August 19, 2025 • 13 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.)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter three of the Story of Aristotle's Philosophy by Will Durant.
This librovox recording is in the public domain recording by
Pamela and Nagami. The Foundation of Logic, The first great
distinction of Aristotle is that, almost without predecessors, almost entirely
(00:21):
by his own hard thinking, he created a new science logic.
Renault speaks of the ill training of every mind that
has not directly or indirectly come under Greek discipline. But
in truth, the Greek intellect itself was undisciplined and chaotic
till the ruthless formulae of Aristotle provided a ready method
(00:45):
for the test and correction of thought. Even Plato, if
a lover, may so far presume, was an unruly and
irregular soul, caught up too frequently in a cloud of myth,
and letting beauty too richly veil the face of truth.
Aristotle himself, as we shall see, violated his own canons plentifully.
(01:09):
But then he was the product of his past, and
not of that future which his thought would build. The
political and economic decay of Greece brought a weakening of
the Hellenic mind and character after Aristotle, But when a
new race, after a millennium of barbaric darkness, found again
the leisure and ability for speculation. It was Aristotle's Organon
(01:33):
of Logic, translated by Boethius four seventy five twenty five AD,
that became the very mold of medieval thought, the strict
mother of that scholastic philosophy, which, though rendered sterow by
encircling dogmas, nevertheless trained the intellect of adolescent Europe to
(01:53):
reasoning and subtlety, constructed the terminology of modern science, and
laid the baes of that same maturity of mind, which
was to outgrow and overthrow the very system and methods
which had given it birth and sustenance. Logic means simply
the art and method of correct thinking. It is the
(02:15):
logic or method of every science, of every discipline, and
every art, and even music harbors it. It is a
science because to a considerable extent, the processes of right thinking,
and we use right not in a moral but in
a mathematical sense, can be reduced to rules like physics
(02:36):
and geometry, and taught to any normal mind. It is
an art because by practice it gives to thought at
last that unconscious and immediate accuracy which guides the fingers
of the pianist over his instrument to effortless harmonies. Nothing
is so dull as logic, and nothing so important. There
(02:57):
was a hint of this new science and soccer Tes's
maddening insistence on definitions, and in Plato's constant refining of
every concept. Aristotle's little Treatise on Definitions shows how his
logic found nourishment at this source. If you wish to
converse with men, said Voltaire, define your terms. How many
(03:20):
a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if
the disputants had dared to define their terms. This is
the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul
of it. That every important term in serious discourse shall
be subjected to strict discrutiny and definition. It is difficult
(03:41):
and ruthlessly tests the mind, but once done, it is
half of any task. Yet, how shall we proceed to
define an object or a term? Aristotle answers that every
good definition has two parts, stands on two solid feet. First,
it assigns the object in question to a class or
(04:03):
group of objects whose general characteristics are also its own.
So man is first of all an animal. And secondly
it indicates wherein the object differs from all the other
members of its class. So man, in the Aristotilian system
is a rational animal. His specific difference is that, unlike
(04:27):
all other animals, he is rational. Here, you see, is
the origin of a pretty legend. Aristotle drops an object
into the ocean of its class, then takes it out
all gripping with generic meaning, with the marks of its
kind and group, while its individuality and difference shine out
(04:48):
all the more clearly for this juxtaposition with other objects
which resemble it so much and are so different. Passing
out from this rear line of life, we come into
the great battlefield on which Aristotle fought out with Plato,
the dread question of universals. It was the first conflict
(05:10):
in a war which was to last till our own
day and make all medieval Europe ring with the clash
of realists and nominalists. A universal, to Aristotle, is any
common noun, any name capable of universal application to the
members of a class. So animal, man, book, tree are universals.
(05:36):
But these universals are subjective notions, not tangibly objective realities.
They are nomina names, not race things. All that exists
outside us is a world of individual and specific objects,
not of generic and universal things. Men exist, and trees
(05:59):
and nas animals, But man in general, or the universal man,
does not exist except in thought. He is a handy
mental abstraction, and not an external presence or reality. Now,
Aristotle understands Plato to have held that great universals have
(06:20):
objective existence, And indeed Plato has said that the universal
is incomparably more lasting and important and substantial than the individual,
the latter being but a little wavelet in a ceaseless surf.
