August 19, 2025 • 12 mins
In this engaging little Blue Book No. 39, renowned author Will Durant explores the life and teachings of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), a brilliant Macedonian thinker who was once a student of Plato and later became the mentor of Alexander the Great. While Alexander set out to conquer the world, Aristotle returned to Athens to establish the Lyceum, where he made groundbreaking contributions to biology, logic, literary theory, ethics, and political science. Rejecting the abstract ideals of his teacher Plato, Aristotle focused on the natural world, famously studying the development of the chick embryo. He viewed the universe as a dynamic interplay of matter in motion, with God as its initial driving force. Contrary to the belief that social evils stem from private property, Aristotle argued they arise from the inherent flaws of human nature. He believed that while we find catharsis in tragic theater, real life necessitates a pursuit of balance, reason, dignity, and the golden mean in all aspects. (Pamela Nagami, M.D.)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of the Story of Aristotle's Philosophy by will Durant.
This librovox recording is in the public domain recording by
Pamel and Nagami, Chapter two, The Work of Aristotle. It
was not hard for the instructor of the King of
Kings to find pupils, even in so hostilicity as Athens.
(00:25):
When in the fifty third year of his age Aristotle
established his school, the Lyceum, so many students flocked to
him that it became necessary to make complicated regulations for
the maintenance of order. The students themselves determined the rules
and elected every ten days one of their number to
(00:46):
supervise the school. But we must not think of it
as a place of rigid discipline. Rather, the picture which
comes down to us is of scholars eating their meals
in common with the master and learning from him as
he and they strolled up and down the walk along
the athletic field from which the Lyceum took its name.
(01:07):
Footnote the walk was called Paripatos, hence the latter name
Peripatetic school. The athletic field was part of the grounds
of the temple of Apollo. Lysius, the protector of the
flock against the wolf lycos and footnote. The new school
was no mere replica of that which Plato had left
(01:29):
behind him. The academy was devoted above all to mathematics
and to speculative and political philosophy. The Lyceum had rather
a tendency to biology and the natural sciences. If we
may believe Pliny, Alexander instructed his hunters, gamekeepers, gardeners, and
(01:49):
fishermen to furnish Aristotle with all the zoological and botanical
material he might desire. Other ancient writers tell us that
at one time he had at his disposal a thousand
men scattered throughout Greece and Asia, collecting for him specimens
of the fauna and flora of every land. With this
(02:12):
wealth of material, he was enabled to establish the first
great zoological garden that the world had seen. We can
hardly exaggerate the influence of this collection upon his science
and his philosophy. Where did Aristotle derive the funds to
finance these undertakings. He was himself by this time a
(02:34):
man of spacious income, and he had married into the
fortune of one of the most powerful public men in Greece, Athenaeus.
No doubt, with some exaggeration relates that Alexander gave Aristotle
for physical and biological equipment and research the sum of
eight hundred talents in modern purchasing power, some four million dollars.
(02:58):
It was at Aristotle signe. Some think that Alexander sent
a costly expedition to explore the sources of the Nile
and discover the causes of its periodical overflow. Footnote. The
expedition reported that the inundations were due to the melting
of the snow on the mountains of Abyssinia end footnote.
(03:21):
Such works as the digest of one hundred and fifty
eight political constitutions drawn up for Aristotle indicates a considerable
core of aids and secretaries. In short, we have here
the first example in European history of the large scale
financing of science by public wealth. What knowledge would we
(03:44):
not win if modern states were to support research on
a proportionately lavish scale. Yet we should do Aristotle injustice
if we were to ignore the almost fatal limitations of
equipment which accompanied these unprecedented resources and facilities. He was
compelled to fix time without a watch, to compare degrees
(04:07):
of heat without a thermometer, to observe the heavens without
a telescope and the weather without a barometer. Of all
our mathematical, optical, and physical instruments, he possessed only the
rule and compass, together with the most imperfect substitutes. For
some few others. Chemical analysis, correct measurements and weights, and
(04:32):
a thorough application of mathematics to physics were unknown. The
attractive force of matter, the law of gravitation, electrical phenomena,
the conditions of chemical combination, pressure of air in its effects,
the nature of light, heat, combustion, et cetera. In short,
all the facts on which the physical theories of modern
(04:53):
science are based were wholly or almost wholly undiscovered. See
here how any inventions make history. For lack of a telescope,
Aristotle's astronomy is a tissue of childish romance. For lack
of a microscope, his biology wanders endlessly astray. Indeed, it
(05:15):
was an industrial and technical invention that Greece fell furthest
below the general standard of its unparalleled achievements. The Greek
disdain of manual work kept everybody but the listless slave
from direct acquaintance with the processes of production, from that
stimulating contact with machinery, which reveals defects and prefigures possibilities.
