>>23925503
Was Socrates schizophrenic and Plato autistic?

Would it be wise to start with Organon? I only have poetics/politics/ethics :(

>>23925509
Kek, seems accurate.

>>23925510
I don't think it matters so much where you start as long as you ultimately read everything. I need to read Politics again, I only read it once and frankly barely remember it. The Poetics is one that is highly regarded but I've never appreciated too much, not to sound like a dirty pseud but it doesn't seem that profound, maybe an anon here can open my eyes a bit.

The Organon is very important it need hardly be said, he lays down basic metaphysical principles in the Categories that he constantly refers to but only defends in the Metaphysics (and he doesn't defend all of it, like the derivation of the categories is nowhere explained clearly). The Posterior Analytics is most important because he explains how science works and follows the ideas of that work throughout the corpus.

I've seen multiple modern scholars claim that Aristotle's method is really 'dialectical' because he begins with endoxa, i.e. listing the solutions proposed by earlier philosophers. This is bizarre to me. In dialectic you either assume or attack a reputable opinion as part of an exercise, in his philosophical works he (to his mind anyway) finds scientific solutions to those same problems and explains how his predecessors were on the right track or not, and that's not dialectic even if the quotes are in a way 'in dialogue' with him. There's also a line in Topics 1.2 where he talks about the role of dialectics in establishing 'first principles' and a lot of people read that and say 'oh cool the Metaphysics is a work of dialectic I guess, it's all aporetic and inconclusive and that's why it's so hard to interpret coherently' but this is also bullshit, the first principles he's talking about in Topics are first principles of reasoning. He considered his formal logic (such as it was) to be part of Dialectics and does consistently refer to it that way. There's a bias in the modern mind to read fuzziness, vagueness, and inconclusiveness into ancient philosophy but Aristotle at any rate was very much a scientist and when he's not sure on a point, he says so. A lot of the confusion arises from people thinking that if he was writing scientifically a la Posterior Analytics it would be a string of syllogisms neatly lined up and divided.

>>23925509
In Problems 30 he says that they were both 'melancholic' which could mean almost anything. It's safe to assume he considered himself 'melancholy' as well because he thought most great philosophers were melancholy and he thought himself a great philosopher (which he was lol). Also in De Anima 1 early on he describes panic attacks in the first person plural as part of an argument that emotions arise from bodily states.

No way was Plato autistic, he had a better grasp of social dynamics than the average person and the dialogues are full of complex irony that an autist couldn't have managed. Aristotle does come across as sort of autistic in many places, though. It wouldn't be shocking if he was what we'd now call 'on the spectrum'.

I don't think Socrates was schizophrenic because by definition schizophrenics are not able to function normally, but he definitely experienced hallucinations. Hallucinations, including hearing voices like Socrates, aren't as uncommon as you might think. Some ancient philosophers who probably did have serious mental problems would be Democritus of Abdera, Empedocles, and Lucretius. Aristotle and Plato both had recognizably 'modern' theories of mental illness, that they were caused by problems with the body. (For Plato, inflammation of the nerves, which actually is part of their etiology; for Aristotle, humoral imbalance).

>>23925549
>I don't think Socrates was schizophrenic because by definition schizophrenics are not able to function normally,

He neglected his family, lived in poverty, walked around barefoot everywhere, fell into catatonic trances, thought he was a messenger from Apollo and committed suicide.

>>23925569
Pretty crude and uncharitable depiction.

>>23925503
Another problem:
9) Being, existence, act, potency, and unity. Does potency have being and unity even though potency is not the direct means by which anything exists?

