(384-322 B.C.E.) numbers among the greatest philosophers of all time. Judged solely in terms of his philosophical influence, only Plato is his peer: Aristotle’s works shaped centuries of philosophy from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance, and even today continue to be studied with keen, non-antiquarian interest. A prodigious researcher and writer, Aristotle left a great body of work, perhaps numbers as many as two-hundred treaties, from which approximately thirty-one survive. His extant writings span a wide range of disciplines, from logic, metaphysics and philosophy of mind, through ethics, political theory, aesthetics and rhetoric, and into such primarily non-philosophical fields as empirical biology, where he excelled at detailed plant and animal observation and description. In all theses areas, Aristotle’s theories have provided illumination, met with resistance, sparked debate, and generally stimulated the sustained interest of an abiding readership.
Because of its wide range and remoteness in time, Aristotle’s philosophy defies easy encapsulation. The long history of interpretation and appropriation of Aristotelian texts and themes–spanning over two millennia an comprising philosophers working with a variety of religious and secular traditions–has rendered even basic points of interpretation controversial.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This evocative phrase was coined by historian of ideas Arthur O. Lovejoy in his study, called, what else, The Great Chain of Being. The premise was developed by Greek philosophers such as Plato (transcendent ideas), Aristotle (scala nautre or Ladder of Nature), and Plotinus. In the Middle Ages this cosmology was the basis for both scholastic theology (ranking all of creation from dirt through to humans to angels) and feudal social stratification; it formed a central element in the Elizabethan understanding of the world still evident in Shakespeare’s plays. It continued through 17th, 18th and early 19th century Europe and North American, in an understanding of the universe as the highest good, in which every species of being has its perfect place. The end of the 18th century saw “temporalization of the great chain of being” with a timeless metaphysical ladder being replaced by a dynamic ascending one.
Palaeos.com