(05:41):
Technical invention was possible only to those who had no
interest in it and could not derive from it any
material reward. Perhaps the very cheapness of the slaves made invention.
Lag muscle was still less costly than machines, and so oh.
While Greek commerce conquered the Mediterranean Sea and Greek philosophy
(06:05):
conquered the Mediterranean mind, Greek science straggled, and Greek industry
remained almost where a Gean industry had been when the
invading Greeks had come down upon it at Canosus, at Turins,
at Mycene a thousand years before. No doubt we have
here the reason why Aristotle so seldom appeals to experiment.
(06:30):
The mechanisms of experiment had not yet been made, and
the best he could do was to achieve an almost
universal and continuous observation. Nevertheless, the vast body of data
gathered by him and his assistance became the groundwork of
the progress of science, the textbook of knowledge for two
(06:50):
thousand years. One of the wonders of the work of man.
Aristotle's writings ran into the hundreds. Some ancient authors credit
him with four hundred volumes, others with a thousand. What
remains is but a part, and yet it is a
library in itself. Conceive the scope and grandeur of the whole.
(07:14):
There are first the logical works categories, topics, prior and posterior, analytics, propositions,
and sophistical refutations. These works were collected and edited by
the later Peripatetics under the general title of Aristotle's organon,
that is, the organ or instrument of correct thinking. Secondly,
(07:38):
there are the scientific works physics on the heavens, growth
and decay, meteorology, natural history on the soul, the parts
of animals, the movements of animals, and the generation of animals.
There are thirdly the esthetic works rhetoric and poetics, and
(08:00):
fourthlye come the more strictly philosophical works ethics, politics, and metaphysics.
Here evidently is the Encyclopedia Britannica of Greece. Every problem
under the sun and about it finds a place no wonder,
There are more errors and absurdities here than in any
other philosopher whoever wrote. Here is such a synthesis of
(08:24):
knowledge and theory as no man would ever achieve again
till Spencer's day, and even then not half so magnificently. Here,
better than Alexander's fitful and brutal victory was a conquest
of the world. If philosophy is the quest of unity,
Aristotle deserves the high name that twenty centuries gave him
(08:47):
Illah Philosophus the philosopher. Naturally, in a mind of such
scientific turn poesy was lacking. We must not expect of
Aristotle such literary brilliants as floods the pages of the
dramatist philosopher Plato. Instead of giving us great literature in
(09:08):
which philosophy is embodied and obscured in myth and imagery,
Aristotle gives us science, technical, abstract concentrated. If we go
to him for entertainment, we shall sue for the return
of our money. Instead of giving terms to literature, as
(09:28):
Plato did, he builds the terminology of science and philosophy.
We can hardly speak of any science today without employing
terms which he invented. They lie like fossils in the
strata of our speech. Faculty mean maxim meaning. In Aristotle,
the major premise of a syllogism category energy, actuality, motive,
(09:54):
end principle form. These indispensable coins of philosophy thought were
minted in his mind, and perhaps this passage from delightful
dialogue to precise scientific treatise was a necessary step in
the development of philosophy, and science, which is the basis
(10:15):
and backbone of philosophy, could not grow until it had
evolved its own strict methods of procedure and expression. Aristotle
io wrote literary dialogues as highly reputed in their day
as Plato's, but they are lost, just as the scientific
treatises of Plato have perished. Probably time has preserved of
(10:39):
each man the better part. Finally, it is possible that
the writings attributed to Aristotle were not his, but were
largely the compilations of students and followers who had embalmed
the unadorned substance of his lectures in their notes. It
does not appear that Aristotle published in his life time
(11:00):
any writings except those on logic and rhetoric, and the
present form of the logical Treatises is due to later editing.