>>23925534
>In dialectic you either assume or attack a reputable opinion as part of an exercise, in his philosophical works he (to his mind anyway) finds scientific solutions to those same problems and explains how his predecessors were on the right track or not, and that's not dialectic even if the quotes are in a way 'in dialogue' with him. There's also a line in Topics 1.2 where he talks about the role of dialectics in establishing 'first principles' and a lot of people read that and say 'oh cool the Metaphysics is a work of dialectic I guess, it's all aporetic and inconclusive and that's why it's so hard to interpret coherently' but this is also bullshit, the first principles he's talking about in Topics are first principles of reasoning. He considered his formal logic (such as it was) to be part of Dialectics and does consistently refer to it that way. There's a bias in the modern mind to read fuzziness, vagueness, and inconclusiveness into ancient philosophy but Aristotle at any rate was very much a scientist and when he's not sure on a point, he says so. A lot of the confusion arises from people thinking that if he was writing scientifically a la Posterior Analytics it would be a string of syllogisms neatly lined up and divided.
When you say his solutions are scientific, in what sense are they so? Because the contention of those scholars, that the solutions might be dialectically reached instead of demonstrated, seems sound when it's observed that he rarely ever uses what he develops in the Analytics. It's not just that one would expect a series of deductions, although it's hard to shake off that impression from the Organon, but that demonstrative syllogisms almost never appear, and the scholar's contention is a perfectly natural one generated from thinking about the Corpus in light of the Organon.

>>23925581
His conclusions are scientific because they're proofs from principles proper to the subject under discussion - open up to any random page and see; and compare his proofs to the 'dialectical' arguments you see in the Socratic dialogues if you like. The contention that he 'rarely ever uses what he develops in the Analytics' is a modern one and like I said it's a misunderstanding of what his method really is. They think that for him to be writing scientifically he'd have to be like "OK here are my primary definitions, here are the indemonstrable hypotheses, here are some axioms, and away we go," like Euclid. But just because he doesn't lay things out that way doesn't mean he isn't *thinking* that way. I mean, think about Parts of Animals 1 where he goes out of his way to show how biological science even COULD be pursued in light of the Posterior Analytics, y'know? Dialectic doesn't find answers, it's a sort of exercise. But Aristotle does propose serious answers.

I'd just straight up deny that he "rarely ever uses what he develops in the Analytics." How does he handle the question of time? He canvasses the views of his predecessors, gives his own answer, then gives various proofs elucidating difficult points. That's science, not dialectic. He always presents himself as providing solutions, and to provide a real, appropriate and necessary solution to a scientific question is science.

There are demonstrative syllogisms everywhere. Virtually every single paragraph contains them, though not all the premises are expressed, nor do they need to be, because humans are very good at syllogistic reasoning. If Aristotle was writing 'dialectical treatises', he by definition would not be solving any problems.

>>23925549
imagine how hubristic you need be to think of yourself as a great philosopher

>>23925503
>1.) What's Aristotle's solution to the problem of universals and does it make sense? What is the relation between the common nature and the individual?
He doesn't have one, he says contradictory things in different places. In one and the same chapter he says that the particular is the essence and then that the essence is always a species. He denies that universals are substances, and then insists that knowledge only concerns universals and anything particular is accidental.
>2.) What's the relationship between Aristotle and Plato?
Aristotle craps on Plato 24/7 and misrepresents what he says whenever he can.
>3.) Is one a number?
Yes, number is what is counted and we count one.
>4.) Is Aristotelian logic remotely relevant to modern times and if so how?
Unless you want to be a scholar of ancient philosophy it is useless, no one studies Aristotelian logic unless they're specialists. You might as well study Ptolemaic astronomy. He can't handle relations so it's useless.
>5.) Did Aristotle's thought develop and what are some instances of this development?
Of course it did. In De Anima he makes the rational soul part of the form of the living body and dependent on imagination, in Gen of Animals it's inserted into the embryo from outside.
>6.) Is Aristotle's God Zeus?
Pass
>7.) Did Aristotle accept the immortality of the soul?
No, this is obvious and it's only controversial because of Catholics.
>8.) Did Aristotle think God belonged to the genus 'substance'?
Yes, he speaks of God as a substance in Meta 12. Aristotle's genera don't have any ontological import. A common criticism is that some substances are prior to others, and how could you have a primus substance in the same genus with lesser ones? If the genus isn't real to begin with, you can, and this is one of his arguments that they aren't real, because there's an order of for example numbers.
>9.) What IS a quality, exactly?
I always thought an accidental quality was an accident of the substance itself whereas quantity refers to matter. And then position refers to the relation of parts, habitus to possessing something separable, etc.
>10.) Does cabbage really cure hangovers or is it an old wive's tale?
The best hangover cure is alcohol.