Man come and go, but man goes on forever. Aristotle's
(06:42):
is a matter of fact mind, as William James would say,
a tough, not a tender mind. He sees the root
of endless mysticism and scholarly nonsense in this Platonic realism,
and he attacks it with all the vigor of a
first polemic Brutus loved, not Caesar less, but Rome more so.
(07:05):
Aristotle says a mikas Plato said, Maggi samika eritas. Dear
is Plato, but dearer still is truth. A hostile commentator
might remark that Aristotle, like Nietzsche, criticizes Plato so keenly
because he is conscious of having borrowed from him generously.
(07:26):
No man is a hero to his debtors, but Aristotle
has a healthy attitude. Nevertheless, he is a realist, almost
in the modern sense. He is resolved to concern himself
with the objective presence, while Plato is absorbed in a
subjective future, or to juggle with the words. Aristotle has
(07:47):
a present objective, and Plato's subject is the future. There
was in the Socratic Platonic demand for definitions, a tendency
away from things and facts to theories and ideas, from
particulars to generalities, from science to scholasticism. At last, Plato
(08:09):
became so devoted to generalities that they began to determine
his particulars, so devoted to ideas that they began to
define or select his facts. Aristotle preaches a return to things,
to the unwered face of nature and reality. He had
a lusty preference for the concrete, particular, for the flesh
(08:34):
and blood individual. But Plato so loved the general and
universal that in the Republic he destroyed the individual to
make a perfect state. Yet, as is the usual humor
of history, the young warrior takes over many of the
qualities of the old master, whom he assails. We have
(08:57):
always goodly stock in us of that which we condemn,
as only similars can be profitably contrasted. So only similar
people quarrel, and the bitterest wars are over the slightest
variations of purpose or belief. The knightly Crusaders found in
Solidin a gentleman with whom they could quarrel amicably, But
(09:21):
when the Christians of Europe broke into hostile camps, there
was no quarter for even the courtliest foe. Aristotle is
so ruthless with Plato because there is so much of
Plato in him. He too, remains a lover of abstractions
and generalities, repeatedly betraying the simple fact for some speciously
(09:44):
bedizened theory, and compelled to a continuous struggle to conquer
the philosophical passion for exploring the Empyrean. There is a
heavy trace of this in the most characteristic and original
of Aristotle's contribution to philosophy, the Doctrine of the Syllogism.
(10:04):
A syllogism is a trio of propositions, of which the
third the conclusion, follows from the conceited truth of the
other two the major and minor premises. For example, man
is a rational animal, but Socrates is a man, Therefore
Socrates is a rational animal. The mathematical reader will see
(10:29):
at once that the structure of the syllogism resembles the
proposition that two things equal to the same thing are
equal to each other. If A is B and C
is A, then C is B. As in the mathematical case,
the conclusion is reached by canceling from both premises their
(10:52):
common term a. So in our syllogism, the conclusion is
reached by canceling from both premises their common term man,
and combining what remains. The difficulty, as logicians have pointed
out from the days of Piro to those of Stuart Mill,
lies in this that the major premise of the syllogism
(11:15):
takes for granted precisely the point to be proved. For
if Socrates is not rational, and since no one questions
that he is a man, it is not universally true
that man is a rational animal. Aristotle would reply no
doubt that where an individual is found to have a
(11:36):
large number of qualities characteristic of a class, Socrates is
a man. A strong presumption is established that the individual
has the other qualities characteristic of the class rationality. But
apparently the syllogism is not a mechanism for the discovery
(11:56):
of truth so much as for the clarification of expert
position and thought. All this, then, like the many other
items of the organon, has its value. Aristotle has discovered
and formulated every canon of theoretical consistency and every artifice
of dialectical debate, with an industry and acuteness which cannot
(12:19):
be too highly extolled. And his labors in this direction
have perhaps contributed more than any other single writer to
the intellectual stimulation of after ages. But no man ever
lived who could lift logic to a lofty strain. A
guide to correct reasoning is as elevating as a manual
(12:40):
of etiquette. We may use it, but it hardly spurs
us to nobility. Not even the bravest philosopher would sing
to a book of logic. Underneath the bow. One always
feels toward logic, as Virgil bade Dante feel toward those
who had been damned because of their colorless neutrality. Nonraggionam
(13:05):
di lor maguardae pasa let us think no more about them,
but look once and pass on. End of chapter three,
Chapter three of the Story of Aristotle's Philosophy by Will Durant.