In the case of the metaphysics and the Politics, the
notes left by Aristotle seem to have been put together
by his executors without revision or alteration. Even the unity
(11:22):
of style which marks Aristotle's writings and offers an argument
to those who defend his direct authorship, may be after all,
merely a unity given them through common editing by the
Peripatetic school. About this matter, there rage is a sort
of Homeric question, of almost epic scope, into which the
(11:45):
busy reader will not care to go, and on which
a modest student will not undertake to judge. We may,
at all events be sure that Aristotle is the spiritual
author of all these books that bear his name, that
the hand may be in some cases another's hand, but
that the head and the heart are his. End of
(12:09):
Chapter two
Chapter two of the Story of Aristotle's Philosophy by will Durant.
This librovox recording is in the public domain recording by
Pamel and Nagami, Chapter two, The Work of Aristotle. It
was not hard for the instructor of the King of
Kings to find pupils, even in so hostilicity as Athens.
(00:25):
When in the fifty third year of his age Aristotle
established his school, the Lyceum, so many students flocked to
him that it became necessary to make complicated regulations for
the maintenance of order. The students themselves determined the rules
and elected every ten days one of their number to
(00:46):
supervise the school. But we must not think of it
as a place of rigid discipline. Rather, the picture which
comes down to us is of scholars eating their meals
in common with the master and learning from him as
he and they strolled up and down the walk along
the athletic field from which the Lyceum took its name.
(01:07):
Footnote the walk was called Paripatos, hence the latter name
Peripatetic school. The athletic field was part of the grounds
of the temple of Apollo. Lysius, the protector of the
flock against the wolf lycos and footnote. The new school
was no mere replica of that which Plato had left
(01:29):
behind him. The academy was devoted above all to mathematics
and to speculative and political philosophy. The Lyceum had rather
a tendency to biology and the natural sciences. If we
may believe Pliny, Alexander instructed his hunters, gamekeepers, gardeners, and
(01:49):
fishermen to furnish Aristotle with all the zoological and botanical
material he might desire. Other ancient writers tell us that
at one time he had at his disposal a thousand
men scattered throughout Greece and Asia, collecting for him specimens
of the fauna and flora of every land. With this
(02:12):
wealth of material, he was enabled to establish the first
great zoological garden that the world had seen. We can
hardly exaggerate the influence of this collection upon his science
and his philosophy. Where did Aristotle derive the funds to
finance these undertakings. He was himself by this time a
(02:34):
man of spacious income, and he had married into the
fortune of one of the most powerful public men in Greece, Athenaeus.
No doubt, with some exaggeration relates that Alexander gave Aristotle
for physical and biological equipment and research the sum of
eight hundred talents in modern purchasing power, some four million dollars.
(02:58):
It was at Aristotle signe. Some think that Alexander sent
a costly expedition to explore the sources of the Nile
and discover the causes of its periodical overflow. Footnote. The
expedition reported that the inundations were due to the melting
of the snow on the mountains of Abyssinia end footnote.
(03:21):
Such works as the digest of one hundred and fifty
eight political constitutions drawn up for Aristotle indicates a considerable
core of aids and secretaries. In short, we have here
the first example in European history of the large scale
financing of science by public wealth. What knowledge would we
(03:44):
not win if modern states were to support research on
a proportionately lavish scale. Yet we should do Aristotle injustice
if we were to ignore the almost fatal limitations of
equipment which accompanied these unprecedented resources and facilities. He was
compelled to fix time without a watch, to compare degrees
(04:07):
of heat without a thermometer, to observe the heavens without
a telescope and the weather without a barometer. Of all
our mathematical, optical, and physical instruments, he possessed only the
rule and compass, together with the most imperfect substitutes. For
some few others. Chemical analysis, correct measurements and weights, and
(04:32):
a thorough application of mathematics to physics were unknown. The
attractive force of matter, the law of gravitation, electrical phenomena,
the conditions of chemical combination, pressure of air in its effects,
the nature of light, heat, combustion, et cetera. In short,
all the facts on which the physical theories of modern
(04:53):
science are based were wholly or almost wholly undiscovered. See
here how any inventions make history. For lack of a telescope,
Aristotle's astronomy is a tissue of childish romance. For lack
of a microscope, his biology wanders endlessly astray. Indeed, it
(05:15):
was an industrial and technical invention that Greece fell furthest
below the general standard of its unparalleled achievements. The Greek
disdain of manual work kept everybody but the listless slave
from direct acquaintance with the processes of production, from that
stimulating contact with machinery, which reveals defects and prefigures possibilities.