>>23925649
Aristotle was terrifyingly ahead of his contemporaries, though. There's a reason he formed the pillar of western Scholasiticism straight up.

>>23925503
>7.) Did Aristotle accept the immortality of the soul?
I'm interested in Siger of Brabant. What do you have to say about him?
How does he relate to Aristotle?
We're can I begin with him?

>>23925654
>He doesn't have one, he says contradictory things in different places. In one and the same chapter he says that the particular is the essence and then that the essence is always a species. He denies that universals are substances, and then insists that knowledge only concerns universals and anything particular is accidental.
I can imagine Aristotle contradicting himself in different works written at different times but not in one and the same chapter. He was a smart guy.
>Aristotle craps on Plato 24/7 and misrepresents what he says whenever he can.
Agree.
>Yes, number is what is counted and we count one.
No, one is a principle of number. If one is a number then differentia is substance. Just because we 'count one' doesn't mean anything and has no bearing.
>Unless you want to be a scholar of ancient philosophy it is useless, no one studies Aristotelian logic unless they're specialists. You might as well study Ptolemaic astronomy. He can't handle relations so it's useless.
It's important to understand his own thought and it wasn't meant to do what modern logic does. Big question, don't feel like writing multiparagraph so assume I'm wrong if you like.
>Of course it did. In De Anima he makes the rational soul part of the form of the living body and dependent on imagination, in Gen of Animals it's inserted into the embryo from outside.
IMO the gist of De Anima is 'yes, Plato is right that thought is immortal, but the thought that is immortal is not our thought but God', and in this way thought 'comes from outside' because the intelligibility of the world comes from outside and our intellect can only work in interaction with the divine intellect.
>No, this is obvious and it's only controversial because of Catholics.
Agree. You need to take a dip in the Platonist pool if you want to 'demonstrate' life after death.
>Yes, he speaks of God as a substance in Meta 12. Aristotle's genera don't have any ontological import. A common criticism is that some substances are prior to others, and how could you have a primus substance in the same genus with lesser ones? If the genus isn't real to begin with, you can, and this is one of his arguments that they aren't real, because there's an order of for example numbers.
You're ignoring the fact that God is particular and particulars are not a part of the taxonomical tree, which is composed of universals. 'Socrates is a man' may be true but Socrates is not a rung on the tree because the tree only exists as a tree in thought.
>I always thought an accidental quality was an accident of the substance itself whereas quantity refers to matter. And then position refers to the relation of parts, habitus to possessing something separable, etc.
Agree, but you're ignoring the problem of essential qualities and of substantial form as quality.

>>23925662
I never read him, don't have any opinion on him, why don't you read him for me and tell us what you think. I do have this sort of fantasy about the introduction of Aristotle to the West, that it was like primitive people being given the internet, and his thought was so much better than what they had been exposed to that people went kind of crazy and formed all these wild theories. It seems like that is sort of what happened but I just don't know enough to say anything intelligent.

>>23925649
If he wasn't a great philosopher no one was, his arrogance was justified. It's like a gifted kid who has to take one 'on grade level' class and is instantly far and away the smartest dude in the room, that's like how Aristotle was in relation to the presocratics.

>>23925649
>>23925677
>It's pretty hubristic for Michael Jordan to think he's a great basketball player.

