Aristotle was born in Stagira, Chalkidice, then known as the Greek kingdom of Macedonia in 384 BC. He grew up to being arguably the most influential and a highly remarkable figure in ancient Greek philosophy with tremendous amount of contributions to various other fields including metaphysics, mathematics, physics, logic and politics being one of the important ones (“Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy” 1). Although Aristotle was a pupil of Plato’s who studied under Socrates, Aristotle is famous for rebutting Plato’s theory of forms. I think one of the major reasons why Aristotle is considered as one of the greatest philosophers of all times is because of his inquisitive nature. The fact that he was fascinated by how basic things in our lives …show more content…
However, considering the broad subject matter Aristotle studied and developed with rigorous assertions on topics like virtue, causality and rhetoric, his philosophy has been highly debatable and is still subject to criticism. However, I truly believe that Aristotle’s assertions on the theory of the four causes, both intellectual and moral virtue, acquiring happiness and the golden mean are groundbreaking and can still be applied in our lives today. Aristotle’s approach on all his thesis and beliefs were teleological which comes from the Greek word telos, meaning end or goal. Basically, teleology is an “idea that natural substances are for something” (Melchert 170). The reason why Aristotle took this approach is because he believed that once the natural purposes were established, one could easily determine the most rudimentary principles governing the world. For instance, in the case …show more content…
He claimed that all human beings are born with the potential to be virtuous yet and can exhibit this through their functions. Moreover, he asserted that all good acts must possess a telos (end goal) which the person is looking for, and it is through the activities of that particular individual that the function or act accomplishes its telos. Additionally, Aristotle contended that virtue is not solely limited to knowledge but instead is about being good and moral to other human beings through the social activities one does. Aristotle states that "neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit … we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts" (Dyck, Bruno, and Rob 561). The fact that Aristotle acknowledged that the sole act of listening can’t make a person virtuous, instead action towards the good does is what sets the bar higher than his predecessors. Aristotle believes that one achieves absolute eudemonia once he has achieved both forms of virtue i.e., intellectual virtue and virtue of character (moral virtue). However, there is no definitive rulebook which could tell us exactly what to do in most