This librovox recording is in the public domain recording by
Pamela and Nagami. The Foundation of Logic, The first great
distinction of Aristotle is that, almost without predecessors, almost entirely
(00:21):
by his own hard thinking, he created a new science logic.
Renault speaks of the ill training of every mind that
has not directly or indirectly come under Greek discipline. But
in truth, the Greek intellect itself was undisciplined and chaotic
till the ruthless formulae of Aristotle provided a ready method
(00:45):
for the test and correction of thought. Even Plato, if
a lover, may so far presume, was an unruly and
irregular soul, caught up too frequently in a cloud of myth,
and letting beauty too richly veil the face of truth.
Aristotle himself, as we shall see, violated his own canons plentifully.
(01:09):
But then he was the product of his past, and
not of that future which his thought would build. The
political and economic decay of Greece brought a weakening of
the Hellenic mind and character after Aristotle, But when a
new race, after a millennium of barbaric darkness, found again
the leisure and ability for speculation. It was Aristotle's Organon
(01:33):
of Logic, translated by Boethius four seventy five twenty five AD,
that became the very mold of medieval thought, the strict
mother of that scholastic philosophy, which, though rendered sterow by
encircling dogmas, nevertheless trained the intellect of adolescent Europe to
(01:53):
reasoning and subtlety, constructed the terminology of modern science, and
laid the baes of that same maturity of mind, which
was to outgrow and overthrow the very system and methods
which had given it birth and sustenance. Logic means simply
the art and method of correct thinking. It is the
(02:15):
logic or method of every science, of every discipline, and
every art, and even music harbors it. It is a
science because to a considerable extent, the processes of right thinking,
and we use right not in a moral but in
a mathematical sense, can be reduced to rules like physics
(02:36):
and geometry, and taught to any normal mind. It is
an art because by practice it gives to thought at
last that unconscious and immediate accuracy which guides the fingers
of the pianist over his instrument to effortless harmonies. Nothing
is so dull as logic, and nothing so important. There
(02:57):
was a hint of this new science and soccer Tes's
maddening insistence on definitions, and in Plato's constant refining of
every concept. Aristotle's little Treatise on Definitions shows how his
logic found nourishment at this source. If you wish to
converse with men, said Voltaire, define your terms. How many
(03:20):
a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if
the disputants had dared to define their terms. This is
the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul
of it. That every important term in serious discourse shall
be subjected to strict discrutiny and definition. It is difficult
(03:41):
and ruthlessly tests the mind, but once done, it is
half of any task. Yet, how shall we proceed to
define an object or a term? Aristotle answers that every
good definition has two parts, stands on two solid feet. First,
it assigns the object in question to a class or
(04:03):
group of objects whose general characteristics are also its own.
So man is first of all an animal. And secondly
it indicates wherein the object differs from all the other
members of its class. So man, in the Aristotilian system
is a rational animal. His specific difference is that, unlike
(04:27):
all other animals, he is rational. Here, you see, is
the origin of a pretty legend. Aristotle drops an object
into the ocean of its class, then takes it out
all gripping with generic meaning, with the marks of its
kind and group, while its individuality and difference shine out
(04:48):
all the more clearly for this juxtaposition with other objects
which resemble it so much and are so different. Passing
out from this rear line of life, we come into
the great battlefield on which Aristotle fought out with Plato,
the dread question of universals. It was the first conflict
(05:10):
in a war which was to last till our own
day and make all medieval Europe ring with the clash
of realists and nominalists. A universal, to Aristotle, is any
common noun, any name capable of universal application to the
members of a class. So animal, man, book, tree are universals.
(05:36):
But these universals are subjective notions, not tangibly objective realities.
They are nomina names, not race things. All that exists
outside us is a world of individual and specific objects,
not of generic and universal things. Men exist, and trees
(05:59):
and nas animals, But man in general, or the universal man,
does not exist except in thought. He is a handy
mental abstraction, and not an external presence or reality. Now,
Aristotle understands Plato to have held that great universals have
(06:20):
objective existence, And indeed Plato has said that the universal
is incomparably more lasting and important and substantial than the individual,
the latter being but a little wavelet in a ceaseless surf.