>>23925675
>why don't you read him for me and tell us what you think.
I'm certainly a noob, but I barely can find a detailed description of his ideas online.
All his works seem either too expensive or simply out of print. I'm interested in the idea of Anima Intellectiva. Is it to him the only thing that survives death?
Is it God? Is it a collective soul of humanity, if that makes sense?

>>23925705
Wasn't Siger a radical Averroist? If that's the case I can speak to it because I read Averroes' Long Commentary on the De Anima.

The Anima Intellectiva could in a way be described as the 'soul of humanity', it's a divine being but not the same as God. Death would still be death, you would no longer exist, you wouldn't go to heaven or be joined with this divine being, you just cease to be. Easiest way to understand Averroist psychology - intellect is like the sun that we see by, we all see by the same sun without having the sun as a personal possession. Need not be said there are many complex arguments for this apparently bizarre point of view.

>>23925503
Did Aristotle have a philosophy of ass? I remember somewhere in Metaphysics he speaks of beauty as a harmony of parts. But if that's the case, the whole ass would be beautiful, but none of the individual parts would be beautiful, so it seems defective, because every part of the beautiful ass is beautiful.

>>23925779
This is a babby tier misunderstanding. The 'matter is in the logos', so the whole ass is beautiful and every part is likewise beautiful because of the overall form of the ass, which actualizes this mass of butt-flesh. But there's a ladder. You go from loving this ass, to loving all asses, to loving the beauty that stands behind all asses and is as it were an ass to them, and then you reach enlightenment.

Plato would say that there was an Ass Itself which stands behind every beautiful ass, but for Aristotle the Ass Itself does not exist independently but is caused by the first principle and exists all together with it hyperintellectually and with every individual ass, and does not exist in its own right. Also, Plato would say you're a soul imprisoned in a body and need to forget about asses to escape, but Aristotle wouldn't say that.

>>23925623
I'll be to the point, because it would take more posts than I have the patience to write, but this is wrong. Aristotle gives careful definitions of dialectic and demonstration, and what their respective arguments look like, and those arguments in the treatises, at best, have to have their Analytics form be inferred from the writings, since there's only rarely a match between the formal structures presented in the Analytics and the arguments in the treatises. It would be wholly wrong to say that Aristotle, in presenting any argument at all, is doing so as a demonstration; not every proof amounts to a demonstrative argument. What I think you miss is that Aristotle's sober enough to recognize that some (really, many) things can't admit of demonstration per se, and that there's nothing wrong with settling on plausible accounts until a matter has been investigated more. But, to be clear, when scholars say it's rare that a demonstration is ever used, they're not saying he rarely argues, since it's trivially true that he does so, but that he doesn't argue at the standard he puts forward in the Analytics for assured knowledge.

>>23925534
>I've seen multiple modern scholars claim that Aristotle's method is really 'dialectical' because he begins with endoxa, i.e. listing the solutions proposed by earlier philosophers. This is bizarre to me. In dialectic you either assume or attack a reputable opinion as part of an exercise, in his philosophical works he (to his mind anyway) finds scientific solutions to those same problems and explains how his predecessors were on the right track or not, and that's not dialectic even if the quotes are in a way 'in dialogue' with him. There's also a line in Topics 1.2 where he talks about the role of dialectics in establishing 'first principles' and a lot of people read that and say 'oh cool the Metaphysics is a work of dialectic I guess, it's all aporetic and inconclusive and that's why it's so hard to interpret coherently' but this is also bullshit, the first principles he's talking about in Topics are first principles of reasoning. He considered his formal logic (such as it was) to be part of Dialectics and does consistently refer to it that way. There's a bias in the modern mind to read fuzziness, vagueness, and inconclusiveness into ancient philosophy but Aristotle at any rate was very much a scientist and when he's not sure on a point, he says so. A lot of the confusion arises from people thinking that if he was writing scientifically a la Posterior Analytics it would be a string of syllogisms neatly lined up and divided.
What does it mean for something to be dialectical? I get that there is a standard understanding of dialectic in which that it is a logical conversation between two people that moves from point A to point B. But is there anything epistemically and metaphysically special about dialectic? Is it a way of Aristotle saying that there are no truths that one can land on, only cycle through?