(05:41):
Technical invention was possible only to those who had no
interest in it and could not derive from it any
material reward. Perhaps the very cheapness of the slaves made invention.
Lag muscle was still less costly than machines, and so oh.
While Greek commerce conquered the Mediterranean Sea and Greek philosophy
(06:05):
conquered the Mediterranean mind, Greek science straggled, and Greek industry
remained almost where a Gean industry had been when the
invading Greeks had come down upon it at Canosus, at Turins,
at Mycene a thousand years before. No doubt we have
here the reason why Aristotle so seldom appeals to experiment.
(06:30):
The mechanisms of experiment had not yet been made, and
the best he could do was to achieve an almost
universal and continuous observation. Nevertheless, the vast body of data
gathered by him and his assistance became the groundwork of
the progress of science, the textbook of knowledge for two
(06:50):
thousand years. One of the wonders of the work of man.
Aristotle's writings ran into the hundreds. Some ancient authors credit
him with four hundred volumes, others with a thousand. What
remains is but a part, and yet it is a
library in itself. Conceive the scope and grandeur of the whole.
(07:14):
There are first the logical works categories, topics, prior and posterior, analytics, propositions,
and sophistical refutations. These works were collected and edited by
the later Peripatetics under the general title of Aristotle's organon,
that is, the organ or instrument of correct thinking. Secondly,
(07:38):
there are the scientific works physics on the heavens, growth
and decay, meteorology, natural history on the soul, the parts
of animals, the movements of animals, and the generation of animals.
There are thirdly the esthetic works rhetoric and poetics, and
(08:00):
fourthlye come the more strictly philosophical works ethics, politics, and metaphysics.
Here evidently is the Encyclopedia Britannica of Greece. Every problem
under the sun and about it finds a place no wonder,
There are more errors and absurdities here than in any
other philosopher whoever wrote. Here is such a synthesis of
(08:24):
knowledge and theory as no man would ever achieve again
till Spencer's day, and even then not half so magnificently. Here,
better than Alexander's fitful and brutal victory was a conquest
of the world. If philosophy is the quest of unity,
Aristotle deserves the high name that twenty centuries gave him
(08:47):
Illah Philosophus the philosopher. Naturally, in a mind of such
scientific turn poesy was lacking. We must not expect of
Aristotle such literary brilliants as floods the pages of the
dramatist philosopher Plato. Instead of giving us great literature in
(09:08):
which philosophy is embodied and obscured in myth and imagery,
Aristotle gives us science, technical, abstract concentrated. If we go
to him for entertainment, we shall sue for the return
of our money. Instead of giving terms to literature, as
(09:28):
Plato did, he builds the terminology of science and philosophy.
We can hardly speak of any science today without employing
terms which he invented. They lie like fossils in the
strata of our speech. Faculty mean maxim meaning. In Aristotle,
the major premise of a syllogism category energy, actuality, motive,
(09:54):
end principle form. These indispensable coins of philosophy thought were
minted in his mind, and perhaps this passage from delightful
dialogue to precise scientific treatise was a necessary step in
the development of philosophy, and science, which is the basis
(10:15):
and backbone of philosophy, could not grow until it had
evolved its own strict methods of procedure and expression. Aristotle
io wrote literary dialogues as highly reputed in their day
as Plato's, but they are lost, just as the scientific
treatises of Plato have perished. Probably time has preserved of
(10:39):
each man the better part. Finally, it is possible that
the writings attributed to Aristotle were not his, but were
largely the compilations of students and followers who had embalmed
the unadorned substance of his lectures in their notes. It
does not appear that Aristotle published in his life time
(11:00):
any writings except those on logic and rhetoric, and the
present form of the logical Treatises is due to later editing.
In the case of the metaphysics and the Politics, the
notes left by Aristotle seem to have been put together
by his executors without revision or alteration. Even the unity
(11:22):
of style which marks Aristotle's writings and offers an argument
to those who defend his direct authorship, may be after all,
merely a unity given them through common editing by the
Peripatetic school. About this matter, there rage is a sort
of Homeric question, of almost epic scope, into which the
(11:45):
busy reader will not care to go, and on which
a modest student will not undertake to judge. We may,
at all events be sure that Aristotle is the spiritual
author of all these books that bear his name, that
the hand may be in some cases another's hand, but
that the head and the heart are his. End of
(12:09):
Chapter two
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!