Man come and go, but man goes on forever. Aristotle's
(06:42):
is a matter of fact mind, as William James would say,
a tough, not a tender mind. He sees the root
of endless mysticism and scholarly nonsense in this Platonic realism,
and he attacks it with all the vigor of a
first polemic Brutus loved, not Caesar less, but Rome more so.
(07:05):
Aristotle says a mikas Plato said, Maggi samika eritas. Dear
is Plato, but dearer still is truth. A hostile commentator
might remark that Aristotle, like Nietzsche, criticizes Plato so keenly
because he is conscious of having borrowed from him generously.
(07:26):
No man is a hero to his debtors, but Aristotle
has a healthy attitude. Nevertheless, he is a realist, almost
in the modern sense. He is resolved to concern himself
with the objective presence, while Plato is absorbed in a
subjective future, or to juggle with the words. Aristotle has
(07:47):
a present objective, and Plato's subject is the future. There
was in the Socratic Platonic demand for definitions, a tendency
away from things and facts to theories and ideas, from
particulars to generalities, from science to scholasticism. At last, Plato
(08:09):
became so devoted to generalities that they began to determine
his particulars, so devoted to ideas that they began to
define or select his facts. Aristotle preaches a return to things,
to the unwered face of nature and reality. He had
a lusty preference for the concrete, particular, for the flesh
(08:34):
and blood individual. But Plato so loved the general and
universal that in the Republic he destroyed the individual to
make a perfect state. Yet, as is the usual humor
of history, the young warrior takes over many of the
qualities of the old master, whom he assails. We have
(08:57):
always goodly stock in us of that which we condemn,
as only similars can be profitably contrasted. So only similar
people quarrel, and the bitterest wars are over the slightest
variations of purpose or belief. The knightly Crusaders found in
Solidin a gentleman with whom they could quarrel amicably, But
(09:21):
when the Christians of Europe broke into hostile camps, there
was no quarter for even the courtliest foe. Aristotle is
so ruthless with Plato because there is so much of
Plato in him. He too, remains a lover of abstractions
and generalities, repeatedly betraying the simple fact for some speciously
(09:44):
bedizened theory, and compelled to a continuous struggle to conquer
the philosophical passion for exploring the Empyrean. There is a
heavy trace of this in the most characteristic and original
of Aristotle's contribution to philosophy, the Doctrine of the Syllogism.
(10:04):
A syllogism is a trio of propositions, of which the
third the conclusion, follows from the conceited truth of the
other two the major and minor premises. For example, man
is a rational animal, but Socrates is a man, Therefore
Socrates is a rational animal. The mathematical reader will see
(10:29):
at once that the structure of the syllogism resembles the
proposition that two things equal to the same thing are
equal to each other. If A is B and C
is A, then C is B. As in the mathematical case,
the conclusion is reached by canceling from both premises their
(10:52):
common term a. So in our syllogism, the conclusion is
reached by canceling from both premises their common term man,
and combining what remains. The difficulty, as logicians have pointed
out from the days of Piro to those of Stuart Mill,
lies in this that the major premise of the syllogism
(11:15):
takes for granted precisely the point to be proved. For
if Socrates is not rational, and since no one questions
that he is a man, it is not universally true
that man is a rational animal. Aristotle would reply no
doubt that where an individual is found to have a
(11:36):
large number of qualities characteristic of a class, Socrates is
a man. A strong presumption is established that the individual
has the other qualities characteristic of the class rationality. But
apparently the syllogism is not a mechanism for the discovery
(11:56):
of truth so much as for the clarification of expert
position and thought. All this, then, like the many other
items of the organon, has its value. Aristotle has discovered
and formulated every canon of theoretical consistency and every artifice
of dialectical debate, with an industry and acuteness which cannot
(12:19):
be too highly extolled. And his labors in this direction
have perhaps contributed more than any other single writer to
the intellectual stimulation of after ages. But no man ever
lived who could lift logic to a lofty strain. A
guide to correct reasoning is as elevating as a manual
(12:40):
of etiquette. We may use it, but it hardly spurs
us to nobility. Not even the bravest philosopher would sing
to a book of logic. Underneath the bow. One always
feels toward logic, as Virgil bade Dante feel toward those
who had been damned because of their colorless neutrality. Nonraggionam
(13:05):
di lor maguardae pasa let us think no more about them,
but look once and pass on. End of chapter three,
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