>>23925503
When I saw the OP pic I thought the thread would be filled with off-topic posts by retard coomers. Surprisingly, Aristotelian autism can even ward off the coomers. No other thread with a pic like this could get away with it

>>23925665
>No, one is a principle of number. If one is a number then differentia is substance.
Measure is the principle of number. This is what allows a one to be counted. Furthermore, there are multiple terms that are translated as "principle" in Aristotle's work, and not all have the same metaphysical consequences.
>Just because we 'count one' doesn't mean anything and has no bearing.
Counting has a fundamental relationship to number. Disregard it at your peril.

>>23925712
>Death would still be death, you would no longer exist, you wouldn't go to heaven or be joined with this divine being, you just cease to be.
I've heard that one consequence of the Averroist position is that either we all go to heaven or we all go to hell, and that there is no room for exception in either direction.

>>23925549
>Empedocles

Another quack who fancied himself a doctor while bloviating insane mystic jargon and ramblings. This is what one ancient doctor who likely knew him had to say of his fanciful way of inserting insane mysticism into his medical practice

>Certain sophists and physicians say that it is not possible for any one to know medicine who does not know what man is [and how he was made and how constructed], and that whoever would cure men properly, must learn this in the first place. But this saying rather appertains to philosophy, as Empedocles and certain others have described what man in his origin is, and how he first was made and constructed. But I think whatever such has been said or written by sophist or physician concerning nature has less connection with the art of medicine than with the art of painting.

>>23926379
Speak for yourself. I have been checking this thread for hours waiting for more pictures.
But indeed I am impressed by the Aristotelians.

>>23926364
It's an argument that starts from endoxa, a kind of popular or respectable opinion or belief, and that argues from a part of it or the whole of it to show that it is either plausible or implausible. There are two senses of both "demonstration" and "dialectic", a technical and a looser meaning. The technical meanings for both are the formal syllogistic arguments in the Analytics and Topics, and the looser meanings are, respectively, "proof" and "arguing in general from opinions that may not be certain."

>>23927211
Interesting. Was there an evolution in what dialectic meant, then, from Plato to Aristotle? Because Plato held dialectic in extremely high regard. But here it seems like its stature is reduced.

>>23927222
Somewhat. Aristotle seems closer to returning to its common meaning, "conversation," though it obviously doesn't simply mean that. But the emphasis on starting from endoxa seems to imply that it's useful for conversation with intelligent non-philosophers, and for working out issues where their grounds or principles are uncertain but you might need an answer onthe-fly.

>>23926451
BRAAAAP

>>23925534
What's the best way to read stuff like this? Just read it, or take notes? I'm not good at reading 'interactively'.

Oh my god Aristotle again. Why does this board love bringing up homosexuals so much? Who care about the Greeks?! There is literally a gay section on sex.com but you all have to jack it off to literal dead men.

Something has been bothering me for a while and I'm wondering if there's an Aristotlean way to resolve it.
What is the most rigorous definition of "opposite?" Is it "for a given thing, the quality of not-that-thing-ness in such a degree that all qualities of the thing are negated?" Is it "a hypothetical complete antithesis of a given thing such that all its qualities are inverted?"
If anyone is familiar with Peirce's semiotics and wants to take a stab at it from that direction I'd appreciate it too.

What's the best place to start with Aristotle?

>>23930316
Ethics is what most people would recommend

>>23929055
This is a good topic. My understanding is that qualities (i.e. forms) have contraries, but individual substances do not have contraries. Speaking personally, the problem is that substances have qualities in bulk, so it would be difficult to precisely identify what would be its exact contrary. Even if you were to identify the opposite of a specific differentia, there are still the proprium of each substance to consider, which may not align with each other as opposites.