the Western world.
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Πρώτη Φιλοσοφία, was embraced by the Hellenistic world, the Arabs, the Byzantines, the European-Western Philosophers, the modern Western World and is still on. The concepts that he was the first to use and analyze, such as eidos εἶδος, (species form, μορφή), ἐν δυνάμει (potentiality) and ἐν ἐνεργείᾳ, and actuality, laid the foundations for every metaphysics since ancient times up to the present.
It is worth mentioning that the prestige given to Aristotle’s philosophy by the work of St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, provided the basis of education in European Universities until the 17th century, as the Latin translation of Aristotle’s work entered the curricula of the Universities of Bologna, Paris and Oxford.
Aristotle’s contribution to moral and political philosophy is invaluable. His ideas of democracy, justice, law and the city-state, are some of the debts of the Western world to the Stageirite. His positions on the best state (ἀρίστη πολιτεία), based on democratic principles, laid the foundation for the Western democracies.
We must remember that for the Stageirite philosopher, Politics and Ethics are interconnected and both are directly related to the law and society. In the center is always ο άνθρωπος (human being, the individual), defined by Aristotle as “animal by nature rational and political” (“φύσει ζῷον λογικὸν πολιτικόν”).
Aristotle also showed with clarity, that material wealth and honors are not the highest goods for human beings. Concepts such as virtue (ἀρετή), eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία), practical wisdom (φρόνησις), friendship (φιλία) are extremely important for his moral and political model. At the center is the idea of μεσότης (the mean): Virtue should dominate our impulses and instincts, so that we can be able to achieve the “μέτρον” measure, the mean) between the two ends: excess and deficiency. To achieve the good (ἀγαθόν) and, finally, Eudaimonia, passions must be in reasonable control and in agreement with reason (ὀρθός λόγος).
ΙΙ.b. Aristotle’s Contribution to the foundations of the Sciences
The contribution of Aristotle in all the above areas is certainly the most recognized. But we must not forget that the Stageirite was not only a philosophical, but also a scientific mind. He was an omni-scientist philosopher (πανεπιστήμων φιλόσοφος). This means not that he studied all sciences, but that he was the one who laid the foundations of the sciences as we know them today. So, his contribution to science and scientific thinking is enormous: His work extends in an impressive way into such fields, as Physics, Biology, Zoology, Botany, Taxonomy, Mathematics, Meteorology, Astronomy, Geology, Psychology, Economics, Law and Political Science, Health Sciences.
The number and type of researches he made during his stay in Assos of Asia Minor, in Lesbos and Macedonia in the period 347-335 BC, reveal that Aristotle was a great observer of nature, and he gained his fame as a researcher and scientist mainly thanks to his work in the fields of Zoology and Biology.
His writings on animals, on their classification and parts, and reproduction, would set the course for biology and zoology for the next two millennia. Thanks to all these, Aristotle is considered the father of Biology and Taxonomy and as the most important Biologist of antiquity. Darwin, expressing admiration for the Stageirite, characterized Linnaeus and Cuvier as students compared to Aristotle.
Aristotle’s Meteorological treatise written around 340 BC, is the first broad and comprehensive book of meteorological thinking.
Certainly, nobody would be willing to claim that Aristotle gave us the content of each discipline as it is today. However, I think we can certainly claim that Aristotle set up the very foundations of Science: He gave us the reasoning (logic) and the method of Science. He told us that the main purpose of Science is to discover the causes of things (see Posterior Analytics 71a 21-33), he organized the complex material of the totality of the physical world in his ten categories, so as to be able to organize its variety and complexity; he taught us that scientific knowledge cannot be cut in pieces, that the real scientist must have an overall understanding of the totality of the knowable.
What makes Aristotle’s scientific work even more valuable and timeless is the fact that he set up the very concept of science (ἐπιστήμη). This was, indeed, a gigantic step in the intellectual history of mankind.
Finally, Aristotle was the first to introduce and discuss a great number of basic concepts, important for Philosophy and Science: matter and form, nature, space, time motion, infinity, continuity.
Matter and form (ὕλη και μορφή), potentiality and actuality (ἐν δυνάμει και ἐν ἐνεργείᾳ) constitute the basic pillars, not only of Aristotle’s Ontology but also of his Philosophy of Nature, which is now back in a remarkable way, through the discoveries in Quantum Physics, Physics of Elementary Particles and Cosmology.
As I am one step before my final remarks, I must make clear that in Aristotle’s mind there is a deep unity among all aspects of his work: (a) All sciences which, with one name, we call Science of Nature: i.e. Physics, Astronomy, Biology, Psychology, etc., and, (b) all aspects of his Philosophy, such as Logic, Metaphysics, Ontology, Ethics, Politics, Paideia, etc. are all interconnected. This can explain why the structure of his work in all the above areas is so solid, so well organized and, presenting at the same time, an example par excellence of the unity of knowledge.
ΙΙΙ. Concluding Proposal
In concluding, I wish to say, that for all the differences existing in the works of the two great thinkers of antiquity, the important thing is to elaborate mainly on their similarities of thought. Both Confucius and Aristotle have a deep interest in ἄνθρωπος, the human being, the individual, they both give a central place in their work for the ideas of virtue, filia, mesotis, practical wisdom. So, it is of critical importance today to see how the insights gained from Confucius and Aristotle, can show us the way to reach valuable conclusions in a global dialogue for a more reasonable and trustworthy world.
Qufu & Beijing, 8-12 July 2024
